Search options (Page 1 of 10)

This^^^^

Once I happened upon this technique, while learning a song, I learned to form the E and the Am without using my index. It speeds up the barre process and helps make some of those changes from open to barre easier.

Spent all of last week in Orlando at the AAU volleyball championships with my daughter. Expected it to be unbearably humid as it was in South Carolina in '05 when we visited family. Surprisingly it was less humid than in SoCal and, while warm, not hot. The Florida drivers made up for the lack of uncomfortable heat though...

Came home to SoCal where the heat was higher...and humid too! Funny, I used to look forward to the arrival of the heat as it meant the possibility of large fire potential and fun for me. Now it just means I sling steel in the heat and the only reward I get is a small paycheck.

I still prefer the heat though.

On way to avoid this problem is to loop the cable through your strap and the handle of the amp. Then the cable gets pulled but no damage to amp or guitar. I learned this the hard way when I got tangled in my headphone cable and damaged the cable and the headphone jack. Now my wife is mad because she can hear me play.

Comfortably Numb is a good Bm song to learn.

My wife hurt her neck a few years ago, requiring surgery...three years after the injury and me continually telling her to get it treated. the surgery worked...kinda. When I went off on work comp due to my back she acted like I had committed a mortal sin and no matter how much pain I was in she was always in more pain. She is kinda like that.

We (I) film my high-school daughter when she plays her volleyball matches. We post the vids on You Tube, after hours of editing (which I do), so that we can show college scouts when my daughter e-mails them. I now work (not as a firefighter anymore-forced to retire) in the family business which is located in LA. The drive is horrendous so I stay at my brothers during the week. When I get home on the weekends we usually have a tournament to attend and film then I must edit and post the vid. Despite my knowing nothing of video editing prior to our endeavor, and having to teach myself how to do it-plus filming, my wife refuses to learn how to edit, or even film. She does this often with the reasoning that "...You..." Me that is "...know how to do it..." My reply of: 'How do you think I learned?" falls upon deaf ears.

Lastly, and this is a mortal sin in my book, she hates the guitar.

Don't know why I still love her ( I too would take a bullet for her) but after 23 years I still do.

They do seem easier on an electric. I think it is due to the thinner neck and lighter gauge strings. Of course that is on a well set up guitar. if the set up is wrong any chord is hard.

I thought, once i got my electric, I would not play my acoustic that much. it turns out that I do play it often. My main guitar now is my electric ( I play alot of hard rock) but I go to my acoustic when I want to work out a song. Or I go to it when I want a different sound. Both guitars offer benefits that the other does not so i will go back and forth.

I have a Mustang I. Admittedly it is not a III but I like it. I got it for xmas last year and was not real happy with it. I made changes to the map banks and fiddled to no avail. Then I saw a vid of a person reviewing it. He just played the amp models as they come stock and it sounded great. I went back and re-set the amp to factory pecs and now I love it. If I want a different sound I adjust the fx knobs and I get what I want. It can be very loud too.

"...tuned up guitar turned down master switch sounds much beter thanks guys..."

I always start off with my guitar volume at 10 and my master switch down. If I need to adjust the volume on  the fly I will use the guitar volume but rarely do so. If you do indeed have a cheap guitar (as is mine) doing this will help with the buzz. Also, does it happen with all of the switch positions or just when you are using single-coil only?

PS: Just for future reference when one asks for type of guitar give 'em a name of the guitar, model number, how many and type of humbuckers. If nothing else just say: "It is a two-humbucker; three single coil; hum, single, single; etc... Just giving the make of guitar and pickup combo will help in many instances.

ROCK ON!

First of all, not to berate but to educate: It would have been better to start another thread for this or look to see if another has been started on this subject. You will get a faster answer if you start another thread or continue one that is of the same subject. Education over.

How long have you been playing? Has it been a few weeks or a few years? If you have just started you will develop the calluses but your fingers are still going through a transition. Every time you play, and fret, you are causing trauma (yes trauma) to your finger tips. The calluses are your body's response to this trauma but that is just the start. Now the nerves have to adjust to the trauma and that will take longer.

When I started playing it took just a few weeks for the calluses to form but it took about two to three months for my fingers to stop feeling "funny". The pain stopped after a few more weeks but then my finger tips were numb under the calluses. The adjustment from that numbness took longer but it did go away.

How long it takes depends upon how much you play. If you only play for 1/2 hour every other day it will take longer. When I started I played, (and still play), about an hour a day. If my fingers hurt I set the guitar down and came back later. As with anything it will pass. Don't let it discourage you but don't play so much with pain that you stop enjoying the guitar.

I see from one of your prior posts that you have a Strat and a Martin acoustic. If you are using the Martin more than the Strat try playing the Strat a bit more. The strings on an electric don't require as much pressure so they are a bit easier on the fingers. Another thing you may try when the finger tips get tender is try working on power chords as you don't need the finger tips, but the pads of the fingers, to shape those. That way you get more guitar time without beating up on the fingertips as much.

Lastly, try tuning down half a step and/or going to thinner strings on both guitars. Tuning down half a step will not require different chord shapes but will go easier on the fingers. This is one of the first things I did to help my finger tips. Going to a thinner gauge string will help in that less pressure is required to fret a note. Thinner gauge will make the strings sound twangy but if you tune down 1/2 step it will lose some of that twangyness and, this is what I liked, it lessens the pressure required to fret even more!

NOTE: Thinner strings with down tuning may affect the neck, requiring some truss-rod adjustment to avoid fret buzz. If you choose to go to thinner strings and down-tuning, and it results in truss-rod adjustments one of us can help you do the adjustment yourself or you can pay a tech to do the adjustment along with a string change. When I went to a lighter gauge on my acoustic (from 12's to 10's) I did the adjustment myself with no problems. Took about five minutes.

Good luck.

Hey steveco! I play both electric and acoustic and go back and forth between the two to keep fresh. I found out quite early in my playing, when I started two years ago, that I am not a lead guitarist so I play rhythm with just a bit of lead. I don't know enough about music theory to help and mu fingers are too slow. Sure, I do some lead riffs but only the easier ones. If they get too difficult I cannot do them fast enough.

You know what? I'm ok with that. I can play the songs I want to play and have found out that I am fairly good at developing different arrangements of songs so I put my own stamp on them. It is also nice when I get with my brother and my nephew. the nephew plays lead and my brother and I play rhythm so we can all participate in different ways.

Instead of trying to concentrate on lead switch to rhythm. You may find it more satisfying.

Good luck!