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5 Tips to Help Fingertip Pain

January 12, 2016 by Ben Brown

One common obstacle for many people learning guitar is the discomfort that comes from pressing steel or bronze strings with your finger tips. This unfortunate necessary evil can be lessened considerably by following these five tips:

Avoid it. When you start learning guitar, or anything for that matter, short but frequent practice sessions yield the best results. Most people get excited about playing at first and keep at it for an hour or more the first time they try it. I’ve known more than one person who practiced till they were sore, quit for a week, and repeated this with the same three chords until they decided guitar hurt too much and quit for good. Practicing 10 or 15 minutes EVERY DAY to start will keep finger soreness to a minimum as well as speed progress. As you learn more and gain finger strength, the practice sessions can gradually get longer.

Shake it out. Part of the soreness is due to decreased circulation in the wrist and hand, which are working while being held in a position you aren’t used to. Stop occasionally and shake your fingers and hand vigorously to loosen them and encourage blood flow.

Work it out. Hold your left hand flat toward your face as though reading your own future guitar rock stardom in its lines. Curl your index finger forward as far as you can without moving the middle finger. Curl the index finger the same way, then the ring and pinky. Open them in the same order. Repeat moving faster as it becomes more comfortable. This works the muscles and tendons of your hand in a dynamic fashion, and it warms up and loosens the muscles and tendons.

Rub it. Rub your finger tips lightly on the fabric of your jeans (or whatever appropriate, soothing cloth is nearby). Denim is good, corduroy is even better. This is another way to improve circulation in the finger tips and rub the tips of your fingers back into shape after being pressed onto strings.

Lighten it. If it’s still just too uncomfortable, you might consider lighter strings (Silk and Steel is the name) or even switching to a classical guitar. The strings on a classical guitar are much softer and have less tension, therefore they are much easier on the finger tips. A playable classical guitar can be found for under $100.

While it’s true you have to suffer for your art, there’s no need to suffer needlessly. Follow these tips and take the sting out of learning.

For a video of these tips, go here: How to Avoid Finger Pain While Playing the Guitar.

Who’s It Going To Hurt? Stagefright.

November 15, 2015 by Ben Brown Leave a Comment

Stage Fright, “I’m afraid I’ll mess up”

One thing I love about being a musician is that unlike brain surgeons, rocket scientists, and bridge architects, if I make a mistake nobody dies. Nobody even bleeds a little. One of my private students is a water treatment plant engineer. He designs the systems that make river water safe to drink despite the millions of people flushing up stream. If he makes a mistake, plagues will infest our land! (S’truth, look it up!) But if I switch the lyrics of a song I wrote and accidentally sing “First time we bit she kissed me”, it doesn’t cause a sniffle.

Arguably, the audience feels a type of pain when I fall on my face on stage, but that’s quickly followed by, at worst, a sense of relief that it happened to me and not them, or at best a hearty belly laugh at my expense. Laughter provides many health benefits as shown in scientific studies. It improves circulation, aids digestion, boosts the immune system, lowers blood pressure, reduces stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and increases the response of tumor and disease killing cells such as Gamma-interferon and T-cells. So a mistake I make on stage not only doesn’t HURT anybody but it goes a long way toward HELPING people! I’m not saying I can cure cancer by singing the wrong words to Brown Eyed Girl, but it could happen.

So why are we afraid to perform? More importantly, why are YOU afraid to perform? Yes, you might mess up; you might FAIL. Here’s the thing; the only people who never fail are the ones who never try. Failure is a part of any artistic endeavor. Every great artist that you know has screwed up in front of people. The trick is to learn from each failure and improve. The quicker you fail, the faster you achieve mastery. The potential of mess ups are a part of live performance, part of the emotional high for the performer and part of what moves the audience.

Of course I HATE to look bad on stage and that motivates me to rehearse until I know my stuff cold. But, I never let it keep me from performing. Take a chance. Who’s it going to hurt?

What Guitar Accessories Do You Really Need?

September 7, 2015 by Ben Brown Leave a Comment

The guitar shop that rents me a very nice lesson room at a very reasonable rate would love it if I encouraged my students to buy more accessories, but I can’t. As I’m sure you know, there is gear galore for guitarists. Unfortunately most of it is rarely used and quickly turns to junk and clutter. I’m uncomfortable with encouraging some one to spend their hard earned on a widget that is only going to add weight to their case.

Having thus established my credentials, here are the accessories that you actually need:

Tuner. Even if you can tune by ear there will be situations in which it’s too noisy to hear or the opposite; you have to be quiet back stage. More than once I’ve just been too frazzled by complications leading up to a show and didn’t need the additional brain work. I recommend a contact tuner like the Snark SN-8 Super Tight All Instrument Tuner which works on both acoustic and electric without interference from outside noise. (What is it about the sound of a guitarist tuning that reminds every drummer in the world to warm up?)

Strap. Performing and practicing, it keeps your guitar where you want it. The best one is totally dependent on personal taste; what works for you. I prefer a soft leather guitar strap such as Levy’s Leathers Guitar Strap, M17D-DBR, 2 1/2″ distressed carving leather guitar strap. Slightly more expensive, but it conforms comfortably to my shoulder and stays in place without slipping.

Strings. I always buy two sets at a time. That way I have spares in case of a break and I always remember what brand and size is on the guitar. These days I use Elixir® Acoustic Bronze Guitar Strings with NANOWEB® Coating, Custom Light Gauge on my acoustic and Elixir Electric Guitar Strings with NANOWEB Coating Custom Light (.009-.046) on my electric.

That’s it. Those are the accessories you should buy with a guitar. Could you get by without even these? Sure, but they all solve problems that you are certain to encounter. Is that all that’s in my gig bag? Of course not! But, that’s a subject for future blogs.

How To Avoid Guitar Finger Pain

August 11, 2015 by Ben Brown Leave a Comment

One topic that should be part of all lessons for beginners is how to avoid finger pain while learning the guitar. It’s a common obstacle for many people; the discomfort that comes from pressing steel or bronze strings down on a hard wood fret board with your finger tips. Most teachers will tell you it’s just part of playing guitar, but this necessary evil can be lessened considerably in just a few simple steps.

5 Tips to reduce guitar finger pain

Avoid it. When you start learning guitar, or anything for that matter, short but frequent practice sessions yield the best results. Most people get excited about playing at first and keep at it for an hour or more the first time they try it. I’ve known more than one person who practiced till they were sore, quit for a week, and repeated this with the same three chords until they decided guitar hurt too much and quit for good. Practicing 10 or 15 minutes EVERY DAY will keep finger soreness to a minimum as well as increase progress. As you learn more and gain finger strength, the practice sessions can gradually get longer.

Shake it out. Part of the soreness is due to decreased circulation in the wrist and hand, which are working while being held in an odd position that you don’t use except for guitar. Stop occasionally and shake your fingers and hand vigorously to loosen them and encourage blood flow.

Work it out. Hold your left hand flat toward your face as though reading your own future guitar rock stardom in its lines. Curl your index finger forward as far as you can without moving the middle finger. Curl the index finger the same way, then the ring and pinky. Open them in the same order. Repeat moving faster as it becomes more comfortable. This works the muscles and tendons of your hand in a dynamic fashion, and it warms up and loosens the muscles and tendons. Throw in the Vulcan salute and Shaka sign while you’re at it. Stretch your fingers and promote cultural awareness and world peace at the same time!

Rub it. Rub your finger tips lightly on the fabric of your jeans or whatever appropriate, soothing cloth is nearby. Denim is good, corduroy is even better, but any fabric will help. This is another way to improve circulation in the finger tips and rub the tips of your fingers back into shape after being pressed onto strings.

Lighten it. If it’s still just too uncomfortable, you might consider lighter strings. A coated string in extra light gauge like Elixir Acoustic Phosphor Bronze (.010-.047) is much easier on the finger tips. You might even consider switching to a classical guitar. The strings on a classical guitar are much softer and have less tension, therefore they are much easier on the finger tips. A Hohner HC06 Full Sized Classical Guitar
can be found for under $100.

While it’s true you have to suffer for your art, there’s no need to suffer needlessly. Follow these tips and take the sting out of learning how to play the guitar.

Other posts you might like:
How to Get a Good Guitar
Tuning Your Guitar
What Kind of Guitar Should I Get?

Better Posture for Easier Guitar Playing!

July 30, 2015 by Ben Brown 1 Comment

It’s easy to play guitar, but bad posture can make it a lot harder!

Most of the problems actually result from the focus we put into learning how to play guitar. We lose track of our body! We concentrate on getting our fingers on the right strings in the sweet spot with enough pressure and the rest of our body is forgotten! This can result in some odd positions. Once during a home recording project (another overly encompassing hobby!) long hours of attention focused on my work resulted in bad posture that did damage to my right shoulder that took months of physical therapy to put right!

Looking at the guitar is a common cause too. To see the strings we tilt the bottom out away from our body and lean over to look down on it. Now your left wrist is twisted and straining and your body is wrapped around the guitar without even noticing! In this picture you can see a very dedicated guitar student contorting her body around the guitar.

One solution is simply to check your position every now and then. Set an alarm on your phone if you tend to get particularly focused. I personally find pain in my back, neck or wrist to be a good cue! When practicing becomes uncomfortable, I adjust my posture. Also, if I repeatedly have trouble playing a difficult bit, that’s when I know need to sit up and reposition my guitar.

Here’s another student sitting up and ready to shred!!!

Back straight, feet firmly on the ground, both arms relaxed and in position, steely gaze focused on his musical goals! He can play anything he tries most comfortably.

Good posture makes playing guitar easier!

If you have other questions, check out How To Play Guitar: The Ultimate Beginners Guide!