Alcohol and calluses

1. I heard applying alcohol (etilic) on your fingers 2 or 3 times a day for a few weeks will dry your skin, thus hardening your skin. What do you guys think?

2. I've been practicing all day and my fingertips are obviosly red and hurt, but should I keep practicing right now or let it cool off until tomorrow?

Originally Posted by: OMNIA71. I heard applying alcohol (etilic) on your fingers 2 or 3 times a day for a few weeks will dry your skin, thus hardening your skin. What do you guys think? [/QUOTE]

Getting callouses the 'easy' way is not advisable, I think. By using alcohol, you are unnaturally drying and damaging the skin (thus why it dries hard). While 'naturally' made callouses also are to protect the skin from damage, they are not made by starting damaging the skin. Overly dry skin is damage.

[QUOTE=OMNIA7]2. I've been practicing all day and my fingertips are obviosly red and hurt, but should I keep practicing right now or let it cool off until tomorrow?

Just don't overdo it. When I'm rebuilding my callouses, I play until they are 'slightly' tender. You shouldn't want to 'play through the pain' in the case that you get a blister that stops you from playing for a week etc.

If it hurts to play, you shouldn't. Building a callous will come naturally. I've seen a few posts like these lately, and I think people are trying to "rush" building callouses. I say don't even think about it. Just play normally, if it hurts too much take a break. If its tolerable, keep on playin :D

Better to play in shorter sessions, imo. Building callouses is a process, not an event. Just like learning to play. :)

Blisters are bad in two ways I find: First, it might be too painful to play, so you are simply out of action. Second, after the blister dries and hardens it (in my experience) eventually rips the now-unattached blister part, leaving raw skin to begin callousing all over again, plus, the hard edges of the torn skin that is left catches annoyingly on the strings.

I had a friend who used to like keeping moisturizer on his finger tips to keep them softer. At that time, I was firmly opposed to the idea. I wanted cement fingertips! When I picked the guitar back up this time, I decided to try that, since cement fingertips really messes with my typing ability (I'm a programmer, so I do that quite a bit). I would swear it caused me a blister.

I stopped using it and began building 'normal' callouse and didn't have any blister problems after that. So the best thing is pure and natural as far as I am concerned. :)

Took me awhile to build up callouses. When I first started playing I would practice everyday till my fingers hurt so bad I couldn't play anymore. I just couldn't help myself. Took about a month that way. Now I have skipped almost a week and them suckers aren't going anywhere. Don't forget you can incorporate reading about theory and such in your practice routine when your fingers hurt but you still want to keep learning.

I did notice though after a week or so without playing an acoustic just electric that when I did pick up the acoustic my fingertips would know it. However it was nothing and I mean nothing like in the beginning.

Long story short I wouldn't try to rush it it is just part of the learning process. Once built up you can play all day without any tender nous. Good luck,

Ed