Preparing To Do Battle With Your Axe

October 22nd, 2005 Print Tip E-mail Tip

Though the music you play may originate in your mind, you need your fingers to broadcast it to the world. There is an athletic component to any type of guitar playing, so your fingers have to be buff. Before you start make sure of three things---your hands are warm, clean and dry.

Why warm? Because you're asking the teensy muscles in your fingers to perform all sorts of acrobatics. Unprepared cold fingers equal muscle stress and strain and problems down the road. Warm fingers mean relaxed, supple muscles. Here in Canada where it gets cold sometimes, make a mug of coffee or tea. When it cools down a bit, you can wrap your fingers around the mug and comfortably warm them up. Classical guitarist Liona Boyd uses a hot water bottle to good effect to prepare her fingers for their pyrotechnics.

Why clean? Cause dirty, grungy hands muck up your strings faster killing your tone. Plus the acid in sweaty hands corrodes the strings. And who really enjoys changing strings? Since my mother is my biggest fan, I don't have a guitar tech to change them for me, so I try to keep 'em clean.

Why dry? Because you'll rip your water-softened fingers to shreds doing that long slide on the low E string. Actually your hands dry pretty quickly, but they need to be dry in order for you to develop a formidable set of calluses on your fretting hand.

How about your nails? I keep mine pretty short on my fretting hand---no white tips showing. I usually also file them down with an emory board to smooth and round out the tips of the nails. All this helps keep the collateral noise down.

One last thing. Watch your posture. It's easy to slouch when you're absorbed in your playing, but your back's gonna get you for it. So try to sit and stand straight. Save the cool slouching posture just for the stage. Also, watch your wrists. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and Tendinitis are just funny words until you're the afflicted one and then it's just so much pain and downtime. As a guitarist you contort your wrists into some pretty bizarre configurations, so make sure your action is not too high and don't apply any more finger pressure than is necessary---bar chords and power chords are the hardest on your wrists . Jimmy Page and his Gibson Les Paul notwithstanding, the lower you sling your guitar, the steeper the angle on your wrists. Where possible keep your wrists straight. This will lessen the chances of developing CTS. Give them wrists a break (you know what I mean!).