My fingers on my left hand are relatively uncoordinated and weak compared to right hand. Really making chords difficult and taking extra time to work on strength and flexibility. Mostly fingers 3 and 4. Almost makes me wish I wouldve learned left handed. I think my left hand could handle the strumming. Takes more dexterity for fretting and such.
Plus, I had ulnar neuritis in left hand/arm when I did factory work. It mostly went away but it may be interfering with gaining strength and flexibility in hand.
Oh well, too late now. Fingers crossed I can continue to improve left hand abilities.
String it backwards and play it like one of the greatest!
Or completely re-tune the guitar in your own unique way and play it in a way no one as ever done before like personal favourite guitar player Jimmy Page. This song is played on a guitar that isn’t tuned like every other guitar player tunes their guitar. Page made it up! Genius!
Or maybe the secret is just to rename yourself to some variation of jimi/jimmy
You will get there. I still struggle with barre grips like F because it hurts my wrist. I can play such songs in between, but my wrist needs rest after a while.
I think @LilyoftheValley 's thoughts were right though. I think my instructor has me learning too many chords at once. I think I should be practicing the difficult ones over and over until I get them instead of try to learn a bunch at once.
I just know I never did that to a student of mine. It’s overwhelming and makes the student feel incompetent. It doesn’t help the student to bog them down so much. Try talking to your teacher and letting him know you’re overwhelmed and need to devote more time to the harder chords until you’re ready to move forward. If he doesn’t respect that, then I don’t respect him as a fellow music instructor. Just being honest.
I feel your pain, sort of. My left-hand pinky was always weak and uncoordinated, but obviously I had to use it for chords. But when I got into scales, I developed a way of playing that excluded the 4th finger almost entirely until moving up the neck. Now here I am in the last few years re-incorporating the pinky into every appropriate chord and scale. Believe me trying to unlearn/replace an errant technique is difficult and depressing. Like starting over, quite a humbling experience.
Like you say to kids, you will get used to it, no pain no gain. When i learned accordeon it wasn’t pleasant at all, it wasn’t my will to learn it, as they say, where is a will there is way.
I had 9 stitches in the knuckle of my left-hand middle finger = never stopped me from playing the violin. Mind over matter. Don’t be fainthearted, @Bowens
Yeah, don’t get me wrong. I am in no way giving up. I will continue to try, and I have no doubt that, in the end, I will get it. Just wishing I could fret with my good hand, instead of having to put in the work of getting offhand into shape.
Well, if it’s any consolation, all string players finger with their left. You have lots of company - violins, cellos, basses, violas not to mention ukuleles, banjos, mandolins, etc.
@Bowens I have difficulty on a full size guitar, but I do fine on a 3/4 length guitar. A typical child’s guitar might be easier for you, at least until you get the feeling down. chords requiring you to spread your fingers far apart are much easier when the distance is shortened. Unless you are doing lots of shredding at high ranges, you won’t notice a difference in sound.
i wanted to try lefty because i can play really fast intricate runs on piano with my right hand. but fretting on guitar i feel like my right hand is useless only doing the picking. ive found tho it is like starting all over to switch to left handed and i feel even more uncoordinated than with the right hand
