A big hello from England

Hi everyone

I'm Simone and I'm from Sheffield, England. Sheffield is a lovely little city in Yorkshire, we are the city of steel and The Arctic Monkeys, Pulp, Human League etc. Etc.

Playing the guitar is something I've wanted to do from being a child, I never had the guts or confidence to follow it through and so I never learned... Until now... my 30th birthday, I have received an acoustic guitar as a present! I've been practising the spider warm up exercise, my fingers hurt quite a lot. I just wanted to know if this was normal? I do suffer from an autoimmune disease which affects my joints, and I'm hoping it's not actually this that's hurting my fingers. I'm hoping someone can reassure me that this is normal for a complete beginner! It hurts to spread my fingers so wide, I'm struggling to do it but I've only had two tries so far.

Should it be hurting at this stage or is it actually quite a normal thing because the muscles in my fingers need training to spread so wide? Weird question and intro but looking forward to learning a bit more and actually playing a song one day.

Yours truly,

Frustrated beginner and

Hi Simone!

It's completely normal to feel emotional frustration, mild physical discomfort and a lack of coordination with spider legs exercises done correctly when you are a beginner. It's because we are using a set of muscles and forming new memory for them in previously unused unfamiliar territory.

Don't overdo the stretch extensions. Start easy, little and often, increasing with time as it becomes easier. Christopher Schlegel has some warmup stretching exercises you should use as well. I'll see if I can find the link in a moment. There you go. Linked above.

Everyone has different flexibility characteristics too depending upon their body type. Taking this into account, I could never stretch in warmup exercises in either Judo or Karate when I was a young man like some of my lithe bodied ectomorphic contemporaries, but neither could they match the speed or power of my punches, kicks or throws. We have the tools we are gifted with by birthright. The choice lies in what we choose to do with them, and how we use them applied to that choice. In playing guitar though, my observation is that being born with ectomorphic build and flexibility is of significant advantage.