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sore fingers - need urgent help


zabrak

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Right,

 

so basically I properly started to learn how to play the guitar last night, for about a few hours.

 

Today though, I planned on practicing all day. Well, an hour in and I noticed that when I was switching between the three chords i learned last night, the tip of a couple of my fingers were frayed to the point where it's essentially unplayable.

 

This is where I'm stuck on...You know, if you can remember back to when you got to this point..How long did you take a break, to rest your fingers?

 

By the way, I should note that my schedule is as follows:

 

Workdays - 5 hours of practice a day

non-work day - 8 AM-11:PM

 

 

This is what also worries me, you know...I'm wondering if this can eventually bring irreversible damage to my fingers

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You have to start slowly so that the calluses will have time to form on your fingertips.

 

I would suggest practicing until the pain in your fingers "tells you" to take a break. Your fingertips will get stronger and stop hurting but you do need to give them time to heal. Until the calluses build up, the longer you spend practicing in a single session the longer you will need to let your fingers rejuvenate.

 

It's important that you do not hurt yourself.

 

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Initially keep longer practice sessions to alternate days.as per ^

Also early on try to cultivate a lightness of touch, Remember all you are doing is holding the string to the fret, not strangling a chord out of it :)

Try holding one string down with your middle finger and see how little pressure it actually takes.

(We had a thread on this about 6 months back, I'll look for it)

(Oh and make sure the action is set quite low, there's nothing worse that trying to learn as you trampoline about on a high action

 

PS. Here it is

 

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/guitar/acapella-41/1103208-

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Yeah - you can't just start practicing five hours a day from zero - you need to work up to it. Yes, you will experience sore fingers and tired hands but once your callouses build up and you get used to it (and make sure you aren't using unecessary force to press chords and notes down) you will do fine. Good luck!

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Welcome to the club. No pain, No gain.

 

When you're young your fingers heal quickly. In a few days they will be back to normal and you beat them up again. You'll eventually build up callouses and it becomes fairly pain free for at least 4~8 hours of playing. When you get older like myself the healing process slows down and what took a few days can take a week to heal when you overdo it.

 

Just keep in mind. You should focus on aerobic exercising, not weight lifting. You have to have a certain amount of strength of course but most of the work should consist of multiple repetitions. Its more like jogging, not lifting dumbbells. If you go the weight lifting route you can actually stunt your own abilities to excel on the instrument.

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Right,

 

so basically I properly started to learn how to play the guitar last night, for about a few hours.

 

Today though, I planned on practicing all day. Well, an hour in and I noticed that when I was switching between the three chords i learned last night, the tip of a couple of my fingers were frayed to the point where it's essentially unplayable.

 

This is where I'm stuck on...You know, if you can remember back to when you got to this point..How long did you take a break, to rest your fingers?

 

By the way, I should note that my schedule is as follows:

 

Workdays - 5 hours of practice a day

non-work day - 8 AM-11:PM

 

 

This is what also worries me, you know...I'm wondering if this can eventually bring irreversible damage to my fingers

 

No way! You're fine.

 

Keep practicing through the pain. SRV played until his fingers bled. That's how you get good.

 

I think 5 hours a day is ok for starters but see if you can squeeze in more time somehow. Maybe get up a hour earlier in the morning or take a guitar to work to play during your lunch break.

 

I also suggest heavier strings like .12s or heavier to speed up your learning curve.

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No way! You're fine.

 

Keep practicing through the pain. SRV played until his fingers bled. That's how you get good.

 

I think 5 hours a day is ok for starters but see if you can squeeze in more time somehow. Maybe get up a hour earlier in the morning or take a guitar to work to play during your lunch break.

 

I also suggest heavier strings like .12s or heavier to speed up your learning curve.

 

You are SO bad Virg.....Got a bit of the sadist thing goin' on huh?

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Ted Nugent always said 'practice till your fingers bleed'. ;)

 

If Ted had been born Japanese in 1920 or so...He'd have been a Kamakaze pilot...He's a Madman....Good guitar player and a crack shot to boot...But crazier than Cooter Brown

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Yeah - you can't just start practicing five hours a day from zero - you need to work up to it. Yes' date=' you will experience sore fingers and tired hands but once your callouses build up and you get used to it (and make sure you aren't using unecessary force to press chords and notes down) you will do fine. Good luck![/quote']

 

Top drawer advice here from a gentleman that can Freakin' play. Check him out on Soundcloud..Aliensporebomb that is not me. He's amazing!

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If you have no calluses now, you should be either practicing about 1.5 to 2 hours each day or 3 hours every other day for the next couple of weeks. You'll need two or three weeks for calluses to begin forming significantly as well as finger / hand muscles to strengthen along with joints acclimating to new rigors that have never been present before. Besides the frayed fingertips, you can get muscle cramps and joint swelling from too much practice time in the beginning. After a few months of regular practicing, and no significant injuries from practicing, practicing 4 or 5 hour each day should be manageable.

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Dare I suggest quality over quantity? I agree lots of reps is important, but you are aiming to make music, not production line dome lights. If your fingers get too sore, play without a guitar. I recall seeing for sale a short section of neck, no strings, for just that purpose. The reps are there to establish pathways between brain telling fingers to move and actually doing it. Perhaps intense focus as to how each note sounds, alone and in combination. And the quiet times between notes.

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No way! You're fine.

 

Keep practicing through the pain. SRV played until his fingers bled. That's how you get good.

 

I think 5 hours a day is ok for starters but see if you can squeeze in more time somehow. Maybe get up a hour earlier in the morning or take a guitar to work to play during your lunch break.

 

I also suggest heavier strings like .12s or heavier to speed up your learning curve.

This. ^^^^^^^^^^

Plus drugs and strong coffee will give you an extra couple of hours. 12+ guage strings have a wider surface area so dig in less.

The real answer to learning to play is of course money. Keep buying new gear and blaming the old stuff for your lack of progress.

This will also make your fingers feel better by moving your focus to your bank account.

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... Once you've built up some calluses it won't hurt at all.

 

Until you get to the other end and things start going downhill. You don't want to end up with any chronic injuries because of overdoing it on the guitar. Tendonitis or arthritis can make what used to be easily accomplished on the guitar painful and difficult.

 

 

 

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A sobering thought, note that the bone in your fingertip is not a half inch ball but a tiny pointed thing. Squeezing your fingertip between that and the fretboard is the reason the flesh is getting sore. It is designed to pick small things up not be pressed hard and repetitively for hours a day. You must give things time to adapt. It helps to do a good range of things chords, yes but also those boring old scales and learning how to find all the E's and C' all over the board (without moving your lips) :)

 

note how tiny the bone is.

 

 

Mallet_Image2b-300x166.jpg

Credit: volusiahandsurgery.com

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Until you get to the other end and things start going downhill. You don't want to end up with any chronic injuries because of overdoing it on the guitar. Tendonitis or arthritis can make what used to be easily accomplished on the guitar painful and difficult.

 

 

 

Yeah that is always a possibility. So far no signs of such things for me but I'm aware it may happen; hopefully a long way into the future.

 

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You've been given some straight up good advice here...Up to Virgman...Large grains of salt need to be applied after that..

 

I forgot to mention about salt!

 

Soak your hands in saltwater for 15 minutes before playing. This toughens the skin. Rub some Comet Cleanser into your hands before soaking too. This is an old Jimi Hendrix trick.

 

?u=http%3A%2F%2Fts3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DHN.608003030953233174%26pid%3D15.1&f=1

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A musicians high performance lifespan isn't much longer then most athletes. Sure there are exceptions because music is allot more then physical exertion. Hopefully there's an educated mind that's developed along with all those notes played where they can play smarter as they get older and avoid the kind of injuries that would put them down.

 

Most will find by their mid 40's they start feeling the signs and it only gets worse from there. By 55 you can have daily chronic pain in the joints that never goes away and no over the counter pain reliever completely removes. Like I've said before. Allot of what you do as a guitarist isn't much different than what an athlete does except Guitarists expertise is in his hands and many of them don't live the healthiest lifestyles nor seek medical help when issues arise. The ones that focus on complete body health will find not only better lives as players but lives as people.

 

This has little to do with a beginner at this point but I would say some expert instruction in playing technique can last a lifetime, beginning with the guitar neck fitting the players hand. If the neck is too thin or too thick is allot like having shoes that don't fit right. When they do fit you don't even notice you're wearing them. Sure you get sore jogging but that's not the shoes fault, they are actually protecting you from injuries. Too small or too large you pay the price double for that jog. Exact same thing happens with a good neck fit. The pain is localized to the workout, not from fighting a neck that doesn't fit your hand properly.

 

Anyone can measure their hand size just like they'd measure their feet to fit shoes. All you need is one of those cloth type tape measurers used for measuring your waistline. You place it in your hand like you would the back of your neck and measure between your thumb joint and second joint of your first finger. In my case its about 3". You then take the tape measure and measure the back of the neck from fret end to fret end and see what you come up with. If its larger you'll be fighting the neck, trying to get to the low strings. If its smaller you'll have excess strain on the back of your hands.

 

Neck shape will matter too especially playing barre chords but this at least gives you some guide to choosing something that's close and you can take it from there. Its not to say you cant play a larger or smaller neck successfully. I have dozens of guitars and bases that aren't great fits, but my main player fits like a glove and I do most of my workouts on that instrument and can play for hours with minimal repercussion.

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A musicians high performance lifespan isn't much longer then most athletes. ...

Most will find by their mid 40's they start feeling the signs and it only gets worse from there. By 55 you can have daily chronic pain in the joints that never goes away and no over the counter pain reliever completely removes.

 

Woah there!

 

Sincere condolences if you have these symptoms but I don't think it's fair to imply that these kinds of issues are normal or expected for guitarists as they move into their 40's and 50's. I don't know anyone who's having these kinds of issues and I certainly haven't noticed anything of the sort.

 

As for "high performance lifespan", whilst I recognize that there will come a time - perhaps in my 70's or so - when I will notice a deterioration in my abilities, there's no question that personally I'm a way better guitarist than I used to be in any way you care to measure it, and I'm getting better all the time.

 

Not trying to cause an argument, but I think a beginner shouldn't be led to believe he/she is only going to have a few years of peak playing ability.

 

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A musicians high performance lifespan isn't much longer then most athletes. Sure there are exceptions because music is allot more then physical exertion. Hopefully there's an educated mind that's developed along with all those notes played where they can play smarter as they get older and avoid the kind of injuries that would put them down.

 

Most will find by their mid 40's they start feeling the signs and it only gets worse from there. By 55 you can have daily chronic pain in the joints that never goes away and no over the counter pain reliever completely removes. Like I've said before. Allot of what you do as a guitarist isn't much different than what an athlete does except Guitarists expertise is in his hands and many of them don't live the healthiest lifestyles nor seek medical help when issues arise. The ones that focus on complete body health will find not only better lives as players but lives as people.

 

This has little to do with a beginner at this point but I would say some expert instruction in playing technique can last a lifetime, beginning with the guitar neck fitting the players hand. If the neck is too thin or too thick is allot like having shoes that don't fit right. When they do fit you don't even notice you're wearing them. Sure you get sore jogging but that's not the shoes fault, they are actually protecting you from injuries. Too small or too large you pay the price double for that jog. Exact same thing happens with a good neck fit. The pain is localized to the workout, not from fighting a neck that doesn't fit your hand properly.

 

Anyone can measure their hand size just like they'd measure their feet to fit shoes. All you need is one of those cloth type tape measurers used for measuring your waistline. You place it in your hand like you would the back of your neck and measure between your thumb joint and second joint of your first finger. In my case its about 3". You then take the tape measure and measure the back of the neck from fret end to fret end and see what you come up with. If its larger you'll be fighting the neck, trying to get to the low strings. If its smaller you'll have excess strain on the back of your hands.

 

Neck shape will matter too especially playing barre chords but this at least gives you some guide to choosing something that's close and you can take it from there. Its not to say you cant play a larger or smaller neck successfully. I have dozens of guitars and bases that aren't great fits, but my main player fits like a glove and I do most of my workouts on that instrument and can play for hours with minimal repercussion.

This is what the word " Drivel " was meant for. Why do you do that? You post good, helpful stuff then go off into lala land.

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