Hate 'em. Making practice a pain. I can thank that crud I wash my hands with at work for that. Nothing like touching the strings and have that wrong, off feeling when I fret a chord or play a scale. Besides asking what to do and getting the obvious answer of keep practing and your finger tips will be back to playing form again, I was wondering how often something similar happens to you GN members?
"If I had a time machine, I'd go back and tell me to practise that bloody guitar!" -Vic Lewis
Everything is 42..... again.
Smooth finger tips are okay if they are calloused. Mine start to layer and come off in chunks every now and then. The BEST cleaner is that pink stuff auto mechanics use. (Actually...what the fook IS that stuff??? It gets anything out of anything!!!) I wouldn't worry about it. Courses for horses...
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
That's exactly the stuff I use at work to clean my hands with since I work with printing ink. Sometimes it's also red or green. :lol: I asked some of the guitarist at the store today and they said it happens and I'll get used to it. Surprised this is a recent issue and not something from past experiences.
"If I had a time machine, I'd go back and tell me to practise that bloody guitar!" -Vic Lewis
Everything is 42..... again.
just as there is a growth plateau that we experience in playing guitar;
so it is with callouses.
it sounds like Cat has deep layered callouses earned after many years rubbing guitar strings.
same here. callouses shed, but there always is a new layer ready beneath. sometimes they feel smooth
and sometimes they are tender. it doesn't take long to forget about it.
sounds like you are earning your deep callouses.
I dunno about that. My calluses used to shed a lot, and they were so hard I could tap them on a glass and they'd sound like metal. Now they don't shed anymore, and you can kinda make out fingerprints where they used to be completely smooth.
I probably play more than most folks - I'm holding a guitar probably 50 hours a week... about half of that is teaching time, where I play maybe 20% (demonstrating techniques or playing duets with students), so that's about 30 hours a week of actual playing time. Looking back, my calluses shed a lot when I'd play in 'spurts' - five hours one day, twelve the next kinda thing. But over the last 10 years or so my playing time has evened out so that I probably play about the same amount every day, and my fingers seem to have adapted to the workload.
I sure don't miss the shedding, or having to smooth out the rough edges afterward with a pumice stone.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
Hey...newbies hold everything way too hard. We don't. I use really lights and touch really light. Not too bad on the tips...but they were when I was a kid. Taste and touch are nuances that newbies ain't really gonna see for a decade...probably more.
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
True enough, beginners squeeze to hard. But there's another factor too.... if you've been playing seriously for a few years, you've probably got better gear. You could probably park a bus under the strings of my first Harmony :)
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
True enough, beginners squeeze to hard. But there's another factor too.... if you've been playing seriously for a few years, you've probably got better gear. You could probably park a bus under the strings of my first Harmony :)
Don't tell me YOU had a Harmony bobkat, too!!! I still have it, a 1961. Worst action imaginable. How I learned my first few chords on it, I'll never know. It was like playing on Mrs Roma's six clotheslines next door. Yep, blisters, callouses and a love of this instrument soon developed!
Cat
PS: If you can read this wherever you morphed to Dad...thanks for that!
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
I still have mine too! And it's also a 61! It hasn't been strung in at least 25 years, but I keep it for the sentimental value :)
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
Ain't that a hoot! I progressed to a Fender Jaguar after saving up about over a year working in a meatworks moving wheelbarrows of guts out of the kill floor! Nice after school job for a 13 year old, huh! How I didn't end up biting heads off of bats on stage I'll never know. My 18 year old is using the Jag. Swapped pups for a Gretch Country Gentleman at the bridge and a hummer at the neck. Still a quality US made (those were the days) axe!
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
