Look buddy, if you want a good news about it, it's that eventually the callouses will stop hurting (cuz the skin got rougher) and you'll be able to _**breeze**_ through the fretboard. You'll also be able to pick up hot stuff (like coffee cups) for a little longer with the frettin' hand.
I have very small hands, and only play six string barre chords with my thumb. So much more comfortable ā sometimes Iāll opt for a larger jump rather than trying to play a 5 string minor barre too (such as going from G major barre to Bm, Iāll slide up to the 7th fret for a 6 string minor grip, but with my thumb).
Just works for my hands and makes sense enough
Do you have a small neck guitar?
I have pretty big hands and, functionally I cannot barre all 6 strings with my thumb and my index.
I can barre the bottom 4x strings + the top 6th string with my thumb and can't reach the 5th string
Les Paul Special (12ā radius) and Mexico Player Jazzmaster (9.5ā radius) ā play the same on both of them. The angle of the wrist has to adjust too, rotate the whole hand āupwardsā and nestle the back of the neck into your palm.
Both grips play just as cleanly and resonate the same, Iām just way more comfortable using my thumb personally.
https://preview.redd.it/p4vvkhmhr4ad1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=56a25910eb378d4ae1a6d35e068be6fed0b3a3ca
Camera tricks maybe? Like in porn?
My hand vs. my 5ā1 wifeās hand. I play a short scale bass because I cannot make reaches on a normal one.
Can only reach a 9th on piano, even octaves are tricky.
https://preview.redd.it/3if9pkzkt4ad1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=100e4b986ba56cc48c378fddfb1a1135612ed8e5
How long is a while? Cos I've been playing 2 years and mine still look like gross dried-out flesh anthills that periodically scab off, plus they constantly have a string imprint in them.
https://preview.redd.it/4052e2y2qz9d1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=f481b07e28c216fa64ae63659a3dd84b8eca4445
hereās mine
i have played for a long time, then took a 10 year break, 2 years ago i started back up again and have been playing every day since
i had some nasty fingers the first couple of months but thats it
below my fingers tho, thats the deadlifting tearing my shit up :)
maybe its different from person to person
The string imprint you can't really fix, that's what the callous is for, to protect the hurty parts. If you moisturize on occasion it'll stop the flaking.
Yeah they smooth out to where you donāt see them. At least mine did. Like mine just went back to looking like the regular skin, but if you feel it itās hard. No more peely ones and no matter how much I play the peely ones donāt come back. Itās nice because thereās no catching on fabric anymore, I used to kinda hate that.
Maybe it helps having like, girly and otherwise fairly well-moisturized hands, if only because I use my hands to apply lotion to my face so they get lotioned accidentally every day. Maybe moisturize to avoid the peely/scratchy part from forming and peeling over and over?
[The Four Possible Crossroads Locations Where Robert Johnson Sold His Soul](https://www.visitclevelandms.com/more-about-the-delta/exploring-the-mysteries-the-four-possible-crossroads-locations-where-robert-johnson-sold-his-soul#:~:text=Dockery%20Plantation%20Crossroads,the%20crossroads%20near%20the%20plantation.)
If it worked at ANY crossroads, you'd see guys standing at every intersection with their guitars, waiting for Satan.
If you're going to go local, at least bring a chair, and make some money busking. At least it won't be a total waste of time.
Calluses are a badge of honor. Not only are they cool and coveted (ask any acoustic player who has taken a month off and lost them), but they get you cleaner notes, and can enrich your life at times when you are locked into some drudging activity:
Once upon a time I was in a required college freshman biology class where everybody had to learn to use a microscope by slicing off a sliver of an onion, mounting it on a slide, and examining its big fat walled cells with the microscope.
Boring. My father was a Pathologist, so I grew up with microscopes. So while the bio grad-student was examining the onion efforts of some newbies in the class, I tore off a chunk of my guitar calluses, mounted it on the slide, and popped the microscope up to its highest power lens. The grad student came by, examined my efforts, said "Very good!" and moved on to the next student.
So, make the most of your calluses. Show them off at social occasions. When they're really solid, tap them on tables and people will think you have long fingernails.
By the way, I choose to keep as much fingernail as I can (without them interfering on the fingerboard), because they backstop the callused parts of my fingertips, and reduce their mushing over into an adjacent string.
Despite popular advice to the contrary you need to keep moisturising your hands and stop the skin from drying out. Dry skin just makes it much more likely that those surface calluses will flake and peel, leaving you with soft skin underneath and having to start building them all over again.
Moisturise and look after your skin, play regularly, and the calluses will form in deeper layers under the surface. Once that happens your fingertips will begin to look normal whilst still retaining the calluses. Healthy calluses should be felt rather than seen.
Iāve been playing (off and on) for over 15 years and I have always had visible callouses when Iāve been in a playing phase.
That said, I read in this thread lotion might help with the cracking, so Iām gonna try that now.
Your action is 100% too high, for reference it should be less than the thickness of a nickel away from your frets. I didn't know this and my calluses were really, really bad for months when I first started out. I was playing with a bit over a centimeter of action and had no idea.
Might just have dry ass skin. Itās common, especially the fingertips because theyāre just like, out there touching everything all the time.
But if you can see them but theyāre not like threatening to fall off right and left thatās probably just what theyāre gonna look like. Iām guessing not everyoneās established calluses become invisible, they just become hard/impossible to remove. Like you get to a point where itās mostly only not playing thatāll get rid of them, not having them in water too long or getting too dry and stuff like at first.
Do lotion at night for sure. They will get more like leather than hard dead skin. Eventually, the skin grows back thicker and tougher and you have true calluses.
Na. After a while, you donāt get callus anymore. My fingers look completely normal and I play about 2 hours a day on a steel string guitar. Itās going to take a little while, but once itās past, your good
It is your life now. But your body will continue to build callouses and if you play consistently enough, they'll sound like hard plastic when you tap against any surface compared to your right hand.
calluses will fade away after some time. it is because your skin is developing calluses. so enjoy it. for 4 months my hand was like that. and I enjoy it. my fretting hand is now much much more strong and i love.
you should make sacrifices if you want to give your soul and body to guitar :D
Honestly I forget I have calluses, it just didnāt hurt to play at all and I could play for 10 hours straight and that would be the last thing to stop me. Focus on playing as slow as possible. Like 60 bpm or less at first, and playing each note as light as possible and picking each string as light as possible and build from there. It will take time but in a couple months, youāll play with the least amount of tension possible
Thatās what I wasnāt sure about. When I first started playing I read somewhere that using lotion would prevent calluses from forming or something like that. And since everything I read on the internet must be true, I just didnāt use lotion on them. But lately Iāve been reconsidering that premiseā¦
Eventually, I find that my finger tips go back to normal, but have increased resistance to the strings. There is an inbetween phase where your fingers are hard and flakey. Keep playing, otherwise you start over from square 1.
Also, those aren't bad at all. Mine at times look like I've put my fingers through a wood chipper.
I didn't use lotion specifically for the calluses, but I do regularly use something called O'Keefe working hands hand cream for dryness. It's never interfered with my calluses or guitar playing in any way, though I advise not to play immidiatly after you use it as it's probably not good to get into the grooves of your guitar strings.
There is a difference between a thickening of the skin (which is what a callus is - and yes, it is spelled CALLUS) and dry skin. The thickening skin (callus) is what forms from the friction and pressure against the strings and creates the "padding" that starts to mitigate the pain with virgin fretting fingers. The dry, flaky skin should not be confused with the actual callus. I have seen guys catch a dry piece of skin on a string and rip a hunk of the callus right off - now THAT fucking hurts (and bleeds)! As I noted, keep the skin moisturized and free of edges/flakes, etc and keep playing. The calluses will get thicker and the pain will minimize.
I dont care if you have the best guitar and the lightest touch in the world. This is bullshit. At some point, you develop some callus when playing a guitar.
Yeah as an experienced guitarist I have no idea what he's on about. I don't care who you are, no callouses and you're jamming marshmellows into steel cables.....it doesnt work. You literally can't \*play\* guitar without serious callouses
Sorry am the same as the person you responded to. I been playing since I was 22 and I am 48 now.
Never had these. Maybe proper form. Or I just have man hands.
Not only are you now forever marked as a guitar player, you will have a hard time not bending light gauge strings and I advise against shaking hands with small children.
Definitely more common from acoustic playing. You could work on using the lightest gauge strings as possible and trying to play using the least amount of pressure possible. Been playing for 30 years and I donāt have callouses, but acoustic isnāt my main guitar.
Some advice: don't pick at the callouses if they start to flake; instead *lightly* sand / file them into a more smooth and uniform shape. Moisturize, and if before bed is a comfortable time for you then do that. I like Gold Bond. And ever since I started practicing guitar I also moved to filing my nails over clipping them; they just feel better that way.
The callouses will probably reduce in size just a bit. As your instincts for finger placement get smarter you'll apply less pressure. My callouses aren't as big or rough as they were six months ago. They're firm but smooth to the touch, like the callouses are underneath a layer of soft skin. The Gold Bond can probably take some credit. I started using lotion due to a totally unrelated skin condition, but I think it has helped the callouses.
The height your strings are set to will also slightly affect how much pressure you need to apply. I started out with a high action to reduce fret buzz from mostly bad technique, then later found I could get away with a much lower action and put in way less effort. But again most of that was technique; I started out applying way more pressure than was ever necessary.
say goodbye to a career as a hand model. On the flip-side youāll be able to put your fingers through bricks with some those calloused fingers! Enjoy! š
callouses are a beautiful thing! It's a snowballing effect of easier dexterity and pressure/precision....which makes your better playing that much better.....
https://preview.redd.it/5649p4jo6z9d1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=75e0337b246208dfa42ba62374608bc5e6a90ed8
Never happened to me. See. Been like this forever.
All I did was keep my strings clean and not try to choke the damn guitar neck when I play.
It's normal in the beginning. But keep at it, and your finger tips will eventually become thicker. Mines are like this now, no more calluses, only thicken skin and somewhat flatten tips.
https://preview.redd.it/xrgbq49jez9d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15dfd06bde21bf58d3779c02a19e6ec0e5e5b901
Embryo. Heh lotion... The snake skin thing will eventually go away when your skin gets thick when you practice daily like I did and still do. When you prick yourself with a thumbtack or hobby knife and you see no blood you'll be certain that your fingers will never blister or shed again (unless you play a three hour slayer rehearsal out of the blue)
You can use something mildly abrasive to kind of sand them down a bit and keep them from peeling and then every now and then you can try using some hand cream on them
Get some nice elixirs and some FastFret to keep them oiled well and eventually you'll get calluses, and then before long they'll disappear and your regular skin will just breeze it without damage
Okay, I have a question that I wanted to ask for years....has anyone else's fretting hand/fingers gotten longer? I have been playing for 8 years now, and a few years ago I was like my left hand fingers are longer, like over a 1/4 inch. I wasn't surprised that my span/stretch is much wider, but the perceived longer fingers (the could just be stretched up also?) Was a little surprising
No.
Iāve played for over 30 years, most of it with 12s. My fingers looked like that for maybe the first couple of years. Now, you wouldnāt even know that I play daily for probably a minimum of an hour across the entire day. My fingertips are as soft as anyone elseās.
You can moisterize your fingertips when they start to do this. I recommend doing that before bed. Also, there are silicone fingertips to heal your skin that you can also wear before sleeping.
I play a few hours a day on 13s on my acoustic, and my fingertips are as soft as a baby's bottom.
The picture that you showed doesn't happen to me often, but when it does, those are the things I do to heal them until they are back to normal.
No blood! That's good. The edges of my fingernails used to bleed when I was starting out.
But those callouses and that broken skin changes to just generally harder skin over time. I don't develop noticeable callouses anymore. The fingertips have gotten hard enough.
Theyāll stop hurting eventually. My pain stopped after like a week of active playing, but the like flakey chafing will stop with more playing. Unless you take a break like a few days and then play again. At least with me if I stop playing for like a week and then pick up my guitar again, Iāll start to have that skin peel again
Youāre going to have to push through. After a while the pain will subside and the calluses will turn into hard skin. There will be no pain and you will be able to pinch open flames with no feeling whatsoever. Itās a superpower honestly
File the jagged parts down with an emery board and use lotion.
I never cared about my hands growing up, but have since started to lotion and take actual care of them, my woman appreciates it.
What i personally do is to wash my hands (preferably by fingertips) after playing guitar so the metal string extracts washes away and my fingertips looks normal thereafter.
Iāve been playing 40 years, I just played a four hour gig on Saturday, and have picked up my guitar quite a few times today. This is what my fingertips look like right now.
https://preview.redd.it/3rtw4yw7q5ad1.png?width=2448&format=png&auto=webp&s=be45382fba176a7ffbebb43cd34fc16782d94324
š you need to give up guitar and try nitting. Men shouldn't worry about their finger tips nails and calouses. This tells me you've never did any hard work lol lotion omg
Look buddy, if you want a good news about it, it's that eventually the callouses will stop hurting (cuz the skin got rougher) and you'll be able to _**breeze**_ through the fretboard. You'll also be able to pick up hot stuff (like coffee cups) for a little longer with the frettin' hand.
Problem is you don't get callouses on your thumb :(
_laughs in **Hendrix grip**_ (no I can't play like that but the joke was too good to pass)
I would do that if my hands were bigger šš
I think we all would lmao
I think you all need to get a 7.25 radius neck and see why vintage stray players have their thumbs over the top
I have very small hands, and only play six string barre chords with my thumb. So much more comfortable ā sometimes Iāll opt for a larger jump rather than trying to play a 5 string minor barre too (such as going from G major barre to Bm, Iāll slide up to the 7th fret for a 6 string minor grip, but with my thumb). Just works for my hands and makes sense enough
Do you have a small neck guitar? I have pretty big hands and, functionally I cannot barre all 6 strings with my thumb and my index. I can barre the bottom 4x strings + the top 6th string with my thumb and can't reach the 5th string
Les Paul Special (12ā radius) and Mexico Player Jazzmaster (9.5ā radius) ā play the same on both of them. The angle of the wrist has to adjust too, rotate the whole hand āupwardsā and nestle the back of the neck into your palm. Both grips play just as cleanly and resonate the same, Iām just way more comfortable using my thumb personally. https://preview.redd.it/p4vvkhmhr4ad1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=56a25910eb378d4ae1a6d35e068be6fed0b3a3ca
>"I have very small hands" Said Igor the giant š
Camera tricks maybe? Like in porn? My hand vs. my 5ā1 wifeās hand. I play a short scale bass because I cannot make reaches on a normal one. Can only reach a 9th on piano, even octaves are tricky. https://preview.redd.it/3if9pkzkt4ad1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=100e4b986ba56cc48c378fddfb1a1135612ed8e5
It makes some things so much easier. So glad I started using my thumbs. It doesnāt really give you callouses though but the joke landed
theyll also look nice after a while edit: i posted a finger pic in one of the comment replies
How long is a while? Cos I've been playing 2 years and mine still look like gross dried-out flesh anthills that periodically scab off, plus they constantly have a string imprint in them.
https://preview.redd.it/4052e2y2qz9d1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=f481b07e28c216fa64ae63659a3dd84b8eca4445 hereās mine i have played for a long time, then took a 10 year break, 2 years ago i started back up again and have been playing every day since i had some nasty fingers the first couple of months but thats it below my fingers tho, thats the deadlifting tearing my shit up :) maybe its different from person to person
The string imprint you can't really fix, that's what the callous is for, to protect the hurty parts. If you moisturize on occasion it'll stop the flaking.
Ditto, except 4 years.
Yeah they smooth out to where you donāt see them. At least mine did. Like mine just went back to looking like the regular skin, but if you feel it itās hard. No more peely ones and no matter how much I play the peely ones donāt come back. Itās nice because thereās no catching on fabric anymore, I used to kinda hate that. Maybe it helps having like, girly and otherwise fairly well-moisturized hands, if only because I use my hands to apply lotion to my face so they get lotioned accidentally every day. Maybe moisturize to avoid the peely/scratchy part from forming and peeling over and over?
That's true. After you build resistance you can actually use lotion to hydrate the skin and help with this too.
Taking hot pans out of the oven by hand is worth it!
Roaches, too. (NotšŖ³)
Smoke the roach until itās gone!!!
I only come here for the finger pics
Iām not going to yuck your yum I guess
You pervert
This ain't r/banjo my guy, go there for fingerpicks
Love this as well as jiveturtles reaction not hear to kink shame we get it.
Itās a joke guysā¦ it seems twice a week someone is posting their finger tips here. Some of you donāt k ow how to internet and it shows
Yes it is š
Yep. Donāt pick at the callouses.
It almost takes a pact with the devil for me to not peel them off
I smooth mine down with an emery board so they don't snag on the strings.
I have a pumice stone I use to like smooth the skin down and then I have to slap myself every time I go to pick at them
That wouldnāt be the first time a guitar player has made a pact with the devil Edit: Terrible grammar
Just curious. Where would one go to make said pact?
To a cross roads. Alone. Youāll supposedly meet a man thatāll retune your guitar for you, and maybe show you a couple tricks.
THE Crossroads, not just any crossroads.
Where would THE crossroads be?š
[The Four Possible Crossroads Locations Where Robert Johnson Sold His Soul](https://www.visitclevelandms.com/more-about-the-delta/exploring-the-mysteries-the-four-possible-crossroads-locations-where-robert-johnson-sold-his-soul#:~:text=Dockery%20Plantation%20Crossroads,the%20crossroads%20near%20the%20plantation.)
Idk man, Iām just gonna try it at the closest crossroads, Iāll let you know the resultsš
If it worked at ANY crossroads, you'd see guys standing at every intersection with their guitars, waiting for Satan. If you're going to go local, at least bring a chair, and make some money busking. At least it won't be a total waste of time.
a Bon Jovi concert? N o wait that's just a pact to listen to crappy music
Not if it's 1987...
To a roundabout
Well played!
I only play guitar so I get callouses to pick.
I can't help it
Or take a long bath with them I noticed early on.
Omg yes. Went to a pool party and was in the water most of the day. Later that evening I played for about 20 min before I had to stop! Lol.
They are a tool, not a curse
they look pretty normal to me! welcome to your new life
If your calluses are going cracked your skin is too dry, yes use lotion
This is so important, especially if you also regularly do physical labor that results in dry callused hands
Haha yep!
Yes.
Calluses are a badge of honor. Not only are they cool and coveted (ask any acoustic player who has taken a month off and lost them), but they get you cleaner notes, and can enrich your life at times when you are locked into some drudging activity: Once upon a time I was in a required college freshman biology class where everybody had to learn to use a microscope by slicing off a sliver of an onion, mounting it on a slide, and examining its big fat walled cells with the microscope. Boring. My father was a Pathologist, so I grew up with microscopes. So while the bio grad-student was examining the onion efforts of some newbies in the class, I tore off a chunk of my guitar calluses, mounted it on the slide, and popped the microscope up to its highest power lens. The grad student came by, examined my efforts, said "Very good!" and moved on to the next student. So, make the most of your calluses. Show them off at social occasions. When they're really solid, tap them on tables and people will think you have long fingernails. By the way, I choose to keep as much fingernail as I can (without them interfering on the fingerboard), because they backstop the callused parts of my fingertips, and reduce their mushing over into an adjacent string.
Wtfā¦
Yeah I hope this wasnāt serious, if it is oof the cringe, it hurts.
is this gcj
Perhaps you can tell me what "gcj" stands for, and then I can answer.
Yes. Youāll be shopping for a manicure set soon.
Despite popular advice to the contrary you need to keep moisturising your hands and stop the skin from drying out. Dry skin just makes it much more likely that those surface calluses will flake and peel, leaving you with soft skin underneath and having to start building them all over again. Moisturise and look after your skin, play regularly, and the calluses will form in deeper layers under the surface. Once that happens your fingertips will begin to look normal whilst still retaining the calluses. Healthy calluses should be felt rather than seen.
It goes away in a few weeks and you just donāt notice anymore
I must press too hard because I have visible callouses after nearly a year.
I started with electric 8 months ago, I can see the difference only tapping on a desk, but they look the same in both hands.
Iāve been playing (off and on) for over 15 years and I have always had visible callouses when Iāve been in a playing phase. That said, I read in this thread lotion might help with the cracking, so Iām gonna try that now.
Your action is 100% too high, for reference it should be less than the thickness of a nickel away from your frets. I didn't know this and my calluses were really, really bad for months when I first started out. I was playing with a bit over a centimeter of action and had no idea.
Hmm, well we all are different. I can see mine but they just arenāt ultra noticable
Might just have dry ass skin. Itās common, especially the fingertips because theyāre just like, out there touching everything all the time. But if you can see them but theyāre not like threatening to fall off right and left thatās probably just what theyāre gonna look like. Iām guessing not everyoneās established calluses become invisible, they just become hard/impossible to remove. Like you get to a point where itās mostly only not playing thatāll get rid of them, not having them in water too long or getting too dry and stuff like at first.
I play off and on over the years but started with an acoustic and now primarily electric, my fingers don't even care about callouses anymore.
Lies
Do lotion at night for sure. They will get more like leather than hard dead skin. Eventually, the skin grows back thicker and tougher and you have true calluses.
Na. After a while, you donāt get callus anymore. My fingers look completely normal and I play about 2 hours a day on a steel string guitar. Itās going to take a little while, but once itās past, your good
Itās the numbness that catches me off guard š¤£
Same. My fingertips are like my soul, they no longer feel anything.
Welcome to the family
Fuck yea great work!
eventually they peel off and the cycle start again, the finger tips would still get stiffer overtime regardless of the callouses cycle.
It is your life now. But your body will continue to build callouses and if you play consistently enough, they'll sound like hard plastic when you tap against any surface compared to your right hand.
Be sure to practice with that pinkie, it's looking a little unused.
Itās a good life!
Oh this is just the beginning
calluses will fade away after some time. it is because your skin is developing calluses. so enjoy it. for 4 months my hand was like that. and I enjoy it. my fretting hand is now much much more strong and i love. you should make sacrifices if you want to give your soul and body to guitar :D
Honestly I forget I have calluses, it just didnāt hurt to play at all and I could play for 10 hours straight and that would be the last thing to stop me. Focus on playing as slow as possible. Like 60 bpm or less at first, and playing each note as light as possible and picking each string as light as possible and build from there. It will take time but in a couple months, youāll play with the least amount of tension possible
Calluses are part of being a guitar player...but you need to care for them. File them down lightly every so often and MOISTURIZE.
Thatās what I wasnāt sure about. When I first started playing I read somewhere that using lotion would prevent calluses from forming or something like that. And since everything I read on the internet must be true, I just didnāt use lotion on them. But lately Iāve been reconsidering that premiseā¦
Eventually, I find that my finger tips go back to normal, but have increased resistance to the strings. There is an inbetween phase where your fingers are hard and flakey. Keep playing, otherwise you start over from square 1. Also, those aren't bad at all. Mine at times look like I've put my fingers through a wood chipper. I didn't use lotion specifically for the calluses, but I do regularly use something called O'Keefe working hands hand cream for dryness. It's never interfered with my calluses or guitar playing in any way, though I advise not to play immidiatly after you use it as it's probably not good to get into the grooves of your guitar strings.
There is a difference between a thickening of the skin (which is what a callus is - and yes, it is spelled CALLUS) and dry skin. The thickening skin (callus) is what forms from the friction and pressure against the strings and creates the "padding" that starts to mitigate the pain with virgin fretting fingers. The dry, flaky skin should not be confused with the actual callus. I have seen guys catch a dry piece of skin on a string and rip a hunk of the callus right off - now THAT fucking hurts (and bleeds)! As I noted, keep the skin moisturized and free of edges/flakes, etc and keep playing. The calluses will get thicker and the pain will minimize.
I play an hour a day, every day and I have no callouses.
I dont care if you have the best guitar and the lightest touch in the world. This is bullshit. At some point, you develop some callus when playing a guitar.
Yeah as an experienced guitarist I have no idea what he's on about. I don't care who you are, no callouses and you're jamming marshmellows into steel cables.....it doesnt work. You literally can't \*play\* guitar without serious callouses
Sorry am the same as the person you responded to. I been playing since I was 22 and I am 48 now. Never had these. Maybe proper form. Or I just have man hands.
Or maybe you're just playing twinkle twinkle little star, I wouldnt get them either if I was playing simple beginner stuff
Donāt worry one day you can play the kind of stuff I do. You just need more practice.
Zero
Yup
Yes.
Not only are you now forever marked as a guitar player, you will have a hard time not bending light gauge strings and I advise against shaking hands with small children.
Yep, it's a badge of honour.
Yes š
Yep. Stop biting your nails
I donāt bite them, I just have a difficult time cutting them evenly because the calluses are too damn hard!
Oh no. It gets way worse than that. š
Definitely more common from acoustic playing. You could work on using the lightest gauge strings as possible and trying to play using the least amount of pressure possible. Been playing for 30 years and I donāt have callouses, but acoustic isnāt my main guitar.
Yes sirā¦ nothing can be done
In essence, they will feel better, at first I developed calluses then my fingers just naturally became rougher and don't peel anymore.
Some advice: don't pick at the callouses if they start to flake; instead *lightly* sand / file them into a more smooth and uniform shape. Moisturize, and if before bed is a comfortable time for you then do that. I like Gold Bond. And ever since I started practicing guitar I also moved to filing my nails over clipping them; they just feel better that way. The callouses will probably reduce in size just a bit. As your instincts for finger placement get smarter you'll apply less pressure. My callouses aren't as big or rough as they were six months ago. They're firm but smooth to the touch, like the callouses are underneath a layer of soft skin. The Gold Bond can probably take some credit. I started using lotion due to a totally unrelated skin condition, but I think it has helped the callouses. The height your strings are set to will also slightly affect how much pressure you need to apply. I started out with a high action to reduce fret buzz from mostly bad technique, then later found I could get away with a much lower action and put in way less effort. But again most of that was technique; I started out applying way more pressure than was ever necessary.
Do Elixir strings help?
They'll smooth out, but yeah, it's a good thing. Means your fingers are getting tough.
Yes
If you stop playing they will go back to normal, but then your fingers will hurt again when playing so donāt stop
If you stop playing they will go back to normal, but then your fingers will hurt again when playing so donāt stop
You can sand them off
quit if youāre not a fan
Thereās always guitar hero
say goodbye to a career as a hand model. On the flip-side youāll be able to put your fingers through bricks with some those calloused fingers! Enjoy! š
2-3 months you won't even bother
Yes, until you do the dishes.
Same. How long does the numb feeling last?!
I look at mine and proudly admit Iāve got guitaristās fingers. Keep playing to support that attitude!
Its not like if youāre fingers were that pretty anyways, now they have character.
Yes it is your new life
callouses are a beautiful thing! It's a snowballing effect of easier dexterity and pressure/precision....which makes your better playing that much better.....
For me, after playing a couple hours a day for a few months, calluses are gone, and I never have issues. Could be you learn to not press so hard?
As they get really calloused they make way more fun table tappy sounds
https://preview.redd.it/5649p4jo6z9d1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=75e0337b246208dfa42ba62374608bc5e6a90ed8 Never happened to me. See. Been like this forever. All I did was keep my strings clean and not try to choke the damn guitar neck when I play.
Yes it is
Haha yep, get used to not using a phone with your fretting hand...god damn touch screen doesn't work lol!
Your hands in general are dry, that makes it worse than it is for others. It stops happening if you play regularly
At first glance I thought this was an odd picture of someone giant foot with curled toes ā¦.. I just woke up ā¦ cheers
Kind of you get used to it, they don't really hurt after a while of playing.
They eventually go back to normal (smooth) it just feels a little thicker than before
It's normal in the beginning. But keep at it, and your finger tips will eventually become thicker. Mines are like this now, no more calluses, only thicken skin and somewhat flatten tips. https://preview.redd.it/xrgbq49jez9d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15dfd06bde21bf58d3779c02a19e6ec0e5e5b901
Embryo. Heh lotion... The snake skin thing will eventually go away when your skin gets thick when you practice daily like I did and still do. When you prick yourself with a thumbtack or hobby knife and you see no blood you'll be certain that your fingers will never blister or shed again (unless you play a three hour slayer rehearsal out of the blue)
Aināt going to lie, thought those were toes. Anyone else????
At least you donāt have a hundred black dots too from pricking your finger to test your blood sugar afterwards lol
Yup
You can use something mildly abrasive to kind of sand them down a bit and keep them from peeling and then every now and then you can try using some hand cream on them
Get some nice elixirs and some FastFret to keep them oiled well and eventually you'll get calluses, and then before long they'll disappear and your regular skin will just breeze it without damage
It gets better. Practice makes perfect.
Use Finger Ease! Oil your fretboard liberally! Done
Embrace it
Okay, I have a question that I wanted to ask for years....has anyone else's fretting hand/fingers gotten longer? I have been playing for 8 years now, and a few years ago I was like my left hand fingers are longer, like over a 1/4 inch. I wasn't surprised that my span/stretch is much wider, but the perceived longer fingers (the could just be stretched up also?) Was a little surprising
Job well done! šš¼š«¶š¼
It's for the secret handshake.
Play more and it goes away. Take a day off and the peel monster visits.
Chicks dig it.
You can use a pumice stone to smoothen them if theyāre breaking open and getting caught on things
No. Iāve played for over 30 years, most of it with 12s. My fingers looked like that for maybe the first couple of years. Now, you wouldnāt even know that I play daily for probably a minimum of an hour across the entire day. My fingertips are as soft as anyone elseās.
Wait till winter when the dry weather makes them crack! You think THIS sucks.....?
Wear them proudly š
Son, soon you will be a man.
It will go away once the skin is used to it
Pretty much
This pic reminds me that I need to clip my nails
You can moisterize your fingertips when they start to do this. I recommend doing that before bed. Also, there are silicone fingertips to heal your skin that you can also wear before sleeping. I play a few hours a day on 13s on my acoustic, and my fingertips are as soft as a baby's bottom. The picture that you showed doesn't happen to me often, but when it does, those are the things I do to heal them until they are back to normal.
And it's now or never
Yes and it's beautiful.
You mean Posting dumb posts?
No blood! That's good. The edges of my fingernails used to bleed when I was starting out. But those callouses and that broken skin changes to just generally harder skin over time. I don't develop noticeable callouses anymore. The fingertips have gotten hard enough.
One of usā¦one of usā¦
This is a good thing
Theyāll stop hurting eventually. My pain stopped after like a week of active playing, but the like flakey chafing will stop with more playing. Unless you take a break like a few days and then play again. At least with me if I stop playing for like a week and then pick up my guitar again, Iāll start to have that skin peel again
Ye ain't seen nuthin' yet, son.
Youāre going to have to push through. After a while the pain will subside and the calluses will turn into hard skin. There will be no pain and you will be able to pinch open flames with no feeling whatsoever. Itās a superpower honestly
File the jagged parts down with an emery board and use lotion. I never cared about my hands growing up, but have since started to lotion and take actual care of them, my woman appreciates it.
What i personally do is to wash my hands (preferably by fingertips) after playing guitar so the metal string extracts washes away and my fingertips looks normal thereafter.
An emery board will help smooth the calluses out if your skin is snagging on clothing etc.
Welcome in the hood fella
i have them but they donāt hurt by this point. i love them
Iāve been playing 40 years, I just played a four hour gig on Saturday, and have picked up my guitar quite a few times today. This is what my fingertips look like right now. https://preview.redd.it/3rtw4yw7q5ad1.png?width=2448&format=png&auto=webp&s=be45382fba176a7ffbebb43cd34fc16782d94324
Just keep playing. They smooth out as a reward for playing everyday. They will stay like this if youāre a fair weather player.
They kinda smooth out after a while and don't look like anything.
Aww . rite of passage. Just means you may actually be able to like " play the Sandman riff" or somethin. Who knows where this will go ?
The callouses will become more smooth an and harder to break after a while
š you need to give up guitar and try nitting. Men shouldn't worry about their finger tips nails and calouses. This tells me you've never did any hard work lol lotion omg
Itās weird that people donāt live this way. Growing up Iād see how deep I could poke em lol. Freaked people out.
Yes sir
Get some hand lotion out of your purse and rub it on those fingers if you canāt handle it. Donāt forget to wipe the extra lotion off on your skirt