Murphy is a B&*%#@^

Harvey Saayman

Me and some friends started a band about 6 weeks ago. We have our first gig tomorrow night and hundreds of people are coming. I've been practicing some solo's I'm playing to perfect them, solos that require alot of string bending... I now have blisters on my finger tips... :sigh: Any tips from the other guitarists here? CG? Master Yoda?

Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

Dan Neely

With enough drugs/booze you won't care about the pain. :-\

3x12=36 2x12=24 1x12=12 0x12=18

Harvey Saayman

Too bad I don't use drugs or drink for that matter :sigh:

Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111

Sean Cundiff

Apparently the name of your band is "Bad Grammer". It's kind of catchy go with it. Remember there is no string. Seriously, you're just going to have to suck it up until the callouses build up on your fingers. I remember being back in that stage of guitar playing. Try playing with a cut on the tip of your finger, ouch.

-Sean ---- Fire Nuts

Keith Barrow

Erm, not that you'd be able to tell now :sigh:, but I used to row at university. We used to rub our hands with witch-hazel oil to prevent the blisters & toughen the skin up, don't see why it shouldn't work with the guitar. Also (though I didn't try this!) pee supposedly helps in a similar way :~ & X| .

Dalek Dave: There are many words that some find offensive, Homosexuality, Alcoholism, Religion, Visual Basic, Manchester United, Butter.

Joe Simes

You might try some of that fake skin junk you paint on over cuts but I think you are gonna have to just deal with it until the blisters heal and the calluses form. But think of how cool you will look at the end of the night when your fingers are all bloody! :thumbsup:

Robert Surtees

When you're done with the set, channel Ringo and yell "I've got blisters on my fingers"

Pete OHanlon

The only way to build the calluses is to just keep practicing the bends; remember though that a lot of people can't really tell when you're bending a string, so you can sometimes cheat and slide up to simulate it. Alternatively, if you have a floating trem, that can help. I used to punch into sand with my fingers splayed and that helped somewhat. Other people recommend soaking your fingers in urine, but I don't think I'd want to try that one. Now, when you practice your bends, how are you backing up the bend? Do you use three fingers to push into the bend? Two? One? Practice them all, and remember to lead into your vibrato - don't just bend the string and apply vibrato immediately; ease into it to get more of a singing sound.

"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith

As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx

Christian Graus

If you're not improvising anything, then you just need to practice until you're tight. It's a good idea to practice your songs a bit faster than you expect to play them live for two reasons: 1 - if you can play them too fast, you can easily play them at the right speed 2 - everyone plays faster than they mean to, live And, warm up before you start ( that is, do some exercises just before you go on, so that you're warmed up to play ) If you have trouble bending, as well as making sure you reinforce the bends, look at your string guage. If it's really heavy ( and a lot of people use heavy strings b/c they hear they sound better ) try something lighter. I use medium-light strings for rock and medium-heavy strings for blues, b/c it sounds different when I really have to work on the bend. But, I used to use 10-52s to be like SRV, and put a 12 on the bottom. I thought for ages that bending was just something people say, b/c I didn't think it was possible to do.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.

Christian Graus

Pete O'Hanlon wrote:

remember though that a lot of people can't really tell when you're bending a string

really ? Slides are their own effect. I didn't realise he was saying he has trouble bending strings ? Yes, reinforcing bends is important. The other thing tho: I read that Stevie Ray Vaughan used 52-10s with a 12 on the high E string, so I did the same. No way I could bend those strings.

Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.

Joe Simes

http://www.wikihow.com/Ease-Finger-Soreness-when-Learning-to-Play-Guitar[^] http://leathercallus.com/[^] Good luck!!

Pete OHanlon

Christian Graus wrote:

really ? Slides are their own effect.

Indeed, but stop listening as a musician. I should have added that this only works for quick bends; if you've got to sustain it more then you have to go the whole hog.

Christian Graus wrote:

I read that Stevie Ray Vaughan used 52-10s with a 12 on the high E string, so I did the same.

I did that for a while - it takes some getting used to, and you have to adjust the springs on your trem to support it, but it does sound great. I moved up to 4 springs to counteract the tension.

"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith

As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx

Marc Clifton

Harvey S wrote:

Too bad I don't use drugs or drink for that matter

And you're starting a band??? ;) Marc

Ennis Ray Lynch Jr

I usually advice practicing before getting the gigs so the blisters are just callouses. (Your blisters will eventually callous over)

Need custom software developed? I do custom programming based primarily on MS tools with an emphasis on C# development and consulting. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane

Pete OHanlon

Why not? Other notable hell raisers such as the Osmonds and these guys[^] did it.

"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith

As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx

Marc Clifton

Pete O'Hanlon wrote:

Why not? Other notable hell raisers such as the Osmonds and these guys[^] did it.

I was just teasing. It seems pretty stereotypical that people starting a band are doing lots of drugs. Makes them sound better, at least to themselves! Marc

Lost User

The Osmonds??!! Oh for Pete's sake... :doh:

Pete OHanlon

I may have misunderstood your post, so here goes my other advice. Enjoy yourself, and try to relax - as CG says, you'll end up playing too fast if you don't. Have your playlist written down and taped somewhere visible - I used to like the back of my monitors for it. Include the settings for your FX pedals on there (and have plenty of spare batteries if they need them). Have multiple guitars available tuned and retuned, on guitar stands; have multiple plectrums available somewhere easy to get to. The reason you need them tuned and retuned is that you'll tune them, then they'll go out of tune if there's too much humidity in the room. I used to have an electronic tuner in my FX chain so that I could check the tuning between tracks, I'd just switch over to that channel and I could fine tune without anybody having to hear it. Also, have spare guitar leads available just in case one goes belly up before the gig. Have plenty of water onstage in a bottle - you will sweat on stage. Finally, try not to dribble - if you concentrate too much when you're playing (which you will because you'll want to nail it), a little bit of drool will escape as your facial muscles go limp.

"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith

As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx

Pete OHanlon

I just thought it was time to link to a holy-rollin' heavy metal band; Stryper, Gods Glam Metal act.

"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith

As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Onyx

Harvey Saayman

Christian Graus wrote:

practice your songs a bit faster

I do that :) and I do it with a metronome

Christian Graus wrote:

If you have trouble bending

No trouble at all

Christian Graus wrote:

look at your string guage

I play 9-42's, ernie ball super slinkys I think the reason for this damn blister is cause the solo I've been practicing is on the 18th fret so there's more tension down there...

Harvey Saayman - South Africa Software Developer .Net, C#, SQL you.suck = (you.Occupation == jobTitles.Programmer && you.Passion != Programming) 1000100 1101111 1100101 1110011 100000 1110100 1101000 1101001 1110011 100000 1101101 1100101 1100001 1101110 100000 1101001 1101101 100000 1100001 100000 1100111 1100101 1100101 1101011 111111