The fingers on my left hand look as if they have just been through a war and did not fare well. Skin is flaking off each finger like they have been placed against a belt sander and were deprived of moisturizer. The indentations on each finger tell me that I have not been practicing enough. A true player does not have indentations, but rather calluses. After this brief pause from practice I once again place my fingers back on the strings ready to put them through another torturous round of scales. The strings at this point feel less like strings and more like rebar. The heavier strings are coarse like the side of a quarter which causes the skin to flake away. This however is not the cause of the pain. The pain comes from the playing of the lighter thinner strings. It is as if they know they have been neglected and are trying to get back at me for the weeks and months they have sat motionless. I thought playing guitar was supposed to be fun not painful.
My index, middle and ring fingers share the brunt of the abuse shown to them by the unforgiving guitar strings. The pain is manageable with these three and allows me to play without stopping for several minutes. I cannot say the same for my pinky finger. The poor little finger that gets the least amount of use during many songs is usually reserved for the faster playing on the lighter strings. These strings are pulled taught and require a fair amount of force to hold them down to produce any sound. At times the pinky is no match for the relentless strings that immediately imbed themselves into the soft skin at the tip of the pinky. I quickly stop again and inspect my smallest of fingers to reassure myself that I did not just slice it on the razor like string. “You MotherF…!” I have to stop myself from audibly swearing at my guitar. My frustration is growing and I need to remind myself that my guitar is not a living organism with an attitude. It is not pissed at me for not having played it in many days and is not purposely trying to draw blood from my fingers.
I lightly place my fingers back into position and the soreness from my pinky comes screaming back with the slightest touch of the strings. The massiveness of the pain could only be described as a needle piercing the skin after it has been rubbed raw by the constant friction of wound nickel. I guess this means that practice is over for the day as I do not want to further experience the shooting pains as they run up my finger. How did my pinky finger become my Achilles heel of guitar playing? How much continuous playing must be done to get past this stage of development? Is the pain threshold of my smallest digit the wall between me and guitar God status? I shall ponder these questions and others as I put my poor little pinky on ice.
