That’s alarming. Pain is always a warning sign. Often caused by pressing much harder than necessary.
Have you tried curling the top of your thumb over the top of the neck a bit? I found that worked better for me, even though it contradicted Justin’s suggested approach.
But my strong advice would be to focus on these pain issues, before you injure yourself. (And getting better hand position might indeed be the fix here).
For my acoustic, no…even though it is neck heavy. I have a good wide strap. Also, I lightly rest my strumming arm on the body of the guitar, which balances the neck weight, and stabilizes the guitar against my rib cage.
Both sitting and standing, my guitar neck is quite stable, without any support from my fretting hand.
I haven’t played electric for many, many years, but I had a couple of Strats, and don’t remember having trouble with the necks moving around…once I had a good strap and found a good sitting position.
Echoing @Tbushell Tom’s comment about the neck resting in/on the hand: I don’t think we rely on our left hand to support the neck. With some (many?) chords, including C, my hand does not touch the neck at all - only my thumb.
How is the pain in your thumb doing? Again echoing Tom, pain is always a red flag. You might benefit from resting your thumb and perhaps icing it for a few days. Take it from an old runner: it’s worth taking a bit of time now to avoid repetitive stress injuries - those take a long time to heal.
Curious: did trying different elbow positions impact the pain in your thumb?
@judi Thanks for checking in. Having my elbow away from my body felt a little strange, actually. I don’t think it helped or hurt. Discomfort is still there, but only when I move my thumb in certain ways. I probably should see my physiotherapy guy and figure out which is typing-related and which might be from guitar.
I have some pictures, which I tried to take with my other hand. (Please excuse my unattractive nails.)
Several decades ago, I suffered a serious dog bite on my fretting index finger. That finger is a little bit smaller than my other index finger and also probably does not have as much flexibility.
This is how I was cradling the neck. At the base of my 1 finger.
I’m creating some space, so the neck is not resting on my palm, but my thumb is a bit crooked. If I have my thumb straight, I’d have sharp discomfort in the top part of my thumb, first knuckle and above.
It took me 3 weeks of daily practice to get comfortable with the C Chord and I still have to do periodic refreshers.
I did what @Jamolay suggested with the addition of placing my fingers in position, then making tiny adjustments until no strings were muted. I would then reduce pressure on the strings until the fingers are almost off the string, then place them again. I would repeat that for 20-30 presses. Then remove my hand and repeat the process.
The using different fingers in slow motion was also very helpful.
I remember I had some issues with the C Chord too, mostly when I used the C in a song at full speed and whilst strumming. I had the impression to mute strings, as it didn’t sound clean sometimes. Funnily enough, when I played the strings individually or slowly, they all sounded clean. Took a little time until I realised that I was hitting the muted 6th string just a little bit when I was strumming. It wasn’t my fretting, it was unprecise strumming that gave me the impression of muted sound. Maybe worth to check out.
You’re not alone the C chord and the D minor are both issues for me. I have just started grade 2 just figuring there will always be things to learn along the way. Great advice here, thank you!
I suggest you move on, but keep a 5-minute practice slot for the C chord (chord-perfect, one-minute changes, etc.) in your routine until you get it up to par with the other open chords. The C chord is used alot, so you’ll want to be good at it (both fingering and changes to/from).
Rest assured you’re not the only one. I’ve grown to dislike (hate is a strong word) the C chord. Some days I’m better on it than others. Some days it feels like it’s actually gotten harder than when I first learned it.
Yes, the D minor is a close second for me. Also the A chord the way Justin teaches is a little strange for me… I’m used to the 1/2/3 across finger placement that I was originally trying to learn. I’m gonna go with Justin of course because of the anchoring finger!..…. Also the 2 finger G takes getting used to…. My fingers are accustomed to using 3 fingers……
Where is your thumb placed? Something that may not be addressed enough and something that really helped me with open chords, barre chords and scale dexterity once I sorted it out. If the fingers are 1,2,3 and 4, placing my thumb behind the neck and well under second finger makes a big difference in angle of the hand and finger placement on all the strings. Anything higher up not good for me. (Will be different for open D chords)
I cheated and used the first 2 fingers only for a while just to get playing songs meanwhile practising how to do it properly until it came . probably what not to do but it got me past a hurdle.
When I first started, my fingers really hurt and it was keeping me from practicing more than 15 minutes a day. So, I had my electric guitar re-strung with 0.008" - 0.038" D’Addarios. This required a neck adjustment as well due to the lower string tension. This allowed me to practice 45-60 minutes a day while my fingers got stronger and my callouses developed further. However, eventually it was very easy to accidentally bend the strings and press so hard that the notes were going sharp. So, after 6 months, I increased the string diameter to 0.009" - 0.0042" D’Addario’s. After a year using 9’s, I increased 0.010" - 0.046", which is where I have been for over a year now.
I don’t think that the thinner strings helped me form/change chords any better directly, but it did allow me to practice pain-free, which certainly helped my progress. Realize that you’ll need to adjust the truss-rod when making string gauge changes to keep a low enough action for comfortable playing, but it was worth it to me. I used this as an excuse to start doing my own guitar setups (learned how from Justin’s videos).
So after about a month I have made huge improvements thanks to all the advice here.
Basically went electric with thinner gauge strings. Followed by working on air changes and going extremely slow. I also found mastering 2 fingers at a time then adding one really helped as I believe one poster recommended.
I’m still a grade 1 with same difficulty with C chord (and Dm also). I went to the web for help and surprisingly, this small tip made a huge difference so I wanted to share:
Raise the neck of your guitar.
I was hunched over trying to get my fingers right for the C chord. It was not going to happen with my posture. Correcting the position of the neck made C chord and Dm chords much easier and I am able to make it sound good during chord perfect practice.
So now, when struggling, I raise the neck, tuck my elbow into my body, have my fingers raised high as I place them on the strings and see if that doesn’t make it easier to make that C chord sound good.
