[starsailor]

Originally Posted by ouchiefingers

Thanks Chris, so practice, practice practice!
I bought an ibanez electro acoustic talman guitar because it is small & i thought it would be easier to begin with.
Yes, i read somewhere that nylon strngs are better to learn on & I considered changing the steel strings because by the 2nd day my fingers where really sore....they are much better now.
...I am definately hooked though & hope to have many guitars too!

I know what you mean about strumming...i'm ok with my fingers but when i use a pick it sounds pretty bad!
..its only been a couple of weeks but i am impatient!
Thanks for the kind welcome

Hi ouchiefingers, Nylons are great for practicing fingerpicking or for someone who wants to get into Spanish, flamenco guitar, but I actually improved more once I got on the steel string, it was painful but as you know it does get better the Talman's a nice guitar, probably cost more than all mine put together, my friends that play keep having a go at me for buying cheap guitars so I've promised to save up for a really good one, I reward myself with a new bit of equipment if I think I've improved enough.
I'm not very good with a pick, I practice with one but I'm much better without it so I just play with my fingers and keep my nails a tiny bit longer on my playing hand, playing with fingers or a pick is a personal preference really in my opinion a player should choose the way that feels most comfortable so I use my fingers and practice with a pick, a bit of variety's good.
It is uphill for a while but once you get the hang of a few chords and get some changes down it gets better, I personally felt I was going nowhere for ages but the change to being able to play a few tunes comes out of nowhere, with the strumming I really was rubbish but one day I just got it, sometimes I make a lot of progress and sometimes I run up and down on the spot for a while, I'm learning scales at the moment just to make things more interesting and I do a bit of songwriting which also gives me a challenge as I have to find a tune to go with the song, with varying degrees of success.
You have to be a bit patient I'm afraid, if you're getting a bit fed up just come on here, the members here are a great bunch of people.

Cheers

Chris

ps. One of my faults is I tend to go on a bit so sorry for the long post