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Kinda discouraged
I want to play guitar, and I used to when I was in my late teens, had no trouble forming the chord shapes, nor muffling strings with my fretting hand. I wasn’t great, but passable. Now in picking this up again I find I cannot form some chords without touching adjacent strings. My original guitar was relatively narrow-necked and I had no trouble reaching around the neck to form the chords.
Now I have a similar guitar and I just can’t do it. All the stretching in the world isn’t going to spread my fingers that far apart. I’m in the second week starting chords. Tony’s advice on moving the palm of your hand closer to the neck only makes my palm mute the outside strings. How do men with large fingers manage it?
I get it that practice will strengthen my fingers, but never being able to play the chords cleanly makes me not want to play. Any advice? I have a larger guitar I can try and the neck is wider but the body feels like I’m trying to hug a large dog.
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7 Replies
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OK, I went back to the chord practice and found a way to keep my fat fingers out of the way, more or less. But is there a quicker way to toughen up the fingers? I can’t play more than a few minutes without pain.
But it looks like you guys are right (from reading responses to others’ queries); what seemed literally impossible at first suddenly became possible. So that’s my win for today!
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I love this Small Win Barbara. You are finding the keys to success at TAC!!!
I have no patience. This was a challenge I had to overcome. I reverse engineered my lack of patience and realized that if I jettisoned my expectations I would land squarely in the middle of creativity and faster progress. Expectation is where fun goes to die. I was no longer going to be “as good as” or be able to play “x” by this date. I was free to learn and progress as fast as my body and mind could process what Tony was trying to teach, without my added self imposed restriction.
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I have nothing to add on to what you have said except, yes. You just have to keep playing, day by day, incrementally, you work things out and get better. I started playing at an older age, and there is just no way to reverse aging, but I have found through stretching and consistent practice, I do improve. It just takes time, patience with myself, and the perseverance to keep going. Just enjoy each days time playing. The best to you!
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Try this. It works to gets over the hump while you are building callouses.
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@BarbaraM Welcome to TAC. Like so many others, yours coming back to something that you began loving when you were younger. I think that’s awesome. A few things, the first of which is to be kind to yourself and approach guitar with a patience like no other. It’s not an easy instrument to learn, and it does take, practice, strength, agility, and endurance, and these all come with time, but they will come if you keep with it. You’re comparing yourself to a young or younger self. We learn much differently and more easily when we’re younger, and you haven’t kept up with it, it’s like anything else. You lose the knowledge and skills. Also, we’re much more lithe and flexible when we’re younger than as we age. Try to enjoy the small wins, and not focus as much in what you’re struggling with. If everything were easy, we wouldn’t be challenged to improve. Baby steps.. share your small wins on the forums. You might help someone else struggling too.
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@BarbaraM One of my favorite tricks is to use your capo on 3rd or 4th fret during your practice sessions. This makes it easier to stretch your fingers to where they need to be while you are re-learning the muscle memory that you had a few decades ago. Once you are able to play the chord or song without too much difficulty you can move the capo down a fret until you don’t need it any more. It’s like training wheels for a bicycle I suppose.
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The capo disappeared with my old guitar, but I have seen fairly inexpensive ones on Amazon. Never thought to try something like that. Thanks!
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