Richard Hawley

My son wants me to try to teach him some chords on the guitar, we have got an old acoustic which i would like to restring with strings suitable for his fingers, can anyone suggest which gauge i should get, and allso nylon or steel, any advice we would be grateful for.

It depends on what sort of guitar it is really. if it is a classical style guitar don't put steel strings on it but a set of steel/nylon), if it is a folk guitar get some light guage steel strings, sorry not to have been more use but difficult to say without seeing the guitar.Good luck

Thankyou very much for the advice, going to get nylon.

Restrung the guitar with Nylon/steel strings, got him Mel Bay guitar method 1 with DVD, just got to keep reasuring him the soreness in his fingers will improve if he sticks at it, i told him to play the guitar no more than half an hour per day and eventually his fingers will get stronger and tougher, am i right or anyone got any other advice

Sounds good advice to me, and nylon is definitely easier on the fingers. Try to keep his interest by finding some easy songs he will enjoy playing. I started with Puff the Magic Dragon, easy to play and sing along to. I find Oasis song easy to play.

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Love is so hard to find
And even harder to define

If it's kids we you talking about. This may be relevant.

http://www.richardhawleyforum.co.uk/vie ... hp?t=13519

Some imput from the boss also.

Yep thanks, he is only 10 , dont want to put him off by sore fingers, we are taking it slowly, we have just started Mel Bays book 1, he seems keen enough but its early days yet.

My eldest is 7. I started him on this one.

http://www.melbay.com/product.asp?ProductID=93833bcd

They are familiar with the little songs from school.

B flat barre chord is doing my head in tonight. Any tips? Seem to have twisted my blood trying

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The heartbeat doesn't change, only the faces surrounding it.

How are you playing it? Are you playing it with a flat index finger and then one finger squashed over three strings, or flat index finger and three separate fingers on separate frets?

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http://www.nickbarberphotography.co.uk

I'm playing it like this

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The heartbeat doesn't change, only the faces surrounding it.

...so with separate fingers - try using a single finger (the wedding ring one next to the little finger) to do a mini-barre over the 2/3/4 in that diagram. It depends on finger size as to what works best - if you've got thin finger ends, then the version you've shown will be fine, but if you've got fat, stumpy fingers like me, then a bit of cheating might not go amiss.

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http://www.nickbarberphotography.co.uk

I've got rather small thin hands , so tend to use the diagram version. Sometimes works better if I pull a face

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The heartbeat doesn't change, only the faces surrounding it.

Either way is painful, I've found....

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http://www.nickbarberphotography.co.uk

Think I'll resume playing in the morning, as I have now started grinding my teeth..

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The heartbeat doesn't change, only the faces surrounding it.