What are your calluses like? - Page 2

abn556 · #16 04-29-2024, 05:38 PM

I’ve had them since my early teens. I rarely think about them at all. No filing, no nothing. I just play the guitar and don’t ever do any kind of hand maintenance or exercises.

Guitar playing was always about spontaneity for me. I pick up the guitar and play whatever I feel like playing. I clear my mind and just relax and start playing with no warmup. I don’t do scales or arpeggio drills. I just go wherever my mood and the guitar want to take me. Its almost medicinal feeling how the stress of the day just melts away. Sometimes I look up at the clock and realize I have been noodling on blues improv for an hour or more.

CharlieBman · #17 04-30-2024, 09:35 AM

Yeah, I've had thick callouses for around 60 years. While I appreciate them, I don't give them much thought.

However, there was a time, roughly around 3 years ago, when I got back into play acoustic very seriously...meaning a few hours a day. In doing so, my well calloused fingers were getting sore with deep groves implanted in the callous that didn't seem to go away. While I had always setup my action via the saddle and truss bar, I had never given much thought to the slot depths on the nut. After I learned how to file these down, and indeed make my own nuts from scratch, it was a big game changer for me. First fret action now runs from .022 to .018 inches (Low E to high E) on all my guitars. I never have sore fingers or deep groves on my callouses anymore. I did have to teach myself not to use a death grip when fretting.

tinnitus · #18 04-30-2024, 10:35 AM

Calluses come in different shapes and sizes too. The fingertips you get from strumming chords will most certainly differ from those you get playing lead guitar parts to Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo or Free Ride (especially on acoustic). It's different for everybody, so there really is no right or wrong approach.

Fat finger · #19 04-30-2024, 05:31 PM

Envious. I always wished I could get those finger calluses. Professionally, my hands are coarse tools used for digging, grabbing, and lifting. Finger tips are subsequently tough as nails, but flat and squishy. Had the hardest time adjusting to my now sole ax that has small vintage frets. Fingernails are already very short, but I realized they had to be filed so short it's to the point of near discomfort, or else they impact the finger board making clean fretting difficult. In particular the pinky. I use a foam sanding block once or twice a week. If 13s and the occasional 14 sets I typically use don't grow me some callouses, they're probably not going to ever appear. Don't fear the callous! It's a feature, not a bug!

Corndog · #20 04-30-2024, 06:08 PM

I used to get gnarly calluses years ago. These days they are very light, or not there, and don't form snags or grooves. It is a product of years of playing, they just don't form much anymore, with one exception....

Once in a while I channel my inner Delta Blues man and start playing acoustic aggressively with lots of bends. That'll get 'ya calluses.

Poppa · #21 04-30-2024, 06:55 PM

I never had to worry about callouses as I played guitar (acoustic and electric) every stinking day for the past 50 + years. However, 8 years ago I got sick physically (and mentally!) and lost all desire to play guitar.

It's been two years since my brain began producing its own dopamine again. While it is nowhere near what it once was, just beginning to feel even a tiny bit of joy and desire to actually play again was wonderful.

However, due to the long time (4-5 years) I went without playing, my once wonderful callouses had turned to soft, weak flesh and I was brought back to my beginning teen years wondering if my fingers would ever stop hurting.

I'm happy to say that today, my glorious callouses are back! How wonderful to play for an hour of two with no pain in the finger tips.

My good friend is a lefty and he learned to play by flipping a right handed guitar over and playing it upside down. Very cool playing with him as his chord voicings are quite unique and finding various inversions to compliment his playing is a ton of fun. He never used a pick, just his left hand thumb. Tell ya what, the callous on his thumb is the thickest, uglyest, nastiest looking thing I've ever seen. It certainly works well for him though!

TBman · #22 04-30-2024, 07:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

My calluses are non-existant. Over the years, my fretting hand fingertips are just naturally a bit tougher.

Same here. The bigger your calluses, the worse your setup is, IMO

I've been playing on and off since 1964.

Golffishny · #23 05-01-2024, 08:34 AM

Mine are more leathery than hard. The 2 things that contribute to that are coated strings and intentionally working to fret with lighter pressure. It has also helped my speed and accuracy.

RyanRC · #24 05-01-2024, 09:22 AM

Hello all

Thank you all greatly for all the responses and per them I thought I would reply on two of the topics.

First per the setup, I am not saying it’s good or bad with all this, but I will say I am pretty anal about most things and the setup of my guitars is no expectation. As such I have bought a lot of the needed tools to work on their setup, spent a lot of time learning how they should be setup and regularly making sure they are setup and staying with in the specs the manufacturers are saying they should be.

I also have a profession Luther who is a little older than me that has been working on guitars his whole life as his dad had a music store and so that is all he has ever done for about 50 years.

So between what he does on them for me, he has taught me, and how I take care of them they stay in pretty good shape.

Having said all that, some of the high string frets on my HD-28 in the first position area of the neck are a bit worn and I have brought this to his attention and do plan at some point to have them worked on, but according to him they are nothing bad enough at all that I should worry about.

Having said that, a major playing issue I have and one I don’t think I ever will really be able to fix is my two middle fingers are just simply joined together when they get curled around to the playing position, which is ultra frustrating and something I have tried to resolve for years, but no matter what I do there has been zero improvement for this.

So especially when playing most chords, typically my ring finger is between the middle if I am lucky to more usually on the inside of the front fret of it instead of against the back. An I know again all will say just keep at as it will get better, but I am telling you as I know what a problem this is I have focused hard on it in every way possible and for years and nothing has changed it even remotely and would say that where it is now is about as good as its going to get.

Also from working with my hands all my life I have rather chubby fingers and stiff bones, and just cannot for the life of me find a way to get bar chords to work in most cases. I also have been told by an Orthopedist that my fingertips will not bend past a 45 degree angle due to how my hand is built too.

So guess where I am going here is what ever setup issues there could be, any stress and over excursion are coming far more from me and largely from things I have little ability to resolve than from the guitar. An to remind I have been at this for about 4 years, so I do feel I have assessed what is going on and what is possible for it pretty well.

So to move on to something more positive as some did discuss this, l did pick up a callus remover tool from Walgreens last night and I have to say it worked really well. Was actually pretty shocking how little work it took to get them down to where I wanted which was basically about even with the divot parts. An I didn’t do anything special first, just went at them dry.

After I played the guitar but they were still a little sore so I gave it a hour or so and for sure I can report that at least for me there was very noticeable improvement as my playing was for sure cleaner, but even more I noticed how much smoother the tones were for each note too and with much less effort to have that be if that makes any sense. As far as any added pain there was not much more than before, but I have not really had a chance to do this for long, but for what it was I felt like it wasn’t going to be an issue.

Clearly, I would emphasize this is just me and how this is going for me and that it remains to be seen if this is a good way to handle things for just me, but if someone else is in the same boat as me and feels like trying it, it could be an option but for sure want to add that without going over all the things that could make this longer, I would not think this is a good idea for dealing with your first callus as that is not my case, just more as you may have double up on them like me for some reason and they don’t seem to be going away naturally.

As such if its of any help, below is a link to the tool I used and would note not only was it the cheapest one I saw there but worked really well and I liked how the back side had a emery surface for the final polish, and that its metal side as it could be removed for cleaning could be flipped in the other direction so you are not just going at things one way.

https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/wa...346145-product

Thanks again for all the reply’s and if its helpful I will report back in a few weeks to post how things are going.

foxo · #25 05-01-2024, 09:27 AM

Became unnoticeable after a year or two of playing. I only generally play once a week now but don’t experience any pain.

Charlie Bernstein · #26 05-01-2024, 09:40 AM

I've been playing since 1968, and by now mine are smooth, tough, and invisible.

You'll find it happens time — not right away. You'll shed lots of dead skin before your fingertips develop the smooth, tough surface that makes playing easy. It can take years.

The more you play, the sooner it'll happen. As long as it doesn't hurt, you're okay. If it does start to hurt — say, from an open wound — ease off and let it heal. Otherwise, you don't need to give it another thought.

Charlie Bernstein · #27 05-01-2024, 10:17 AM

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