Learning guitar

[breakingnews]

Any instrument takes days and days of practice, frustration and exhaustion before it makes any sense at all. Soon you'll notice that fingerings and chords start getting easier and much more instinctual. You'll also get very hard callouses on the tips of your finger, especially if you're playing a steel-string acoustic. That's probably the worst thing about instruments - if you stop playing for a considerable amount of time, the blisters and callouses and such come back SO quickly and twice as painfully.

So. Practice practice practice. Listen to good recordings and really get into the music. Makes it happen a lot quicker and better.

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by breakingnews

That's probably the worst thing about instruments - if you stop playing for a considerable amount of time, the blisters and callouses and such come back SO quickly and twice as painfully.

I had a friend in graduate school who maintained that the harsichord was the best instrument in this respect, because so little force was required to activate the keys.

With respect to clarinet playing, it's not really true of my fingers (though a REALLY REALLY long layoff makes the weight of the instrument seem much increased), but it's for damn sure true of the lips.