When your first learn to play guitar it can be pretty rough on your left hand.
Now as you get better, learn better techniques, how to place your fingers
properly, how to angle your wrist it's going to get easier but it really helps
to have a guitar that's working for you. What I mean by that is that it's as easy
as to play as possible. This is especially critical when it comes to
learning barre chords because it takes a lot of strength and proper technique
from the get-go even with a guitar that's easy to play. There's two aspects
to making a guitar easier to play. One has to do with the strings of the guitar
and the other is what we'll call an action adjustment. Action being how high
the strings are off the neck of the guitar. Now there's no exactly right or
wrong action that depends on the style on the guitar but in general if the
action is lower it's easier to play all the way down to where it's too low and
it starts buzzing and making weird sounds. So let's talk about the strings
of the guitar. First of all, most guitars come with what we call a light gauge
string. Now that actually is in the middle. You would think that would be
called medium but no it's extra light, light and medium so light gauge is like
in the middle. You could start off by trying to put extra light on your guitar.
Extra light will be easier to press down. They're gonna be a little less loud not
this projecting as heavier gauge string and more likely to buzz especially if
you hit them a little bit hard but it's a fair trade off. The next step might be
to try electric guitar strings because they're even lighter. Now the sound
quality starts going down quite a bit when you try that but I've seen students
do that and of course over time as they get more confidence and more technique
they start putting heavier gauge strings on the guitar. Now that said a good
option for many beginning guitar players is something called silk and steel. This
is kind of a hybrid string and it's much easier to press down. It's sort of made
of metal and then the thicker strings have some nylon in them. You don't see it.
It's in the core of the strings. They use a fairly thin strings on the higher end.
You might like them. I don't think the sound is as great as regular acoustic
guitar phosphor bronze strings but you'll be the judge and I think it is a
great trade off. You could always of course put different strings on as you
get better on the guitar. So the second thing is to
consider is adjusting the action. There are several ways to do that. I'll tell
you right up front that I usually have a guitar repairman do that for me. I don't
take the chance of messing up my guitar but there are some things that a lot of
guitar players do themselves. I at least mention them. First of all to lower
the strings of the guitar you can adjust it by lowering the nut that's this part
of the guitar or the bridge saddle which is this part of the guitar. And to do
that you would usually buy a little smaller nut or sand it slightly. You see
the risk? If you go too far and you don't like it you can't really go back unless
you have a several versions of the same nut. Now the other issue is you can
adjust what we call the truss rod. There's a metal rod inside the neck of
this guitar and as you tighten it it'll adjust the bow of the guitar neck. Now
this usually does bring the strings down. You can bring the strings down a little
bit but if you bring them down too much again it's going to buzz at some point
on the guitar. Finally a more in-depth adjustment would be to adjust the frets
themselves. A good repairmen can sand the frets make them even so when you do
these other adjustments it's easier to get it lower without it buzzing at one
place or another. Again I prefer somebody to do this but knowing this is possible
you can try making some little small adjustments like maybe just another
guitar. I would recommend if you want to try it yourself watch some good videos
on YouTube and as a matter of fact I found a good one that explains in more
detail what the possibilities are and I'll put a link to that so you can watch
that if you're so inclined. Thanks for joining me, I'm Tomas Michaud. If you
enjoy my style of teaching you'd be a good candidate for my Real Guitar
Success Academy I'd love to see you there. I'll put a link somewhere in the
description so you can check it out . See you again soon.