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Hey beginners, do your fingers hurt?
TLDR: If chords are hurting your fingers, switch to paying single notes (scales, exercises, flatpicking, etc) for the rest of your practice session to play longer without making your fingers hurt more.
When I started playing guitar a few years ago, I started by learning chords and basic strumming. After about ten minutes my fingers hurt, so I would stop for the day. After a few weeks, I could play longer, but I still ended each practice with my fingers hurting. Yep, I had the beginner death grip even though I tried not to.
A couple years later I was practicing scales and various stretching exercises when I realized I didn’t have a death grip playing single notes (still working on this with chords).
Then it hit me. If I’m playing chords and my fingers hurt, I can switch to flatpicking or practicing scales and keep playing. I could have played much more as a beginner if I varied styles within a practice session.
Hopefully this helps you play longer and improve faster than you otherwise would have.
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