My First Week With The Finlayson D1-G Acoustic Guitar

Following advice, I've done my best to keep the fingernails of my left hand as short as possible to help with pressing the stings on the fretboard. I've also been practicing as much as possible, usually until my fingers get too sore. My fingertips are going through the process of developing calluses, which is a good thing as it makes playing much less painful. Having my fingernails this short and subjecting the fingertips to the pain of pressing thin steel wire onto frets causes a weard tingly feeling which last for ages, but I am assured it will go away after a few weeks. I'm only managing to get in about half an hour playing a day.

While the fingers of my left hand are becoming 'seasoned' I've been looking at videos on YouTube to give me ideas on what to do with my right hand, other than just strum.

The pain and tingling feeling in my left hand doesn't bother me, in fact I welcome it as I know it will pass and I will be able to play for longer. Finding video to show me a few trick to do with my right hand makes learning to play more fun and adds another layer of interest.

For most of this first week of learning I was kind of wondering if I made a mstake with the guitar choice as holding it felt a bit uncomfortable, but I think it was just a case of getting comfortable with it.

Overall it's been a fairly good week, I've not pushed myself too much as I didn't want to damage my fingers, also I've managed to learn a couple of chords and a couple of variations, such as E major and minor, A major and minor and A7.

Over the coming weeks my aim is to learn a couple more easy beginner chords and then practice switching from one chord to the next quickly and smoothly.

So that's been my first week learning to play guitar, something they say anyone can play.

I'll leave you with this video of Tommy Emmanuel playing Classical Gas, and as an absolute beginner I watched this video and was totally gobsmacked and amazed at his playing abilities. Watching his left hand throw some seemingly impossible looking shapes and fly up and down that fretboard makes me think I'll never be able to play like that, but that's OK, I'll settle for 1/10 of his abilities right now.

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.