Learning how to play the guitar, need help?

Question

I just got my first guitar (electric), and I thought it would be easiest if I try to teach myself now and see if I like it before I take lessons in the future. I bought a few books and dvds and all that stuff, and have spent a few weeks now practicing the basic chords. I think I'm progressing fairly well, except that with certain chords, I find it hard to keep my fingers from touching strings that aren't supposed to be touched (making the clunk sound when I strum). I don't think I have large fingers or anything like that, so is there something I'm doing wrong? I keep practicing and I still have trouble reaching certain strings and frets without touching other strings. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. thanks

Answer 1

What I did to help my fingering (ha ha, make your jokes now and get it out of your system) was to spread my hand as wide as I could, and then with my other hand, stretch and hold my fingers a little further for a few seconds. Like any kind of stretching. Also, I don't work my fingers well above my top knuckle, very hard to turn that in. When you hold the strings, you want to be coming at them perpendicularly with your fingertip, not on the part with your fingerprint. What I did was use my right hand to help my left gain control of that little piece of finger. I would try as hard as I could to bend just the tips of my fingers and then give whatever assistance with my right hand so my left would become acustomed to the motion and eventually this helped my playing tremendously. This will help you with touching strings you're not supposed to, because if you are coming straight down on top of a string to hold it, rather than coming from an angle, you are less likely to be where you're not supposed to be. Hope this helps out. Also, find some easy songs to play, even if they're not your favorites, because this will help you get used to how to switch between chords, and how to anticipate the change.

Answer 2

Try using your fingertips and not let the rest of your finger lay across the strings. Finger a D chord and pick the notes one at a time and make sure they all ring clearly. Try G, same way, then A, same way. Those are the 3 main chords in the key of D.
Now try the key of C. C, F, and G. Work on the chords until all the notes ring clearly. Try strumming 4 beats in each chord and when you change chords, try not to lose a beat, or get behind. It will take awhile to accomplish this. You can make up songs or do whatever it takes to keep interested while you learn the physical technique to produce clean sounding chords. Best of luck.

Answer 3

You're not alone. Everyone has a hard time when first learning the chords and it takes time to get your hands to do what you want them to. The best thing would be to keep trying, rest when your hands start to cramp, this is very important, and go back when you feel the old determination return. Playing once your hand hurts is NOT the way to go, don't let anyone fool you. It can lead to injury.
There are also various ways to play chords. Barre chords are the rock and roll way of getting around the harder open chords, sometimes called power chords, but this would only be temporarily satisfying as time went on. If you keep going back to the basics you'll get it.
There are charts and books that show variations of different chords if you want to try that, but the answer to your question is just Practice, Rest, and Practice some more. It'll come.

Answer 4

if your doing basic chords tough then give up hope becuase bar chords is all about barring at least 1 ore 2 frets and it hurts. the best thing to do is to go to a good local guitar place and have them lower the action. the action is the distance between the frets and the strings. you want good action to play better and get lessons because there way better in the beginning trust me

Answer 5

It could also be that your thumb should be a little bit over the neck of the guitar, so then you have way more length for your fingers. Or maybe you are just not pushing down on the string with the tip of your finger.