Learning bad habits?

R J · #1 December 9th, 2007

Hi, so, I got my guitar on friday and have been practising lots since. I have learnt 4 chords and can now move with resonable quickness from G to Em, but as I have found it diffiucult to continually practising chords due to my fingertips hurting to much after about 15 minutes, I decided to try to pick out a few melodies as I find this less taxing on my fingers + it adds variety to stop boredom setting in. So far I have managed to pick out the melody for most of Mad World, a verse of Tears in Heaven, verse of Fields of Gold and Silent Night. But what I am worrying about is that because I am doing this by ear and working out the next note could I be teaching myself to do pick out melodies wrong, i.e which finger I use to fret and which strings I use? As I dont want to begin with bad habits as it will be even harder to erase them later. Also, I am using a plectrum to pick should I be using my fingers? Or is it a matter of preference? Hopefully all that made a little sense! Any input suggestions will be very welcome, thanx.

allthumbs · #2 December 9th, 2007

Picking out melodies by ear is an excellent practice that should be developed by all players. Once you have learned to read tab, you can check how well you did.
It is normal to have your fingers hurt for the first couple of weeks or so.
A pick or fingers are both ok. Kirk's lessons here are finger picked so you might want to, at some time, consider hybrid picking if you chose to play with a pick. Some people learn to play with fingers and pick too.
It takes about 30 days to make or break a habit so you have time to read through some of the info on this site to get a feel for what to look out for. The only thing at this point, I can think of, that would be relevant for you is to keep your thumb, more or less under the middle of the neck. You will have much more freedom of movement than having your thumb resting on the side of the neck.

R J · #3 December 9th, 2007

Thanx allthumbs, its good to know I'm not doing anything majorly wrong. I'll check out the lessons you suggested. Oh n thanx for such a speedy reply!