Arrgh, My Fingers Hurt Like Hell - Learning To Playing Guitar

Today, I stuck on a YouTube video or two to learn how to play a few notes of a song I like. I was really keen to learn a bit of House Of The Rising Sun by The Animals. I also wanted to watch a some videos to help me learn some chords.

I'm getting the hang of E major, E minor, A major and A minor. I also played about with D and C chords. The trouble I'm having is mostly is with my 3rd or Ring finger. For example, If I want to play an E and my ring finger is on the 4th string I can't seem to get the pad of it away from the 3rd string which ends up muted, spoiling the sound.

Anyway, by the time I had rememberd a couple of chords and knew where to put my fingers, by the time I wanted to have a go at playing a bit of the song, my fingers were that sore, which I was warned about, I had to give up for the day.

Ouch my fingers hurt. - Click on the image to got to a artice about sore guitar fingers.

Finlayson D-1G - My Brand New Guitar

Armed with plectrums in our pockets my friend and I went shopping today - I got my first guitar! It's a standard dreadnought style acoustic guitar, but I spent a bit more and got a better quality construction, with better materials and the result is a great sounding instrument. Instead of a laminated spruce front, the Finlayson D-1G has a solid spruce front. It also comes supplied with a hard case.

I went to a shop called Guitar Guitar which has a branch near where I live. I spent a bit more than I planned due to the available stock in the shop. I was looking to spend about £50 less but they either had a cheapish one which you could see was not constructed as well as the one I bought, or the next cheapest one was at the maximum of what I was willing to spend. In fact there was another guitar that we looked at that was a cut-away electric-acoustic, but to be honest it didn't sound a good and I feel I did not need this style of guitar - not for now anyway.

I sneaked this short video on my mobile of my friend playing about with the Finlayson D-1G guitar so I could put it here for you to see.

When the shop assistant came back through with with my new guitar from the stock room, he came through carrying this huge black guitar case. Personally I think it's ugly and would feel happier if came with a better looking soft case, but I suppose that having the hard case will protect it better and I should be happy about that.



Courtesy of GuitarGuitar this the image of my Finlayson D-1G Dreadnought shaped acoustic guitar.



Heading home I was invited back to my friends house for a cup of tea and to show off my new guitar. I got my cup of tea and let Tim tune it in. Once it was was tuned in it still took about 40 minutes before I could get my hands on it. I think he like it.

I was then given a few finger exercises to do and reminded that learning to play the guitar is a painful thing to do and it certainly is. The thing I know I'm defiantly going to struggle with is getting my left hand and fingers to do what look like impossible contortions. Some chords seem easy and some look like there's no way in hell am I going get my hand in that shape to play it. Even with the easiest of chords my fingers keep touching strings they are not suppose to.

My mission now is to learn two or three easy beginner chords. It seem simple enough but its going to hurt like hell and I need to keep my finger nails really.

What Made Me Decide To Learn To Play The Guitar

There were several persuading factors that, eventually made me decide to get a guitar. First I think was the fact that over the years whenever I’ve been invited to someones house and it turns out that thy have a guitar I’ve always been surprised and impressed. I suppose that’s another way of me saying I thought it was cool they played the guitar.

More recently, with my friend Tim playing for the last couple of year he has been planting that seed that I should get one too (OK, Tim, it looks like you’ve won. I’m going to get one), but the biggest persuading factor was my kids. My daughter ‘harped’ on at me about getting her a violin, so I gave in and ordered her one online. At the same time I thought it would be cool if I got my 5 year old son a kids sized guitar. I didn't want him to feel left out either. I was taken by surprise (again) that I enjoyed playing about with it too.

My son’s guitar is too small for me so I need to get my own one. Also, and I didn’t even think about this at the time but my son is left handed and whenever he picks up the guitar he holds it upside down. I will need to get his re-strung for him, and by doing that, I won’t be able to mess about with it, and that’s another reason for me to get my own guitar.


My son, Scott, thinks his guitar is cool but he’s more use to playing rough and has hands like a No10 Shovel, so it will take some patience to get him to strum anything let alone play a chord! Let’s hope that when I get my new guitar he will want to learn with me. I’ll just have to do my best to help him along.

Welcome to They Say Anyone Can Play Guitar

Hello and welcome to my brand new blog which is about me learning to play the guitar.
My name is William, and I'm an absolute beginner - so much so that I don't even own a guitar yet! No doubt the first few posts in this blog will be about me doing some research and eventually buying my first guitar.

I am aiming to buy a 6 string acoustic guitar, and with a little guidance from my friend, Tim, who started playing 2 years ago, I hope to get a half decent starter one. I was looking at a guitar shop's website yesterday and was talking to Tim about what I found there. You can pick up a great guitar with a lot of 'bells and whistles' for not much more than your standard 6 string acoustic guitar suitable for a beginner like me, but I will not be spending too much on a guitar as it more important for me just now as an absolute beginner to get to grips with the basics.

I've been warned - learning to play the guitar can be painful on the hand and fingers.

A steel stringed acoustic guitar - instrument of torture for a beginner like me!

God knows how I'm going to manage to get my fingers to do what they need to do to play the chords, it looks impossible and sore, but they say anyone can play guitar - so I'm giving it a try.