Other Left Hand Lessons: Introduction To The Left Hand Guide Fingers Sequential Preparation Left Hand Position Replacement Fingers Anticipatory Replacement Fingers Open Chords Ascending Slurs Descending Slurs Shifting Relative Positioning Bar Chord Basics Better Bar Chords
Common Fingers
Common Fingers (also known as Pivot Fingers) allow you to keep one or more fingers in place while changing chords. While most self-taught guitarists remove every finger while changing chords, using common fingers saves two movements ( the clearing and the returning to the same place) and increases accuracy.
Example 1
Notice the position of the third finger in each chord. It is on the same string and in the same fret. This is a common finger.
Example 2
It is also possible to have more than one common finger. Note that the first and second fingers are common to both the Am and C.
Example 3A
Common Fingers can also be created. In this example, the two chords seem to have no fingers in common.
Example 3B
But if we re-finger the Em with 1 and 2, we can create a common finger between the chords. Now the first finger is common to both chords.