When it comes to fingerstyle guitar, there is a hugely important approach that you should always keep in mind as you learn how to play your fingers against the strings. That approach is called “preparing,” and nothing will help you reign in bad guitar habits more quickly and effectively. The basic idea is to train your fingers to “prepare” on the strings before they’re actually needed to play the next notes in whatever song you’re playing. If you train your fingers to prepare on the strings, it’s much easier to then adjust and hover your fingers very close to the strings. Alternatively, if you never take the time to train your fingers to stay close by preparing, you’ll be much more likely to do something that plagues many a well-intentional fingerstyle guitarist, which is “floaty fingers” syndrome, whereby your fingers float high above the strings and constantly race to catch up to the music. So, without further ado, let’s take a closer look at how to practice preparations and why they’re so effective in fingerstyle guitar training.