I’ve recently had a problem of my left hand cramping up very fast when I practice. I discovered that for whatever reason, I’m pinching very hard, especially with barred chords, and it makes my hand sore very quickly. Is there any particular technique or strategy to practice not pinching?
Back in college when I tried to teach myself to play guitar one thing I learned, and could be awful technique for all I know, was to pull on the frets, not “pinch” them. That is, use your shoulder/shoulder blades to pull back on the neck of the guitar when you make a chord. When you do that there’s less strain on your hand and with less tension in your fingers/hand it means it won’t get tired as quickly and it’s easier for it to move around from chord to chord.
Like I said, this might be terrible and totally wrong advice, it was just something I picked up along the way. I really only tried playing for a year or so and never got anywhere. That trick did make it easier, but I don’t know if it’s actually a thing or just something some random person mentioned and I happened to read.
Here’s a random internet post that says the same thing:
http://www.classicalguitardelcamp.com/viewtopic.php?t=65097#p725211
Some folks, when learning to play, think you need to push the strings through the back of the neck.
Well, I am exaggerating, but not much.
When fretting you really don’t need to push that hard. You need to get the string down enough so it is using the fret as the pivot but once that is done, pushing harder isn’t helping. Note, I checked once and when I play my fingers never really hit the fret board much but I have a light touch.
Since you seem to be pushing too hard try a) getting a lighter gauge string b) practice fretting one finger at a time until you figure out how hard you have to push nd c) Make sure you have good hand placement, especially the thumb. The thumb should be about the middle of the back of the neck, not draped over the top of the neck. Once you get good you can throttle.the neck to your.hearts content, but for now keep it in the back.
Also, watch your arm placement. Most beginners want to pull their elbow into their body. You want your elbow out so that your wrist and arm are pretty much straight. When you pull your elbow in, your wrist twists and all kinds of bad things happen. I usually have newbies stick a pillow between their arm and body to get the idea.
If it hurts you most likely have a posture or setup issue.
Slee
Some folks, when learning to play, think you need to push the strings through the back of the neck.
Well, I am exaggerating, but not much.
When fretting you really don’t need to push that hard. You need to get the string down enough so it is using the fret as the pivot but once that is done, pushing harder isn’t helping. Note, I checked once and when I play my fingers never really hit the fret board much but I have a light touch.
Since you seem to be pushing too hard try a) getting a lighter gauge string b) practice fretting one finger at a time until you figure out how hard you have to push nd c) Make sure you have good hand placement, especially the thumb. The thumb should be about the middle of the back of the neck, not draped over the top of the neck. Once you get good you can throttle.the neck to your.hearts content, but for now keep it in the back.
Also, watch your arm placement. Most beginners want to pull their elbow into their body. You want your elbow out so that your wrist and arm are pretty much straight. When you pull your elbow in, your wrist twists and all kinds of bad things happen. I usually have newbies stick a pillow between their arm and body to get the idea.
If it hurts you most likely have a posture or setup issue.
Slee
Youre answering your own question by saying youre pinching too hard. Have your guitar set up, get lighter strings, get a guitar with shorter scale (24.9). Those are things that lighten the string tension.
You know some pain is a sign of moving forward?
Another thing I learned after trying to teach myself guitar for a few years and getting nowhere is that the strings are a lot easier to hold down on an electric than an acoustic. I don’t know if it’s just that the action is higher on an acoustic, but it’s something to think about. You can pick up a cheap electric guitar and an amp for not too much money.
You might not want to spend the money, but it’s something to think about if you’re considering giving up over this. At least go to the music store and play with an electric guitar.
OTOH, I suppose that could also reinforce bad habits by making them easier to do.
It’s an electric guitar, the strings are light and the action is low.
It’s not an equipment issue. It’s s technique issue. I will try to pay more attention to hang and arm position, but it seems to me that there’s more than that going on.
The problem it seems to me is that I’m pressing harder than I need to, out of habit of instinct or something.
When I think about my grip I can consciously lighten it, but as soon as I start thinking about something else—say finger position or rhythm or singing or pick position or looking at what’s coming next—my hand seems to automatically want to clamp.
And especially when I’m working on trying to play a chord clearly, as I’m adjusting my fingers, my instinct seems to be to press harder.
How do I counter that mental, as opposed to mechanical, issue?
How can we be any help? If you want someone to suggest taking a benzodiazepine, I’m gonna say don’t do it, ever. Gibsons have shorter scale than Fenders.
First thing, pick up your guitar, put your hand on the neck and grab a chord. Let go of the chord wiith your fingers but keep your hand on the neck. Then look at your arm. From the center of your elbow to your middle finger ought to be a straight line. If it not, you have a position issue.
If it is straight then work on fingering. When you feet a note the string should not be hitting the fretboard.
Try learning a scale but instead holding down the string for each note, just lightly tap each note. Also try tapping chord shapes, all the notes at once. It may be that you are so focused on getting the notes right that it tightens you up. Once you get comfortable getting your fingers where they are supposed to be your hand may relax.
Slee
If string tension is actually a problem, you can always tune down. It doesn’t seem that is your complaint, though.
I disagree with sleestak slightly. I think that you usually should apply enough pressure to press the string against the fretboard. I’ve done this the entire time I’ve played, and don’t have fatigue issues in my left hand.
However, I do think that you should press hard enough for the sting to contact the fretboard, and not one iota more. If you fret the string too lightly, it’s not much of a problem. The worst thing that might happen is that the note may be a bit flat and poorly sustained if you don’t fret it well, and you have jumbo frets.
I had a similar problem, but in my right hand. I would dig into the strings far beyond any point that would be productive in creating volume or tone. My short term solution to that was to get a thumb pick that I couldn’t drop. Even then, my right hand would tire. The only long term solution was to practice using a lighter touch, and to concentrate on that when performing. Until then, I had problems with fatigue in my right hand.
So, my advice is to practice playing with a lighter touch in the left hand until it’s your natural way of playing. Practice at playing with the lightest touch you can get away with while having acceptable sustain and tone. It’s similar to a problem with playing with an incorrect hand position, but more subtle.
Not much to add. slee’s hand grip test makes sense. Check YouTube and/or get a lesson or two that focus on technique basics.
Last suggestion: try focusing on circular chord grooves as part of your practice. La Bamba is D G A G; That’s What I Like About You is (more or less) E A D A. Try strumming the open chord riffs for 10 minutes - feel the groove. Do NOT care about intonation, accurate chording, slowing down for transitions. If you lose the groove, you miss the point.
Can you sell the groove? Can people hear the chords and song hook you are playing…enough?
If you get into the groove, you will have to be fretting just about enough to make the chord sound, but quickly transitioning. You’ll get a feel for it.
No comments on technique from me, but if your hand is getting sore or tired, try doing stretching exercises prior to playing. There are sites online that demonstrate them. Also work on strengthening your forearm muscles, which support your hands.
I’m having trouble picturing this in my mind.
I wonder if there’s something I can cram into my palm that when I felt it, it would remind me to loosen my grip.
Basically the issue is that a lot of beginners want to pull the left elbow into the body, assuming you are playing righty. By pulling in your elbow your wrist twists. This is bad as your tendons and stuff works better when your wrist is not bent.
To picture it, sit down and put your arm on your leg as though you are giving blood, hand palm up. If you draw a line from the center of the inside of your elbow, where they would poke you, to your middle finger it ought to be pretty straight. It isn’t exact, the line probabaly is a bit more between the middle and ring finger but it is close. Now, when you are grabbing the neck your wrist and arm ought to be in the same position. There may be a bit of bend up on the wrist, but not sideways.
Hope that makes sense.
Slee
Ah, so the wrist can bend up and down but not sideways. I think I understand that.
I suggest you not worry too much about it. (But keeping the wrist in a good position is important; helps to avoid carpal tunnel among other issues. Your wrist should move quite a bit and change position, but yeah, avoid sideways bends except when absolutely necessary for unusual chords.)
Relax whenever you think of it. If you start to feel more pain than you think is appropriate*, stop and shake your hand to relax it. Meanwhile, you’re building muscles that will help.
Work on transitions between chords. That’ll force you to limber up. Avoid playing any one chord longer than it takes for that chord to sound good, then move to the next, when doing chord drills, if you do that. If you’re playing songs, then focus on songs where the chords change often enough that you can barely manage the changes.
Practice the transitions between chords, more than the chords themselves. If you know 5 chords, that’s 40 transitions! (The formula is twice N * N-1, aka 2*sum(N).) It’s more fun to practice transitions by playing songs or snippets of songs, which is fine. Managing the transitions is the bugbear for beginners and what keeps them from playing with good rhythm. You can’t practice timing unless the transitions happen automatically, so you can think more about your right hand.
- A certain amount of pain is always associated with building muscles. I assume that you know this, and you realize that you’re overdoing it.
I thought I posted this earlier, but it hasn’t shown up, so I’ll try again.
Yes, I get the occasional cramp when I’m playing barre chords, especially if I haven’t put in the time playing/practicing. Some of the issue is technique (pressing too hard). A quick and dirty fix is to change your hand position slightly by adjusting your thumb position. Raising or lowering the neck might help. And sometimes, instead of barring my first finger across all 6 strings, I’ll just barre the first 2 and hang my thumb over to get the 6th string. But that won’t help much with double barre chords.
As Learjeff pointed out, and I should have said, your wrist will turn to the side some. But for normal chords it shouldn’t be much.
For an easy way to see the difference a bent wrist makes do this. Rest your left arm on a flat counter palm down so that your forearm from the elbow down is touching the counter. Keep hand loose and your fingers bent but relaxed. Wrist straight from your forearm. Now tap your fingers in order, first, middle, ring then pinky and back. It ought to be easy and feel smooth. Do it a few times.
Then, keeping your arm in the same place, twist your wrist by moving your hand to the left. Try it again. You’ll probably notice that when you move your fingers you can feel some stress in your arm right above the wrist. Most likely it’ll also be harder to move your fingers. That stress is what you want to avoid.
And think loose. Your hand and arm ought to be relaxed. It takes some strength to hold chords, but it is a relaxed strength, if that makes sense.
Slee
My guitar teacher advised pretending to hold a tiny adorable mouse in my left palm as I played. Keep the hand loose enough that you don’t squish the tiny mouse! Sometimes he would mutter a small eek! as a reminder when things got too tight.