Hello all. I recall justin saying a few times that by this point finger pain should be pretty much gone and that the hard part will be chord changes. however, i am currently doing practice for module 3 grade 1 and i find everything (up strums, chord changes, rhythm) to be the easy parts while my finger pain hasn’t gotten any better. it is making it difficult for me to get through whole songs without just stopping because of finger pain. will it ever improve? lol are my fingers just weak?
Hi Aaron, fellow beginner here, in the middle of Grade 2. I’ve been at this for almost a year (I’m slow!). Honestly it took me a couple of months to comfortably play for 30 minutes. Keep it up, one day soon you’ll get through practice without thinking about pain!
So yes, it will improve. That said, for me the finger pain never completely goes away, but it has changed. Now I have days where it feels more like going heavy with weights at the gym. That’s “good” pain, right? 
I’m still can’t play as long as I wish I could…my hands get tired even playing chords and songs I’m fairly comfortable with. When that happens I practice something easier on the hands (scales for example). I think of it this way: if I’m doing things properly and have (tolerable) discomfort, that must mean I’m doing work to get better!
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Hi there, another beginner here too. I’ve been doing regular practice 6 days and 2days rest for 7 weeks. It does get better but it’s quite slow. I’m only able to play for 10 mins and I have to rest my finger tips, fingers ok, but tip are very sore at that point.
Slowly slowly.
Rachel.
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If you have been playing for a few months (you don’t say how long it’s taken you to get to module 3), and you still have pain, then it may be worth checking the weight of the strings on your guitar and/or doing a little experimentation with your finger pressure while fretting. So a fix either in technology or in technique.
On the technology side, if you know what weight strings you have, then go down a weight, if you don’t know what weight you have then going for some quite light strings (e.g. 10 for an acoustic) on your guitar could be an option to look into while you are building your fingers up. This will make your guitar quieter, but much less work to play with your fretting hand.
On the technique side, have a play about to see how little pressure you can use and still get a clean sound (good finger position relative to the frets is essential by the way); If you are gripping your guitar neck for dear life then making an adjustment to how you use your fretting hand will make a huge difference to how your fingers feel.
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You might like to see the comments here: (STILL) Struggling with finger pain
I am also just into grade 3. I didn’t have finger pain until I started learning to slide into notes. These blues slides really make my finger tips tender a bit deep in the tissue, not on the skin. I am noticing callus is increasing a bit now, and after a few weeks, the tenderness is easing up.
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Welcome to the community @aaronmason883 !
Happy holidays!
Grade 1 module 3 is very early on. I don’t know how long it has taken you, and how much you play each day, but I would venture that it took me 3-4 months at 30-60 min daily (depending on tolerance) before I could say I was past it.
In my recollection, you are right at the worst of it, where the fingers really feel frustrating and limiting. This is normal and the really bad part doesn’t last long, passing from feeling like you can hardly touch the strings to feeling like it only is bad if you practice a bit too long, over a few weeks.
You will still get soreness for a while after working them hard. But that fades slowly over some more months.
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I like the gym analogy as I have been lifting weights for a while now. Thanks for the perspective!
I started a couple weeks ago but have felt moving along so far quite easy (chord changes, chord shapes, rhythm…). While those parts have been easy and quick for me the finger pain has been rough… makes my finger tips (especially my first finger) numb haha. Thanks for the education on guitar string weights.
It took me 2.5 weeks to get this far. Thank you for the encouraging words though!
The skin and maybe the tissues at your fingertips will get hard eventually in half a year definitely won’t be an issue any longer. Until that it is a good idea just to train your right hand practice rhytm guitar and flatpicking. It will accelerate your progress even!
2.5 weeks is very early. There hasn’t been much time for callus formation yet. It will come.
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Module 3 is still very early days , it’ll take months for your fingertips to properly harden
I’m not sure how this compares with others, but my calluses took about a year to form, and that was playing every day, and in the early days, through a little blood.
Yeah, that’s very early. It will get better. You’ll probably get “partially developed” early stage calluses within a few more weeks. It will take a long time for your calluses to “fully develop” though. Months.
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I would say one thing to remember is that, yes the fingers hurt for a bit, but that is pretty much true for anyone and everyone who succeeded in playing guitar.
A very brief challenge in the scale of things, so keep the journey in your sights and push through. It will be a distant memory in no time!
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I prefer sore fingertips to getting back into cycling… 