Don't Be Callous--Develop and Cultivate Your Calluses!

Healthy hands are important to any guitarist who plays on a regular basis. Daily practice with preset routines that may involve scale exercises or just plain playin' for a while is the required regimen for the seasoned player, but what about the beginning, budding guitarist? Anyone who's played guitar for an extended period of time on a regular basis has developed calluses, those pads on the tips of the fingers of the hand that chord the guitar (I'm right-handed, so my left hand works the fretboard--for those of you who are left-handed, my comments in this article will apply to your right hand). My article is directed to beginning guitarists, most of whom, if they're like me, experienced an exquisite sort of torture when first learning the guitar. Developing calluses is essential to playing the guitar--if you don't have them, your fingers will be bloody, sore and shredded messes each time you finish an infrequent session with your instrument.

If you're a beginning player, take a look at the chording hand of your instructor, or of the experienced friend who may be helping you to learn the guitar. A cursory glance at the tips of the fingers will probably reveal nothing to you, but if you look closely, you'll see four nice, neat pads of flesh there. These are calluses, spots where the flesh toughens from extended contact with guitar strings. Many of you have heard your parents or elders talk about calluses formed in the palms of the hands from using shovels, axes, hoes or other work tools--heck, calluses can even form on your feet if your shoes fit incorrectly or if you have a glitch in your stride. A guitar player's calluses are essential to his vocation, and if the player lays his instrument down for an extended period of time, they vanish and have to be cultivated again.

So how does a beginner get calluses? Not easily, I can promise you. A beginner will experience little or no discomfort when he plays the guitar for the first time or two, but when he picks it up again for his next learning session, his fingers will be tender, to say the least--the pain might even be exquisite! So what do you do?

You pick the guitar up again and proceed very slowly and carefully. Sure, it's gonna hurt and be painful to some degree, but getting your chording hand toughened up is essential if you're in it for the long haul. If you stick with it and play on a regular basis, that chording hand will develop calluses and playing will soon become painless and effortless. If your interest wanes and you put that guitar down for a week or two and then decide to pick it up again, your fingers will be tender and I can promise you that the pain will be a discouraging factor in your decision to learn the guitar.

Most beginners should and do learn on an acoustic guitar. Since the strings an acoustic guitar are of a heavier gauge, it's going to be a little tougher on the fingers than the light gauge strings of a electric guitar. I play both the acoustic and electric guitar in my musical profession, and if I stay away from the acoustic guitar for an extended period of time, I do notice a bit of discomfort, but my calluses save the day after I get loosened up.

So I guess my healthy hands advice to beginners is this--work hard, practice regularly, and develop those calluses. Once you do that, you can play the guitar with little or no discomfort for an extended period of time, and playing an electric guitar, after you've learned on an acoustic guitar, is like caressing a feather.

Happy picking, and thanks for reading.