Guitars are too physically demanding and painful to learn.

[vurt]

Good old Bryan, His best work was Reign in Blood.

thems, might be, fighting words!

[tehlord]

As much as I despise the word 'snowflake'.

[YnJ]

From what I can read it's clearly something wrong with your underwear, are you wearing your underwear in the right place?

[funky lime]

i'm impressed that this person's first impulse, upon finding the guitar awkward to hold, was to take their pants off. it took me years before i was confident enough to play guitar in that manner

[zerocrossing]

All these things are true. It reminds me of some spoken word thing that Laurie Anderson does where she goes to a doctor to ask about the pain in her neck and shoulders, and he asks her, "what do you do for a living?" She says violin as her main instrument and he then asks her to show him the position of how she holds the violin.

So... the eastern European side of me just says, "life is pain." But more useful advice would be to start off with a classical guitar. The strings are much easier on your hands. While you start learning, you'll be able to build up some muscle and general knowledge. Then transition to an electric guitar, but don't get a POS. Make sure it's decent with a nicely set up bridge. Models for metal tend to be easier to play in general. But remember, when a metal guy says he's "shredding," what he's talking about is his hands.

The best thing about it is that once you get good, if you stop practicing for a few weeks, going back to it seems like you stopped for a year.

[tapper mike]

If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen.

There's a reason why naked fencing is not a good idea. Same goes with guitar playing.

Your guitar may not be optimal for guitar playing and it could be your posture.

Yes I know I'm repeating what many have already stated but I got carried away with other matters


About cheap guitars. They still make poorly balanced guitars where the neck is to heavy relative to the body and vice versa.
Such as the Squire Affinity Starcaster.


Take your guitar to a tech. Not all guitars new or used are ideally set up for performance. You might be able to lower the action and the bridge or in some circustances you may need the nut to be adjusted. A lower action requires less force to hold down a string. You also might want to lower your string gauge to relax the tension.

Posture is important

Choke up on the bat. In other words try to play as close to the fret as you can with each finger. It will reduce the amount of force required and improve the intonation especially on higher action guitars. The string wont feel like it's slipping away from use.

Only use as much force as you can to secure the note with your left hand this will reduce tension and keep cramping to a minimum.

Recap on Posture and proper finger placement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IscDj_-Nr0s

[Synthman2000]

I have never found guitar comfortable or easy to play but I do still love it. A friend said it is good to have the thumb behind the neck in the centre, allows more comfortable stretches. However, sometimes you do need to clamp, I find this is something you go between, clamp and thumb behind is dynamic depending on what you are doing.

The guitar is a truly amazing instrument, I dream about it. Dream about the player I wanted to be.

I still love it for my level of ability, it is a wonderful instrument to look at daily and pick up and play in different ways. At first it is a nightmare for the finger tips, fingers and wrist. (and neck as invariably at first you are looking stooped at the fret board)

I am of the pick it up get into it and keep retreading the same steps and never really improving. I guess I must like that cause otherwise I would have stayed more persistent.

I do not find it intuitive in any way at all, neither the playing or the memorization (there is definitely some of that to do) or the theory.

It is difficult but also great. Finding the right guitar for yourself does make a difference. I set mine up myself which was very easy, action and intonation.

Don't get too hung up on looking for the perfect electric tone, it's an impediment to learning, you learn nothing messing around with knobs. My personal view is it is mainly about the amp or models for electric, (even with a guitar some will tell you is terrible, through a good model or amp will sound good, even better with a good player) a little to do with the guitar, mainly pickups, I don't buy the tone wood thing, it's slight.

I suppose one exception is the jingly jangly thing from the Rickenbacker.

But mainly it's about the amp for anything resembling a solid body electric. A great guitarist will sound amazing on a $100 guitar a bad guitarist is always a bad guitarist irrelevant of the guitar.

For acoustic the tone is all about the guitar and playing technique. I heard one of the best acoustics I have ever heard a few weeks ago, Tanglewood, amazing, vibrant warm sound, in part the playing style.

[Bombadil]

Lordie, Justin looks like a kid there.

[Synthman2000]

A few tips for all guitarists, instrument players.

Wear Marigolds when you do the dishes to protect your thick skin pads

Take Omega 3 fish oil 3,000mg a day, take Glucosamine, Chrondroitin and MSM tablets (Usually come as a trio tablet specifically for joint mobility), and also Fenugreek. They are all highly anti-inflammatory and the fish oil keeps your joints supple and mobile.

Assuming you are of course not allergic to anything there.

[an-electric-heart]

Are you talking steel string acoustic? If so, yes, that's a brutal first guitar and just depressing the strings will hurt until you develop the calusses on your finger tips.
Start with a nylon string classical guitar while you're learning.
Even electric guitars are much easier on the fingers than steel string acoustic.

[lfm]

Are you talking steel string acoustic? If so, yes, that's a brutal first guitar and just depressing the strings will hurt until you develop the calusses on your finger tips.
Start with a nylon string classical guitar while you're learning.
Even electric guitars are much easier on the fingers than steel string acoustic.

A nylon string usually have 48mm neck width at nut and neck radius horribly flat like 15", even harder to learn barred chords. If it is 3rd string that ends up in a finger joint.

But agree an electric is much better options to start off with. You can pick from many guages of strings and still setup up guitar properly. And it's more quiet playing acoustically, and not distrurb anybody.

An electric with 9.5-10" radius is rather optimal, I think. Quite often decent starter sets with practise amp for headphones as well, always fun.

[Bombadil]

The difficulties with classical guitars are the 2" nut width and no fretboard radius. I would agree with this as a first guitar mostly because of the notion that if you can get good sounds and feel out of a classical, you can do so on any guitar. But nylon strings, with enough practice for the newbie, can hurt as well. And unless one is so disposed, classical can be limiting. Can't really do bends and there's not a lot of sustain.
I read Keef's Autobio years ago where he said that learning on an acoustic should precede electric. I agree with that. And that is more or less how I began. The first guitar I ever tried to play was a Sear's catalog (remember those?) semi acoustic ⅞ size. It was a bit of a stretch to go to the full-scale Aria 12 string that I bought 2 months later.

[Bombadil]

Posted at the same time.

[harryupbabble]

as a professional slacker and procrastinator,
i agree with the thread title

i'm done with trying to play any traditional instruments
i'm waiting for the thought-controlled computer to be available

that way i can just think-play my incredibly shitty noodlings
that i used to do on my real cheap electric guitar

i'm just kidding
i can't rely on emerging tech that may take forever to get here

so, it's back to randomizers then because that's
right here, right now
and it's so much easier than having calluses and all that

[glasspipe]

Hurting of the fingertips is usually the first wall you'll hit. If you play an acoustic, try a small bodied / parlor guitar, it should make playing it a bit more comfortable. settle with light string gauges..