Musical Instrument Discussion

[Jerome]

That for that Gator, yes I was becoming a little over zealous and going to fast before my hand was ready, so tried slowing things down more. I've also read some interesting articles on the internet about avoiding guitar tension. I was getting some pain down my side and in my shoulder and I found some other useful advice such as : not pressing to hard on the fretboard, doing warm-up exercises and ensuring that you breathe correctly to avoid tension. I was reading an article about a guy that was such a tense player that he ended up with tendonitis in his wrist and had to give up playing. That would be so crushingly depressing, considering that it's something that could be so easily avoided with a little patience and discipline. I'm finding that there's so much more to learning than just the music. I get really annoyed with all these products out there that say things like - "Learn the guitar in 2 hours," and "Become a guitar god in 2 hours." This is utter rubbish and just sends out totally the wrong message to would-be learners.

Breathing is very important. If you 'bottle it up', then release it in one big go right at the time (where it naturally occurs) when you have to really make the instrument talk (the peak of a solo etc) you end up with an imbalance of air in your system, and that is where you make the mistakes. Sounds crazy but it's true.