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4 Frustrating Things About Playing The Guitar!
1 – Snapping a string Snapping a string can be really annoying. This usually happens for two reasons. Firstly the string is tightened during replacement to the extent that it is too tense and eventually snaps. Secondly, the string may simply be old and suffering from wear and tear. Usually it is only a single string that snaps, but this is enough to impact on the whole playing of the guitar. It also tends to be the ‘high’ E string as this is most prone to being over tightened. For some reason my G-string is also prone! As most guitar players tend to buy new strings in full sets, when one snaps this can mean having to make a special trip to the guitar store for the sake of one string! 2 – Unintentional ‘mute notes’ Although I’m a pretty experienced guitar player, I still often have problems with fretting all of the notes clearly, especially when doing barre chords. Frankly, I think that it is a result of an irreversible high action on my guitar. This is because my guitar is a low mid-range model as I have certainly noticed a difference in the ease of fretting when I play a better, more expensive model. Nevertheless, the fact is that if you are playing a cheaper model, you ARE going to have fretting problems, especially as a beginner. 3 – Grime from fingers! This is something that apparently doesn’t affect all players, but I’m particularly susceptible to it! Basically, once I’ve played my strings several times, a layer of grime accumulates on the underside of the strings and often finds its way next to the metal frets as well. The obvious solution is to wipe down the strings after every playing session, but to be honest sometimes I just forget! I stubbornly wonder why I should have to when it doesn’t seem to affect other players! The grime on the strings isn’t so much of a problem as it can always be wiped off at some stage, and of course the strings will also eventually be replaced. However, once the grime starts to settle next to the frets, it can be a real pain to remove without damaging the fretboard. 4 – Replacing and tuning strings I hate replacing strings, especially on my acoustic guitar. The first annoyance arrives when extracting the old strings as sometimes the tension causes them to become lodged under the bridge. It usually takes a lot of painful pushing from inside the guitar to finally get it out! Additionally, if you are changing each string individually as is advised, it is very difficult to manoeuvre your hand underneath the bridge to perform this task! Once replaced, it can be a pain to get all strings properly into tune as the guitar neck is constantly adapting to the tension caused by the tightening of each string. Finally, once replaced there is the need to cut off the ends of the strong near the tuning keys. I have always used a pair of old nail clippers to do this, but whilst the thicker strings are relatively easy, the thinner ones can take me ages! All in all, I love playing the guitar. It has brought me masses of enjoyment and fulfilment and will continue to do so. However, alleviating the above issues with a magic wand would certainly increase the pleasure! Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Jazztraveller is Richard Blackburn. He writes at Independent Rich about such subjects as cheap acoustic guitars and reasons to learn the guitar |
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