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Chords
I’m 70 years old and I have Neuropathy in my hands. I’m having trouble forming the chord shapes with my hands. Any suggestions as to how to fix this? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated
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3 Replies
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I’ve a few years on you and would recommend visualizing the chord and then putting your fingers on the strings with your fretting hand with no pressure or strum a few times to start training the muscle memory.
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How does the neuropathy affect your hand movement? Lack of feeling? Finger strength? Stiffness? Difficulty getting your hand into position? I am 75, and started a little less than 3 years ago. I have small hands, some fingers with arthritis, so I know there are limitations on what I can do. My suggestion is to determine what you *can* do, then learn how to work around the difficulties. There is no law that says chords *must* be formed a certain way; as long as you can get the sound you want out of your guitar, you are doing it “right”!
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If you noticed in this week’s challenge, we played an G chord and a A chord by moving the mini F chord up 2 frets and 4 frets. We even left out the high E string. So, there are many ways to form chords rather than what we know as the “Open Chords”. Other variations will often include doing a 7 chord if you can’t jam all 3 fingers together for certain open shapes. There’s no doubt that forming a lot of the chords is difficult, even when you’re not dealing with physical limitations. It certainly helps if you start young, but if that is not the situation, then you have to work slowly and methodically to develop the muscle memory. If it just isn’t in the cards, then modify the chord.
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