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Chording challenges.
Hi TAC family. I am aware there are some discussions already about chords, but bear with me here.
I have a nerve damage injury, which has resulted in the loss of some dexterity in my left hand.
I am having particular difficulty with the G and C chords, for some reason the D is ok.
This is only my second week in to the course, and there is a lot of “practice beats perfection every day of the week” but then you hear, “practice that until you get clear chords/notes every time”. So it’s hard to know when to move on.
Back to my challenge though. Is there anyone else out there who has overcome the dexterity challenges related to an injury with their fretting hand?
Were there exercises you found helpful?
Did you change the chord to a 3 finger chord?
Also the C, how did you overcome this one?
Any and all help is appreciated, thank you.
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12 Replies
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I’m guessing @Loraine will have some insight here. She broke her wrist TWICE! She doesn’t give up and seems to find a way to work around her dexterity difficulties.
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Agree that Loraine should be a good resource. What came to mind though is perhaps looking into alternate chords altogether. You can play beautiful sounding chords on just 3 strings, often only fretting a single note. I haven’t pursued this myself but I’ve seen videos come up on my feed and there are teachers out there who teach it.
If playing the traditional way doesn’t help you overcome your nerve damage, (it might since exercise ought to be a good thing, but I’m not sure) you might want to consider other approaches. Another would be alternate tunings. Joni Mitchell had polio when she was 9 and had very limited motion in her left hand. This lead to her experimenting with more than 50 alternate tunings (many that she invented herself). -
Take the following with a huge grain of salt as I’m not in your position regarding injury, just some arthritis. Since your D is OK, I’d think you can get to successfully playing 3 finger chords. By “successfully” I mean good enough to get the majority of the sounds in place. I’m going to say there are two main factors of playing chords: fretting hand holding the correct strings so they sound clear and aren’t dampened, and transitions between chords. The first factor will take time for your muscle memory and strength to develop. You are using muscles that you’ve maybe never used and adaptation takes time–even years to master. Having said that, you can be good enough with 3 string chords and that should be your first goal. Look for 3 chord songs that are slow, use 3 or less string chords and easier transitions. This will help with respect to keeping your interest as you get better at making actual music you like. Pick chords that are easiest for you to hold first like the D. Maybe Em, maybe Am or A… you can make a song with these three… AI will actually give you songs names that use the chords you know in the genre you like. Then it is down to transitions and this is all about slowing down and working on particular transitions.
One more thing, when you get fatigued and you reach that point of diminishing returns and frustration, put it down and come back to it later in the day or the next day. At first, 10 minutes or less might be all you can do… put it down, come back to it later. I feel my muscle memory seems to improve even between sessions as if pathways are being built in my brain and nervous system. Maybe not but sometimes I pick my guitar up after a pause between a few sessions and I’m all the sudden better at some aspects that were a struggle. As far as when to move on… I really think it is important to move on and leave things we haven’t perfected. This really goes against my grain and upbringing but it has helped me a lot here as the next weekly routing gets me out of a frustrating rut sometimes and even though I do something completely different in the next week, I get general improvement that is really obvious. The course will circle back to things you practiced a while before, then you’ll see improvement that will really build confidence, desire and satisfaction. Hope this helps!
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Thanks @Skyman911 and @petelanger
Hi Shaw, I understand the frustration of playing chords with deficits in the hand and wrist. The first thing I want to point out as you said this is only your second week playing. I don’t know too many newer players that can make the C chord in the second week. We hear a lot of frustration over that in the forums, andI myself had a frustration when I first started playing trying to get a clear C. The best advice that I have is be gentle because you are fairly new do the best you can and if you give it a good effort 10 minutes or so you can mark it complete the lesson and you can move on. You will have plenty of practice on these chords as you move through the program. You should gain more dexterity in your hand, even with some type of neuropathy or neurologic disorder, just through repetition, practice, and stretch stretching so that brings me to my next suggestion.
Always stretch before and after playing specially if you have hand wrist, forearm fingers any type of issue with them everyone should be stretching before and after, but especially if you have issues, this will help get the tendons and muscle stretched and will help you have more dexterity in your hands in order to play there’s the stretching course it’s in the skill section. I suggest checking it out and seeing if you can incorporate something into your daily routine and throughout the day you can even do these.Try to keep your hands warm so you can buy those hand warmers that might help loosen them up a little bit before playing and after playing.
The more you play the more the muscles and tendons get stretched out, and there are stretching exercises that you can do on the guitar. The best one that I can think of is go up to like the fifth or 7th frets, because they are much closer together. Using just your fretting hand, place tour index finger on the 7th fret. Keep it down throughout the first go around, then you’ll switch to the middle finger being the anchored finger. See the video.
In the video, I misspoke about only needing 2 notes to be a chord. A chord always needs 3 distinct note, but people forget about open strings. Many open strings are a part of a note, and you can therefore find 2 notes to fret, and still have an open string be the 3rd note. That being said, 2 notes are referred to as an interval. They are often used in 2 note power chords, etc
In addition to the broken wrists and hands, I have essential tremors that can make it quite interesting to play sometimes. I tend to stick to strumming and rhythm guitar as my workaround to not being able to do finger style well or often. The fingers just won’t cooperate sometimes. I simply laugh and move on when it happens.
Hang in there, and keep on plunking.
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Lorraine introduced me to the therapeutic squeeze ball and the chinese Steel balls that help loosen everything up. It helped these senior fingers a lot.
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I just though of something that I’ve been using more frequently. I use glass bottle neck slide and play the melody with singe note phrases. Ijust practiced tomorrows Guitar lick lesson using the slide on my pinky and index and ring fingers on the 2 positions that needed to be fretted. You could develop your own style and also play more open tuning songs that don’t have to be fretted as much.
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Thank you to everyone for your replies — @Skyman, @petelanger, @Aservire and @jorgemai. And a very big thank you to @Loraine for your incredibly helpful suggestions and informative video. That was awesome!
As you mentioned, the TAC family on this forum really is fantastic. I don’t usually reach out in forums for online classes, so this has been a really positive experience.
I actually found the stretching course in the TAC course menu the other day. I followed it and, straight afterwards, found the first two G and C chords I’d played clearly. Unfortunately, they were also the last two clear chords I played for the rest of that session. But hey, two clear chords is still a win.
I was very interested in your stretching exercises on the guitar, and I really have to thank you again for the video because it made everything very clear and easy to follow. I’ll definitely be adding these into my warm-up routine alongside the “Spider” exercise I found.
I haven’t yet looked too deeply into alternative chords, as it’s all still a bit intimidating being so new and seeing just how many techniques are out there. Alternative tuning is probably a little beyond me for now too. I’m also a wee bit stubborn and determined to get these traditional chords right — not let them beat me.
That said, I also need to be realistic. If finding alternative chords means I enjoy playing more rather than feeling like I’m constantly fighting the guitar, then maybe that’s the better path forward. So thank you again for the encouragement and advice.
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What we want to assure you is that there is always a way. Should you ever be up against what seems to be an insurmountable hurdle, it isn’t! You have options.
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Excellent advices posted here. I have some arthritis in my left hand and although it doesn’t really impact my playing I know it’s important to keep these articulations moving. I’ve always found the C and G7 chords a bit tricky to play and the hand position for these chords ackward. You can experiment with different playing positions, like moving the guitar neck toward you and bending you elbow a little bit more, this will release some tension in your wrist and hand.
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Hi out there! Straight forward 1 week newbie here. Trying to find options for a good arch with my deformed bone structure at the base of my left thumb. Forms a “speed bump” in the way of a flat palm. Great input on this type of problem. Just wanted to thank all for your input and now have additional things to try going forward.
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Hmmn, I’m assuming your thumb is somewhat locked in this position? How is the movability in your fingers? Playing guitar could be somewhat therapeutic for you, not sure but it’s possible. Maybe check with a doctor.
This video might be helpful:
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As you know I use my thumb a lot for fretting the 6th and 5th strings, especially when making the G 1st position chord I make this with the thumb fretting the 3rd fret of the Bass E string and barely touching/muting the open A string. My index finger is fretting the E and B string 3rd frets. Very easy way to make a G chord.
If you check my posts regarding the 3 and 4 fret stretch to reach that next note on another string you will note that i do stress the thumb Move down behind the 1st fretted string.
Fortunately i have all working fingers and thumbs.
Slide guitar in open tuning will give you a different approach to guitar picking, also.
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