Do your old finger injuries include broken bones? Long time ago I had seven breaks across three fingers on my fretting hand. Unfortunately the doctor didn’t do a good job of setting the fingers to heal straight. The only major problem is that my pinky finger has an inward curve that makes playing some chords, like G, difficult. Any ideas on how to compensate for this would be much appreciated.
Welcome to the forum Peter
There are multiple options for playing chords, for example G can be played 4 different ways using 6 different finger placements. 3x0003, 320003 can both be played without using your pinky. You’ll also find the more you play the more your pinky will cooperate in ways you thought were impossible.
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Welcome to the community Peter. Most of the injuries I’ve had in my fingers were on the right hand, but I do struggle with swollen joints on my left pinky (beginnings of osteoarthritis). The advice @stitch gave is gold, and it’s what I’ve started doing. If I come across a difficult chord fingering placement I’ll look for easier and simpler versions of it and start playing that first (positive feedback and quick win so I don’t get discouraged), while I take my time slowly practice the more difficult version.
While I don’t completely avoid trying new chords or finger placements that seem impossible (barre chords I’m thinking of you), I take them on very cautiously. So I only practice a few minutes a day the chords that are difficult for me to allow my hands/fingers to adjust over time gradually (I use a timer, I do 2 - 3 x 2 mins. for eg. while resting in between) and I listen to any pain in my fingers. Some days I’ll skip practicing barre chords altogether because my fingers are still store from yesterday’s guitar practice or my Jiu-jitsu training that day and I know if I insist on practicing anyways I end up with more severe pain/injury that will last for days/weeks.
While this might not be relevant/helpful to your condition, but I also find that soaking my fingers in warm water before and after my guitar practice helps a lot too. I also do some simple finger and hand stretches before practicing that loosen up my stiff finger joints.
I hope that something from the above is helpful to you.
Thanks for sharing. I have started learning the Bm barre chord and getting wrist pain (which oddly enough I didn’t get with the F chord). It’s obvious that I am going to have some serious problems if I don’t sort it out.
Hi Kim,
Bm barre is different in a couple ways from F.
First, it is 6 frets closer to the body of the guitar, I start to fall apart about fret 8 when my fingers get too cramped.
Second, you need to lift finger 2.
Examine how you are holding your wrist. do you need to bend more to reach? Are you maybe bending sideways to account for scooting toward the body? This would cause trouble if you are bending too much which can be stressful for fingers curling to the strings, or sideways would put strain on the wrist joint. See if you can locate the most neutral position and then work to go to that position. Look into changing the neck position little to help with finding the wrist’s neutral position. Up a little or out a little help me.
Examine how you are holding finger 2 off the board. Are you forcing it away, maybe far away, maybe not relaxed? This would cause strain in the top of the hand/wrist area.
Remember that you can fiddle with your elbow as well. sometimes making a small change to how far out it is can help.
While you can play Bm at fret 7, I think the more common grip for Bm is at fret 2, with a 5th string root: x24432.
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thanks! I totally forgot to ask which grip. That may take away a couple of my thoughts, especially with finger 2.