Don't be a dope like me and get so into steel playing that you forget to play 'regular' guitar too!
I picked up a regular acoustic steel string last night and could only get through half an hour of playing before my fingertips felt like they had bone bruises on each one. Bad idea to let everything else slip!
Anyhow, gotta go play a barre F when I get home.
Take care. :lol:
Anyhow, gotta go play a barre F when I get home.
Don't do anything drastic, Etc. There's still hope!
(Just checked; I haven't got a trace of callouses. Well, maybe just a hint on my middle finger.)
:lol:
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
After ~30 years of regular guitar playing I lost my calluses completely when the lap steel took over.. Then I had to start practicing again when I started having students a year ago, and today I play better guitar than I've ever done. Not on a technical level,- there's a lot of stuff I can't pull off on regular guitar now, but it's a lot more musical.
Getting away from my own tired guitar clichés and then coming back and 'rediscovering' the guitar after a couple of years of lap steel playing, is the best that has happened to my guitar playing.
So don't despair,- there's still hope! :D
Steinar
Yep! More musical is the best way to describe it - I noticed that too.
So I did the barre F and then Bb, hardly even strumming or picking, just making the changes, and the problem is, I started getting a little song going without thinking about it, and so now, of course, I gotta go track it ;)
But the bone-bruise feeling is not so bad now. At least when you've been playing awhile you know 'how' to practice, to make the most of a short time.
And...I think the musicality part of it has to do with 'thinking' along the fretboard rather than across it like on regular guitar; makes you think out of the box so to speak. It's a great combo. Except for the string squeaks, which are just all over the place now. (press, lift, move, press, lol, I remember that!) I think maybe tonight I'll mash my fingertips on the 12-string for a bit :shock:
same experience here.
my regular guitar [playing hs improved immensely since I began lap steel.
the standrad tuned fretboard is making much more sense; I am thinking in harmonies, playiong two notes instead of the old one at a time.
Im playing slidinfg triads in between my rythms. I have grown.
now for the sore wrist and baby tipped fingers from going back to regular guitar took me by surprise.
so I take the time to exercise my instruments and my hands by playing them all more often.
each time it takes only a second to reorient myself.
I am so pleased.
It does help to think of "standard tuning" as an alternate tuning. :D
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
haha, just looking at some older posts... I found this one to be amusing. :) I do the same thing, only now I (try) to only play slide on practice nights AFTER I've run through most of my other exercises/material. I'll go on that stuff until I get the 'bone bruises' and pick up some slide. Funny, glad I'm not the only one to think this way or run in to this.
ow, hand cramps.
that's what happens after Ive been sliding and going back to standup guitar.
