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Written by Jaron Lewis
If you’re a guitar player, you know how painful playing for long periods of time can be without fully formed calluses. Even with calluses, a few hours of hard playing could cause major pain in your fingers.
However, there are some exercises that can help you strengthen your fingers and minimize the pain of playing. String bending, a frequently used technique for various genres of music tends to cause the most pain when playing, but there are techniques to do it that won’t hurt as much.
The absolute best way to get your fingers accustomed to string bending is by practicing more. This will help your muscle memory to make the awesome string bending sound in the right pitch and help to strengthen your fingertips. It will hurt at first, but the more you do it the easier it will be. It’s much better to hurt in the practice room than at a performance.
There are thousands upon thousands of technique charts available online for just about anything on the guitar you could imagine. Proper technique is considered proper for a reason; it’s the easiest way to string bend, makes the sound you’re after, and causes minimal pain. By learning and utilizing the proper technique, you can improve your playing and make it much easier.
Listening to string bending can also improve your accuracy. By listening to the sound your trying to make, you’re training your ears to know what to listen for. This can help assure you hit the right pitch and are performing the technique correctly. Plus, by listening to songs that utilize this technique, you’ll learn in which songs string bending sounds best.
If you find yourself performing string bending in less songs, be sure you keep practicing it in your spare time. The old saying is true: if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. Make sure you continue to practice the proper technique to keep your skill level right where it should be.
String bending can be one of the most painful guitar techniques around. Utilized mostly in blues music, this technique takes a lot of effort and can cause incredible pain.
Using proper technique and continuous practice, you can toughen your fingers up, improve the technique, and be sure to make the sound you want every time. Be careful, though, because if you fall out of practice with it, it’ll start to hurt again and you might not nail the pitch you were after as well.
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