I'm learning the electric guitar and have huge blisters on my fingers. What can I do to speed up calluses?

Question

I'm 52 years old and bought my first electric guitar 5 days ago. I now have HUGE blisters on my first 3 fingers. I want these to turn to calluses, but they hurt so much I can only practice 10 minutes at a time now. They even hurt using the TV remote control. Is there any way I can speed up these blisters into calluses??? I popped the blisters today with a tiny pin prick. I hope I didn't lengthen the callus process by doing this. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I think if you're getting blisters you may be doing too much playing too soon.
If you're playing an electric, you shouldn't have to put so much force on your fretting fingers......try lightening up your fingers a bit on the strings.....if you find that you can't correctly play without using a lot of force on the strings, your guitar needs either the action or the truss rod adjusted......take it somewhere and get this done. (typically costs around $30 for an adjustment)
Soak your blisters in warm salt water for a while and then try playing in shorter increments.....say, start with about 1/2 hour at a time. This should help you to build the calluses and avoid the blisters.

Answer 2

Yeah, I've had the same issue. I tried crazy glue and that worked great. Only issue is, you don't really get to feel the fingers. It does help on the blistering part. I've had issues where I have 4hr metal gigs, and the gigs are back too back from Thurs to Sun and this is the only thing that worked for me. I get a peice of wax paper and put some crazy glue on it, light. I then take just my tips, and roll it over the glue. In a few seconds, I get a though skin coat, but understand, it doesn't have the feeling it use too, so it takes a bit to get use to it. PS... make sure you but the remover for the glue so you can apply it later, and never touch your guitar while the glue or remover is wet, it will damage the fretts.

Answer 3

Try a lot of string bending on the unwound strings, G, B, and E. String bending is as it sounds, you fret a string and with that finger push the string upwards (towards the ceiling) while keeping pressure on the note. This raises the pitch of that note, it can go anywhere from a 1/4 of a step higher to 2 steps higher. The higher the steps raised, the harder the bend. I only get to play guitar on weekends, and I find after maybe a total time (not all at once) of 30 minutes of playing songs/licks that include lots of string bending, I can wake up Saturday morning with calluses. If you don't know any songs with lots of string bending, just bend around the 12th fret or above and hold the bend. The harder the bends (like full bends, not half) the quicker my calluses develop it seems. Right after a lot of bending, there are lasting string indentions in my fingers (looking almost cut), but soon they toughen up. I like to bend with my ring finger and have my middle finger support behind it, it allows me to bend an extra half step higher. This also develops the calluses on those two fingers simultaneously. Blues will have a lot of string bending, so look up Clapton tabs. If blues isn't your thing, Pink Floyd and Ted Nugent incorporate a lot of string bending.

Answer 4

I don't believe blisters will just turn into callouses. I think you'll have to let the blisters heal before you play any more guitar. I'm guessing as a newbie without callouses you tend to mash your fingertips down much harder than you'd ever have to once your finger tips toughen up. It is not like the callouses you need to play a stringed instrument need to be very thick. I have been recommending the the Baritone Ukulele to friends' who's children complain that guitar "hurts my fingers", or to anyone who is frustrated with learning the guitar. The Baritone uke is more like a small guitar than it is a ukulele. It only has four strings, but is tuned like a guitar that is missing the 2 lowest strings. The chords are the same or similar, abbreviated and adapted a little(missing the A and E strings), but pretty much the same.

The baritone uke has nylon strings, therefore it is much easier on your fingers. That doesn't mean that the baritone uke won't build callouses, IT WILL, just not so aggressively. Transition from guitar to baritone uke is super easy and fun to play. From baritone uke to guitar, still pretty easy, and a lot less painful. Also, you can learn a lot from playing the baritone uke. The relationships between chords never became so clear until I started playing ukulele, and I play them like they are just small guitars that are fun to play.