Hi Tania, yes, your video is viewable. I don’t have comments about your wrist position possibly causing pain. I will share, however, that when I was at Grade 1 Module 2 I did not practice more than 15 minutes at a time, and not more than twice a day. The specific reason: There are a lot of little muscles and tendons that need to be gradually strengthened. You said you were playing for 45 minutes. I wonder if that’s the source of your pain - just playing too long given the amount of (calendar) time you’ve been playing.
Hey Tania,
Your technique in the video seems to pretty much follow the advice in the course in my opinion.
Is this the way you’ve always practiced it, or is the what you’ve recently changed to?
Did you get thumb pain with the old technique, or do you get it with the new technique?
Where is the pain, and what type of pain is it - sharp, dull, ache etc…
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The pain was in my wrist, so I moved my thumb to the position you are seeing because I was advised that it was too high and would cause wrist injuries. It is much harder for me to hit the d chord with my thumb lower. The thumb pain started with the change of the thumb position to being lower, but the wrist pain, although maybe somewhat better, still comes and goes with practice sessions.
I just found out that I’ve been practicing wrong, without strumming on every beat rather than just playing when I see the note show up, and now that I am trying to strum on every beat, my wrist hurts again.
I am feeling defeated. I seem to be missing key components to success throughout this course because I am a true beginner and can’t seem to figure out where I have missed the entire intro / explanation to riffs, switching to strumming instead of just hitting the single downstrum beat, and figuring out the position and wrist pain. Feeling defeated today.
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@toodledoodledoo, take a step back, and breath.
You’re in module 3 if I understand correctly from your different posts. Strumming once per bar, as you have been doing, is ok. Going from here, you can try to strum first on 1 and 3, then on all four, then apply a more complicated strumming pattern. But again: you’ve been doing fine unto now with just 1 strum per bar.
As for your wrist and thumb pain: take some time to analyse the way you are holding your guitar and how you hold your hand when fretting a chord. Wrist pain most often comes from bending it too much and/or exerting too much pressure, thumb pain is more than likely due to too much pressure. Is your wrist bent or more or less straight (slightly bent is ok, severely bent will cause trouble)? Is your shoulder - arm - wrist - hand relaxed or do you detect any tension? Are you laying your fingers lightly against the fretboard and the back of the neck or are you squeezing? And when you start changing chords, does your shoulder/arm/wrist/hand tends to tense up or not, do you start to squeeze harder? Your arm, from shoulder to fingers, should be relaxed and you should exert minimal pressure when forming chords. But don’t despair: most everyone gets tense and squeezes the living daylight out of the neck when starting out. But be conscious about this, slow things down and focus on relaxing and staying relaxed.
Another thing to consider is that you are asking your body to intensively use a whole set of muscles that most people rarely use to such extent in day to day life. Your muscles and tendons have to get used to this, just like if you would start training for a marathon when you’ve never been running before. Don’t overdo it. Limit your practise time to 20-30 min a day, maybe 5 days a week.
And be kind to yourself. Playing guitar isn’t easy. It takes time, for everyone, not just for you.
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@LadyOfTheCastle - Are we not suppose to be practicing the 1, 2, 3 and 4 strumming pattern at this point? Realizing that made me realize that I should have been doing any kind of strumming pattern at this point, not just playing 1 chord per bar, right? I appreciate your encouragement. It was a discouraging find and I probably should have taken a breath before I posted. It was just frustrating to realize that I was behind where I feel like I should be.
My wrist is not significantly bent, but I do feel like if I have to press decently to get the chords to ring out, especially the first finger in the E chord. I keep trying to lessen the pressure but then I don’t feel like it rings out clearly. Maybe I am squeezing the life out of it, trying to change chords, not get lost, and make sure I can hear all the strings. I find that things ring out CLEARER when I first get started, and are much harder to hear clearly later, once my fingers start getting grooves in them.
Thank you for such a thorough and thoughtful reply. I have been doing the lessons and then practicing all together for about an hour. I used to do 7 days a week, but I have dropped down to 4 or 5 simply because of time constraints.
Again, thank you for the kind words. I needed them and I feel a bit silly now.
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Don’t. There’s no need for it. Everyone struggles at the beginning.
It would be good to do 4 down strums per bar, but don’t feel bad because you haven’t done so before. The good thing is: every module has a song practice, and you’ll be able to use each of these to practise your strumming.
As for making the strings ring out clearly: first of all, your fingers will need time to develop calluses. Until then, you will get grooves in your finger after playing for a bit, and as you discovered, this makes the strings ring out less clearly. But don’t worry, with time, you will develop calluses and this will get better. In the meantime, check how close to the fret you can put your fingers without getting a muted sound. The aim is to put your finger immediately behind the fret, it can even feel like you’re putting your finger halfway on top of the fret. The closer you get to the fret, the less pressure you will have to exercise to make the string ring out clearly. And yes, the pressure of forming the chords correctly, changing to the next one and making as many changes in one minute as possible makes for 3 challenges in one. No wonder it causes people to get more tensed, and to start squeezing more, isn’t it?
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@LadyOfTheCastle even right against the fret, I can’t get the first finger to ring out clearly without significant pressure on the E chord.
I also can’t seem to physically get my third finger anywhere near the fret on the D chord. I end up hitting that third finger kind of on the side and really struggle to get it in place in chord changes. That one is really messing with my head.
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Hi Tania @toodledoodledoo, forgive me if you’ve been asked this many times already…have you had your guitar set up for use by a beginner? If not, it’s worth doing. Many acoustic guitars come with 12 gauge strings…10 gauge is much better for beginners. A setup also adjusts the action (the distance from the strings to the fretboard).
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Tania, for the D, you have to slant your fingers to reach the fret with your third finger. If you try putting them perpendicular on the fretboard, you won’t get there. Look at Justin’s hand in the video:
And it’s ok to hit the string a bit more to the side of your finger.
As for the E, like Judi, I would suggest you take your guitar in for a set up, to make it easier to play. This can make a whole lot of difference.
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7 posts were split to a new topic: How do I add a lesson to my Practice Routine?
14 posts were split to a new topic: I’m a beginner. I’ve been asked if I have had my guitar set up. What is that?
@LadyOfTheCastle I’ve been keeping my first and second finger in the same basic area as when I play A or E and just reaching my third finger. I can’t quite tell from the screenshot what he’s doing differently but it does seem like something is different.
A post was merged into an existing topic: How do I add a lesson to my Practice Routine?
Hi I am a newbie only been playing for a couple of weeks and the same thing is happening to me, it doesn’t matter how hard I press my fingers down I am getting a buzzing on a couple of strings. Does this mean I need to get it set up, did you resolve the problem?
Thanks
Hi @Jlee
Maybe. Maybe not, too.
In general it is recommended to have a guitar set up when you buy it to make sure things like this are unlikely the guitar. But, being a new player, it is also pretty common for your fingers to be the problem. 
A picture of your fretting hand will help. Try to keep it as you have when you play. sometimes hard to do when handling the phone to take the picture.
If you cannot take a good picture of your freting hand, then look at your finger position. Are they close to the fret? Which string is buzzing? What chord? Guitar type? Bring this information back here and we can give you some better help.
Hi thanks, it is chord E and the problem seems to be the 1st fret it doesn’t matter how hard I press and I have tried the individual strings and it seems to be nearly all in the 1st fret buzz.
I know my finger position is also probably at fault, going to try and take a pic.
Those help. Finger looks close enough.
Thoughts:
- do you have a finger nail on finger 1 that is preventing you from holding the string down? Looks a little like you do, but might also be just the image is not totally clear at your finger tip.
- Can you just press that one string and get a clear note (any finger), and then does it clear up at fret 2 or 3? No need to be at the finger tip or avoid other strings for this test. just see if you can get a clean ring at fret 1.
If you answer ‘no’ to #2, then a high fret is likely at fret 2 or 3.
You should not need to press any harder than to press the string onto the fret and hold it there. Pressing harder is something to avoid for a handful of reasons.
Finger nail is not very long and it’s a no to question 2 doesn’t matter what finger I use on the strings in fret 1 they all buzz apart from the lower E
This does sound like taking the guitar in for a setup. The technician should be able to check for buzzing spots and correct them. My guess is a slight fret leveling where you hear the buzzing. They should be checking all the fret positions and leveling anything they find that is not corrected by the other elements of the setup (bridge height, relief adjustments).
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