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Skip to main content. Surviving Guitar Fingers and Managing Finger Pain Follow these tips for easing the pain associated with guitar fingers. By Nick Stoubis. Play a Little Every Day Truth? Good Pain vs. Bad Pain Fingertip soreness can be expected, but severe muscle or wrist pain can be an indication of poor technique. This Too Shall Pass Fingertip soreness is temporary and can last a week or more.
Beginners with big and bulky acoustic guitars tend to experience more pain as they try to lean over the guitar to see their hands as shown in the above photo.
The key point to remember is that not all pain or soreness is equal. For beginners, there are two main causes for sore fingers: type of guitar strings and finger pressure. This is the number one reason why beginners experience finger pain while playing guitar. The amount of pressure you place on the guitar strings plays a massive role in how sore your fingers feel. Have you ever watched a video of a pro guitarist effortlessly play incredibly hard parts?
Have you noticed how their hands seem to float across the fretboard? Advanced guitarists learn to play with the lightest touch possible while keeping the notes ringing out clean. Your goal as a beginner is to learn how to play with the lightest pressure possible without causing string buzzing. Pick up your guitar and fret the 5th fret on the low E string. Pick the note and listen to how it sounds. Keep your finger on the string and slightly reduce the amount of pressure you apply to it. Pick the string again and listen to how it sounds.
If you keep doing this, eventually you will hear the note start to buzz. When it starts to buzz, slightly increase the pressure until the buzzing stops. This is the ideal amount of pressure you should apply to the string.
Just enough to prevent buzzing, but not any more than this. What most guitarists find when they do this is that you usually apply far more finger pressure than needed to play a note. But you can significantly reduce or sometimes completely eliminate sore fingers by playing with a lighter touch. When I ask them to play a chord, they press down so hard on the strings I can see their hand, wrist, elbow, and sometimes even shoulder tense up.
It should be no surprise that as soon as they learned to play with a lighter touch and proper technique, the pain disappeared. In the above photos, it should be obvious that the photo on the right uses way too much finger pressure. Key point: too much finger pressure is your number 1 enemy when it comes to finger pain. As covered in my Ultimate Guide to Guitar Strings , guitar strings come in a variety of different materials and thicknesses. The thicker the strings and the harder the material, the more likely you will experience sore fingers.
The nylon strings on the left will be far gentler on your fingertips compared to the heavy gauge steel strings on the right. The higher the string tension, the harder they feel against your fingers. This is why nylon string acoustics feel easier than steel-string acoustics and why electric guitars generally feel easier than acoustic guitars.
But even if you play on a steel-string acoustic guitar typically the toughest strings to play on , you can avoid or deal with sore fingers by following the advice in this guide. Key point: the higher the tension of your guitar strings, the more they will contribute to sore fingers. Find out more about string tension, gauges, and materials here. So how can you deal with it? Even worse, adding these protectors to your fingertips throws off your technique.
You need to adjust your hand and finger position and you end up with bad technique. Key point: no matter how painful your fingers might be now, finger protectors are not the solution. There are a lot of remedies out there on how to prevent or treat finger pain. The idea behind using rubbing alcohol is that it dries your fingertips out. The more moisture in your fingertips, the softer they will be. So it makes sense that you want dry fingertips. Developing calluses on your fingertips can relieve a lot of the initial pain of learning to play guitar.
On average, it takes 2 to 4 weeks for calluses to fully form. Here are some best practices:. Here are some more carpal tunnel exercises you can try to help reduce the symptoms or development of the condition. Be kind to your fingertips by building up your calluses gradually. Do whatever you can to limit the stress and pressure on your finger joints and tendons. Calluses, common warts, and other benign conditions can all cause hard….
Repetitive motions, like typing on a keyboard, can create weakness and stiffness in your wrists and fingers. Try these 10 exercises to help prevent…. A swelling tendon in your finger may be an indication of tendonitis. In many cases, you can treat finger tendonitis at home. In some cases, you may…. There are numerous causes of fingertip swelling, and a few are potentially serious or life-threatening.
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