Guitar - tough on fingers?

Forest Fire

Have been learning for a year. Have 2 ok guitars but both very tough on fingers especially on first 2/3 frets. Does anyone know of a good second hand guitar to buy that would be softer on the fingers. Willing to pay 2/300 euros...

Sinfonia

Forest Fire wrote: »

Have been learning for a year. Have 2 ok guitars but both very tough on fingers especially on first 2/3 frets. Does anyone know of a good second hand guitar to buy that would be softer on the fingers. Willing to pay 2/300 euros...

The guitar surely isn't tough on the fingers, but the strings..
Have you tried changing to lighter strings?

Forest Fire

Sinfonia wrote: »

The guitar surely isn't tough on the fingers, but the strings..
Have you tried changing to lighter strings?

Yes, strings are tough on the fingers...to be exact. Was told about silk and steel strings. Any advice on same?

rcaz

Moved to Instruments. Also changed the title to be a little more specific. You'll have better luck here.

Forest Fire

rcaz wrote: »

Moved to Instruments. Also changed the title to be a little more specific. You'll have better luck here.

Thanks.

tedobrien98

You probably need to lower the action on it.
You could do it yourself but if you're not that experienced with working with guitars it might be an idea to get someone to do it for you. It's fairly easy though, there'd be a video on youtube I'm sure.

Lenin Skynard

Practice often for short amounts of time every day rather than one long session every day or two. It will help build up the dead skin on your fingers.

Ultimately you want to learn to play guitar to be able to pick up any guitar and play it so I think you just need to stick it out. If anything, having a guitar that's a but tougher on the fingers will stand to you in the long run.

wild turkey

If its hard on the first fret or two the nut is probably too high , you can do it yourself by sliding the nut out & sanding it down on the bottom of the nut if you go too far you can shim it up again

If your not sure about it..... Get a proper setup done.

Forest Fire

Lenin Skynard wrote: »

Practice often for short amounts of time every day rather than one long session every day or two. It will help build up the dead skin on your fingers.

Ultimately you want to learn to play guitar to be able to pick up any guitar and play it so I think you just need to stick it out. If anything, having a guitar that's a but tougher on the fingers will stand to you in the long run.

Thanks all. Don't want to sound like a wuss but fingers are hard enough. Still sore. It's just that I feel I could play chords faster if I didn't have to push down so hard. Strings on one guitar are deffo lighter than other but sound on that guitar is not as good. Guitar was cheap when new. Lowering action sounds like a good idea. May bring it to a shop to do same.

thegreatiam

some advice: don't worry about it, just keep playing. My guitar hurt like hell, even after a year or two. sometime i couldn't even hold a string down to make a note. eventually the pain just disappears.

For me it seemed to come and go, one week it would hurt a lot then the next i had tips of steel. but after a while it seemed to hurt less and less often.

I think all of the above advice is great, and you should consider it. but trust me, if you keep going you will soon feel no pain.


(if it matters, my first acoustic guitar i played for 5 years or so had action so high i could squeeze my little finger under the string on the first fret. That guitar hurt like hell to play.)

tedobrien98

I've been playing it since I was 8 and I was supposed to be using nylon strings but I always used both my brothers' guitars because it sounded better. It hurt for a while but I preffered the sound so I kept playing it.
Now the ends of my fingers permenantly have lines on them from playing the guitar, even if I go a few days without playing it. At the end of the day, it's only Rock n' Roll!!! :P

zafo

wild turkey wrote: »

If its hard on the first fret or two the nut is probably too high , you can do it yourself by sliding the nut out & sanding it down on the bottom of the nut if you go too far you can shim it up again

If your not sure about it..... Get a proper setup done.

This would be my thought as well, it shouldn't be harder to play the first few frets. My first guitar was easy on the first few frets compared to the 7th and onwards where it was really hard due to the ****ty action.

Banjo

Forest Fire wrote: »

Thanks all. Don't want to sound like a wuss but fingers are hard enough. Still sore. It's just that I feel I could play chords faster if I didn't have to push down so hard. Strings on one guitar are deffo lighter than other but sound on that guitar is not as good. Guitar was cheap when new. Lowering action sounds like a good idea. May bring it to a shop to do same.

It would be worth spending a bit of time every day getting a feel for exactly how much pressure you have to apply to sound a note or play your open chords cleanly. While you *can* grab the neck in a death grip it's pretty hard on your fingertips and thumb and it's total overkill. Getting used to a lighter touch, applying just enough pressure to get a clean note, will take a bit of pressure off your hand and should translate into faster playing in the longterm.

And if it turns out that a deathgrip is the minimum pressure for a clean note in the first couple of frets, get a set up :P

Squidgy Black

Definitely drop it into any of the music stores around you and have them set the action as low as possible. You could also look at lowering the gauge (thickness) of the strings too.

But soreness is always a factor at the start, eventually you'll get callouses and your fingers will be as tough as nails!

steveone

what guitars have you got?

Forest Fire

steveone wrote: »

what guitars have you got?

I have a Countryman...cost me €100 on net and semi acoustic westfield given to me. Recommend any?

Keyzer

Man up dude...

No pain no gain. I have pads of skin/callous on my fingers from years of playing. Every couple of months they fall off and new ones grow.

Forest Fire

Keyzer wrote: »

Man up dude...

No pain no gain. I have pads of skin/callous on my fingers from years of playing. Every couple of months they fall off and new ones grow.

You Californian...dude?

J_E

Sounds like the string gauge is too heavy matched up with the high action. I recommend gauge 11's and possibly file down the nut a little (probably best to let someone who's done this before show you)