Growing Pains

Hello great guitar gods I come to you with another query...

I've taken all the advice given to me from this forum, and I practice at least 2 or 3 hours a day. I'm beginning to see alot of progress in my playing, but then...

It seems as though on my left hand (the one I fret with) I seem to be very numb right at the tips of my fingers. And at first it was annoying... But my guitar friend said "Just keep pushing through it". But it has not stoped. It makes it very diffucult to play, and the numbness will move from my fingertips to my whole hands at times.

So tell me O great guitar gods

Is this something that I should let heal before I keep going, or is my friend right, and I should keep pushing through the pain??

Please let me know!!!

Thanks!

if you feel any pain just stop for a while, your friend's advice is not a very good one imo , start back with playing after you feel no pain at all

Yeah give your fingers a rest.. but having that pain is a good sign though. that means your getting somewhere =). once the pain fades, keep on playng and you'll notice that your fingertips has grown some calluses. you know, those thick and hardened skin. thats gonna be your bestfriend cuz fretting the string wouldn't be so hard and painful.

as long it's only your fingertips then it's no problem , that's normal but if it's your wrist or something else , then quit:)

Thats a good point about the callues. But my fingers stopped hurting when I played a while ago. It burned when ever I would slide up and down the neck. But it has not hurt like that in a while. And realy, my fingers dont "hurt" so much, as they are just numb... like I slept on my hand wrong. But only in the very tips of my fingers. No other part of my hand feels like that. Since the first post, I have taken a break from playing... kinda... I seem to just sit down and work on my right hand and skipping strings for accuracy and stuff like that. But my left hand is still bothering me a little. Thanks alot for the advice so far. If you think of anything else, let me know!

Thanks!

yeah.. you dont want to get tunnel carpal syndrome. thats a bad bad thing! so stop if your wrist hurt..

I had the same problem.The numbness in your hand is not good.the burning on the fingers I experienced ,but the pain passed.Callouses take a while to form.Try not to put too much force on barre chords cuz that hurts your wrist pretty bad and numbs it.

Something I can recommend is find yourself a really good guitar workout that you can warm up with before you start your proper practising. It means that the muscles in your hands, wrists and fingers are not being forced to get up and work straight away, they are gently eased into it. And at the same time, it will make your playing more accurate so that you can play more technical passages with much more fluidity. I can thoroughly recommend Frank Gambale's workout - it lasts 45 minutes, and builds from very simple passages to some fairly advanced sweep picking (but you HAVE to do the whole thing, start to finish). Here it is on amazon.com ......http://www.amazon.com/Chop-Builder-Frank-Gambale/dp/B00007CWI9
Give it a go and you WILL notice a big improvement. Failing all of that, see a doctor.

The Afro

afro_raven , i just started with the chop builder and in section 2 i already find it hard with the ex 6-9 haha don't know what to expect later on this workout lol :)

hmm... i was wonderin if you guys can send me copy of that frank gamble workout stuff.. i tried looking for it at the guitar store nearby but i aint got no luck. zmazzman@yahoo.com is my add. thanx.

back to the topic, what afro said is real good! warming up before practice is always a must! its like stretching before getting into a heavy work-out! =)

http://lix.in/695a73

it's a megaupload , don't know if the audio is included

only one i found atm , if it doesn't work i could try to upload it myself to any host you prefer rapidshare , file2upload , megashare ,zshare don't know what there is atm:p

Haha Great! Im on it now. Thanx for the link dave! by any chance, do you have the "Modes made Easy" by Frank Gambale too? lol! im really into modal applications in soloing, just cant find a good book in a store near by, especially Frank Gambale ones.

you may be getting tendonitis in your hand i got that bc i practiced so much when i first started, make sure you play w/ correct posture, also do hand stretches and 1234 fret warm ups up and down the neck of the guitar using all 4 fingers and keep you thumb in the middle, use a lighter gauge of sring also, and lower action if able, if you are playing acoustic you are doomed as they are hellish on your hands

@ zmazz , do you mean the book 'improvisation made easier' ? or 'modes , no more mystery' ?

LOL! my bad.. I meant the "modes, no more mystery" do you have it too? the work out is really working great.. thanks for that dave!

@zmazz
nope , don't have that one yet i think
i'll try and find it somewhere

aight man.. keep searchin! LOL!