no, I didn’t abandon, I kept working every evening on stretches, spider, drunk spider, chords ( C, Dm, Am, G were added to my KB) a bit of pentatonic scale, Musopia exercises and daily routine.
I’m just in Avignon enjoying the theater festival and the warm weather (38° C, 100 F), it makes hard playing guitar but late in the evening.
Just waiting for a set in the Théâtre du roi René downtown Avignon, le Manoir en folie (Madness in the manor).
Ok I suppose a slice if my life ain’t that important, I’ll just stop here.
No, I didn’t abandon, just didn’t have the strength to fill in my learning log every day, I keep doing my routine, which I spiced with a couple more open chords (C, G, Am, Dm), a couple more exercises, Don’t fear the Reaper (I can do the riff pretty well now, if not fast enough :{) ).
Some new chords are giving me a hard time, namely B and F, their bar form is making my hand hurt somewhat more than the other chords.
Anyway, just some more work, but I’m getting better, I also added some work on chord transitions while strumming, I find it helpful to enhance my chord switching.
That’s all for today, but I kept my rhythm of at least 1 hour a day exercising,
just looking at my two last entries, I keep not abandoning, but the originality wasn’t there for sure!
So as just to enter a more interesting field, the last chords I struggle with at the moment are F and B, the bars (barres?) are hurting like hell (after 2 minutes trying F my 1st finger hurts so much that I have to stop).
Is there any exercise you know that could help with that ? I think it’s just physical and practicing will help strengthen my hand, but couldn’t for example a squeeze ball of some sort help as well?
Sometimes we grip too hard when learning new chords that it hurts the hand, gets cramps, muscle pain etc. It shouldn’t be hurting so much you have to stop after only 2 minutes though. If you’ve played nearly every day for more than 2-3 weeks then callouses should have formed on finger tips so I’m assuming that isn’t the problem. It may be you just haven’t built up hand strength for barre chords yet if you’ve only just started these. You might try to split your barre chord practice up through your daily routine by practising them for 1 minute at the start and then another minute at the end until your hand strength builds.
Don’t keep playing until the point you can’t physically play anymore - you could cause severe damage to your hand. Muscle soreness is OK, pain is not.
I was thinking something similar to what @ziggysden wrote above. It shouldn’t hurt like hell…
Surely everyone is different anatomically and has a different pain threshold as well. I also think that maybe splitting up your barre chord practicing time could be a good idea.
Maybe also the strings you are using are a factor? Then again: My Gretsch e.g. is equipped with 9’s and I noticed that they can cut a bit into the flesh sometimes. Still practicing F-barre or playing around with other barre chords does not hurt. My old acoustic has 11’s has a high action and the strings are probably also too high towards the bridge, which makes practing F-barre and shifting it a somewhat annoying exercise… But even that does not hurt like hell…
Have you thought about having your guitar set up by a luthier? A proper setup could surely increase playability
my finger tips are OK, it’s muscle pain in the finger that makes me stop, I don’t think the problem is strings (I use 8’s) or action, I findthe guitar quite easy to play now. I don’t have to press hard on the strings for easy open chords.
The pain is in my 1st finger that maybe I force too much (I try to have the 6 strings ringing nicely and adjusting the finger position and pressure I may do a bit more than I should).
I’ll try Ziggysden’s suggestion and fraction the exercise, just a smidge at a time and see how it goes.
Yeah, barre chords are a pain, quite literally^^ I try them sometimes, then I play the cheats for F and B for a while, then I try them again, and so on. I don’t know if that’s wise, but sometimes I just want to play my songs, you know?
It sounds like you’ve improved so much since the last time we talked, and I think that’s awesome!
at the moment, I play “For what it’s worth”, “Born in the USA”, with the easy chords as taught by Justin, and on my own I’m working on “Don’t fear the reaper” by Blue Oÿster Cult.
The riff of DFTR is not too difficult, playing it fast enough is! And I’m struggling with the rhythmic part, the chords are a bit hard for me.
DFTR is of course my favorite, and not because of the cowbell (joke for our US friends).
