hand pains

[jazzersize]

Anyone else experience serious pain after playing songs like tripping billies or crash? My left hand starts to throb about halfway through the song and by the end i have to take a couple minute break before playing again. Anyone have some suggestions that strengthen and stretch those key areas so i can play for longer periods of time. maybe thats why dave sometimes chats in between songs to give his hand a break.

[elixer]

Stretching:

Play Crash, #41, Captain as often and for as long as possible

Strength:

Play Crash, #41, Captain as often and for as long as possible

But seriously, all of this comes in time. If you want to stretch, you should warm up with something like Satellite. The frets are smaller and therefore closer together. Then once you loosen up a bit, go for the bigger stretches.

For strength you could use a combination of playing (lots of barre chords help) and the "GripMaster." I would check out your local music shop for it. Its used to help you strengthen you fingers. The good this is that you can just keep it with you and when you are reading/walking/etc you can get in some reps.

Hope that helps,
Sean

[KevinGTArch]

One thing I did to help out my short, stubby fingers in the beginning was to form and hold different and difficult chord positions. For example, if I was sitting at my desk studying then I would have my guitar in my lap with fingers positioned so they were holding the first three notes of Satellite simulataneiously. I would hold it for as long as possible and then let my hand rest for a few minutes and then do it again. I felt this beat out a "Grip Master" because it also helped for muscle memory on certain chords or positions.

Other Dave songs work for this as well of course. The intro for both Captain and #41, as mentioned above are excellent positions to try this with. I also liked trying to hold the nature chord from Tripping Billies and also the nice stretch in the pre-chorus of Warehouse.

Another thing you will notice, even after your fingers become seasoned from the exercise, is that for some of Dave's more repetitious songs your fingers will just get sore and tired during the songs. These songs for me include Satellite, Christmas Song (12-string), #41 (jam), and Dancing Nancies (jam). This is just natural because your hand gets tired from the repetive nature of these specific parts of these songs. The only way I have found to overcome it is to practice, practice, and practice. Your hand will get used to it over time and it will hurt less and/or you will just learn to ignore it and keep playing.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Peace,

Kevin

[waffle_house_jam]

the 2 things that have helped me most with strength and such playing are the GripMaster thingy (my friend has one and i use it for like 15 minutes before school everyday) and playing along with a CD. get a Dave album or a playlist that you know all the songs on, and play with the CD the whole way through. when you play guitar with hardly any stops for like 30 minutes at a time you'll feel like you broke your arm at first but eventually it'll make you a lot stronger. its a tough technique, but trust me, it works pretty fast.

[crimsonPhantom]

how about push ups on your fingers??! i did that in my kung-fu training
and now my fingers are strong!