# Tips: Developing hard calluses on your fretting hand



## right_to_rage (Jun 11, 2009)

How does everyone keep those fingertips pressure treated, and bothered. 
I can't beleive the trouble my fingers have brought through work related incidents, and toxic chemical spills. all cheap thrills

Let me ask, does anyone take care of their fingers like a guy like Stevie ray Vaughn does when he skin grafts a piece of his right fore arm onto his fingertips with super glue adhesive?  Now thats a strange practice. What other kind of weird ways do you treat your hands in order to practice on heavy gauge strings. 
beneath


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Jun 12, 2009)

... What? Just play, and your body will sort it out. Some bassists use tape on their picking hand. One could theoretically do the same to their fretting hand, but then you don't get calluses.


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## troyguitar (Jun 12, 2009)

I just play. I do avoid playing for like an hour after I've taken a shower though and maybe 15 or so minutes after washing hands. That way I don't tear up the calluses while they're soft.


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## Metal Ken (Jun 12, 2009)

I've been playing for 7-8 years and dont have callouses on my fretting hand.


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## troyguitar (Jun 12, 2009)

Metal Ken said:


> I've been playing for 7-8 years and dont have callouses on my fretting hand.



Do you just not play for very long at a time or not use bends/vibrato? I developed mine in the first month of playing.


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## vontetzianos (Jun 12, 2009)

I also don't have hectic calluses on my finger tips, but I find they do develop more when I play for a long time, and when I play acoustic.


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## Stealthdjentstic (Jun 13, 2009)

I bite mine and chew on them


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## All_¥our_Bass (Jun 13, 2009)

I got them about two months after I started playing bass, they haven't gone away yet.


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## Excalibur (Jun 13, 2009)

I've got very smooth skin, and very smooth callouses, great for fingerpicking.


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## TonalArchitect (Jun 14, 2009)

SchecterWhore said:


> ... What? Just play, and your body will sort it out.



This .

If you must, holding out chords and sliding develops callouses pretty well, but still, let your body do the work.


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## 7 Strings of Hate (Jun 14, 2009)

right_to_rage said:


> Let me ask, does anyone take care of their fingers like a guy like Stevie ray Vaughn does when he skin grafts a piece of his right fore arm onto his fingertips with super glue adhesive?  Now thats a strange practice.



that sounds like the biggest pile of horse shit i'v ever heard


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## right_to_rage (Jun 15, 2009)

I heard that from guthrie govan, so you called horse shit on guitar jesus right there


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## 7 Strings of Hate (Jun 15, 2009)

right_to_rage said:


> I heard that from guthrie govan, so you called horse shit on guitar jesus right there



your sounding dumb here. so govan is now the history authority? grow up kid


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## Excalibur (Jun 15, 2009)

7 Strings of Hate said:


> your sounding dumb here. so govan is now the history authority? grow up kid


You're telling someone to grow up.

Pot, meet Kettle, you have alot to discuss.


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## distressed_romeo (Jun 15, 2009)

SRV did actually do that thing with superglue to repair his calluses. I've heard the same story from quite a few people. It's pretty extreme, but then the guy did play on 13 gauge strings with a high action, and had a monstrously heavy-handed technique, so...

Falls under the 'do not attempt at home' banner.


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## TomAwesome (Jun 15, 2009)

Metal Ken said:


> I've been playing for 7-8 years and dont have callouses on my fretting hand.



Are you sure? Calluses aren't always hard and scaly. When I first started playing, I developed hard, ugly calluses, but after a while, they softened, and they've been like that most of the time I've been playing guitar. It doesn't look or feel like I have calluses, but guitar strings and other things that would otherwise hurt my fingers don't bother me. Or maybe they're no longer considered calluses when they get to that point.


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## right_to_rage (Jun 15, 2009)

distressed_romeo said:


> SRV did actually do that thing with superglue to repair his calluses. I've heard the same story from quite a few people. It's pretty extreme, but then the guy did play on 13 gauge strings with a high action, and had a monstrously heavy-handed technique, so...
> 
> Falls under the 'do not attempt at home' banner.


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## hairychris (Jun 17, 2009)

TomAwesome said:


> Are you sure? Calluses aren't always hard and scaly. When I first started playing, I developed hard, ugly calluses, but after a while, they softened, and they've been like that most of the time I've been playing guitar. It doesn't look or feel like I have calluses, but guitar strings and other things that would otherwise hurt my fingers don't bother me. Or maybe they're no longer considered calluses when they get to that point.



True. The ones on my fretting hand have disappeared under the skin. Comparing my 2 hands the fretting fingertips have a lot less blood flow going through them due to this.

Time is the key, not playing when hands are softened helps, and as people have said your body will sort it out! I've tried out a couple of odd things, including superglue (without the SRV amature grafting)... this doesn't really help apart from making it really slippy over the strings!


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## vontetzianos (Jun 17, 2009)

distressed_romeo said:


> SRV did actually do that thing with superglue to repair his calluses. I've heard the same story from quite a few people. It's pretty extreme, but then the guy did play on 13 gauge strings with a high action, and had a monstrously heavy-handed technique, so...
> 
> Falls under the 'do not attempt at home' banner.


 
Well one of the first purposes of superglue was to help seal wounds sustained in battle in the Vietnam War in the 60's, so I'm sure it could work, but it definitely isn't something I would try at home.

After you play for an extended period of time, take a fair break and over time the calluse will develop.


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## scottro202 (Jun 17, 2009)

I don't think about calluses that much, I just play when I want, and my body does the rest. These days, my fingers RARELY ever hurt from playing 

(at least on the tips, if i'm doing some awkward scale run or something, they may hurt but in a different way, if that makes sense. more of a muscle pain than the aformentioned)

don't think, play!!!!


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## liquidcow (Jun 17, 2009)

You will develop the kind of callous appropriate to your playing simply through playing in your particular style, so the only thing you need to do is just practice a lot. As kind of an example, I don't play my acoustic very often, so when I do and I learn something fingerstyle which I then practice a lot, I'll get a blister or a sore spot on my right thumb. The solution to that is obviously that if I were to practice that kind of playing more often I'd get a callous there which would help.

That skin graft story is obviously nonsense, but another fairly extreme practice is what harp players are apparently made to do when they start out; they just play and play until they get blisters on their fingertips, then leave the blisters to harden so they get callouses there. Not that I recommend that.


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## Cheesebuiscut (Jun 17, 2009)

I already had some mean callouses from spending waaaay to much time on the computer with videogames and such pounding away at my keyboard. and then guitar hero 

callouses just got harder from playing guitar but rly I don't think about them when playing never really did.


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## st2012 (Jun 17, 2009)

I've played since I was 12 and I've never had any calluses on my fingers either. I play for around an hour a day usually but I've always figured it was because I rarely play acoustic guitar or any heavy gauge strings.


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## ykcirj (Jun 21, 2009)

I think the srv story is partly true...the original story was that his calluses would split or tear and he would apply super glue to his finger to hold the calluse together so he could finish playing the gig. This story seems alot more realistic in my opinion. I don't know where the skin graft aspect of the story came from though.


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## Metal Ken (Jun 21, 2009)

TomAwesome said:


> Are you sure? Calluses aren't always hard and scaly. When I first started playing, I developed hard, ugly calluses, but after a while, they softened, and they've been like that most of the time I've been playing guitar. It doesn't look or feel like I have calluses, but guitar strings and other things that would otherwise hurt my fingers don't bother me. Or maybe they're no longer considered calluses when they get to that point.



Maybe thats what happened. I dunno. I play a pretty fair ammount, at least an hour or so a day, more or less depending on schedule, go to two band practices a week, and play shows regularly. I've got more callouses from a year of lifting weights (Granted, they're on my palms) than i ever have from playing guitar. 
I cant tell if callouses are there, i've even pointed it out to people and they cant tell if there's any there or not, so take that how you will. fwiw, i also play on 26.5" scale guitars with 9/10-65/68 guage in standard 7 string tuning.


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## Mattmc74 (Jun 21, 2009)

When I only played on my electrics I never had callouses on my fingertips, after I started playing in an acoustic cover band they started to get out of hand. I have to cut them off with nail clippers and smooth them afterwords with a nail file. They would get so thick and hard I almost tore one of them off on my pinky! So I keep them in check now. I don't want to rip one off during a show.


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