Left Hand Position is a free weekly video guitar lesson series by Ethan Fiks. Be sure to subscribe and check out Ethan’s official website.

Video Guitar Lesson

With the possible exception of during bends and vibrato, most players would agree that being able to move the left hand fingers independently is a good thing. Finger independence- where one finger is not dragging the others with it- is helpful to playing more difficult passages and in my opinion, can help with bluesy licks too. This video presents “The Crab” exercise to continue work on left hand agility started with “The Spider” exercise in video no. 1 of this blog. Unlike some potentially mindless 4-fingers/4frets-in-a-row exercises, The Crab works on an athletic stretching of the fingers and real isolation of the movement of each finger. It does require using a square rather than angled hand position.