wrist problem

[12bar]

i've been playing for a while now and never took any lessons or anything of the sort. so inevitably my technique is no where near ideal. latly my left wrist is killing me i am certain that it has something to do with playing guitar. is there anyone out there that has similar problems or suggestions on how to fix it.

go bears
joe

[NorthWriter]

i've been playing for a while now and never took any lessons or anything of the sort. so inevitably my technique is no where near ideal. latly my left wrist is killing me i am certain that it has something to do with playing guitar. is there anyone out there that has similar problems or suggestions on how to fix it.

go bears
joe

Do you sling your guitar low? It could be that, if you do play it low, your wrist is sore from having to bend in order to play the chords accurately. That's part of why Dave Matthews always wore his guitar so high, so there's less strain on his wrist and hand, as well as more freedom of movement.

Also, I've found that if I play a lot of barre chords my wrist gets sore after a while, so sometimes I'll switch it up and play standard chords, since I have my hand in a different position to play those. My dad taught me something very smart early on in my guitar playing, and he had me learn several different ways to play the same chords. Not only does it help your wrists and hands from getting stuff, but it also can add different sounds to your music. It's pretty cool. For example, I've also got big enough hands that I can play an F like this (the numbers represent your fingers, 1 being the index finger, T being your thumb):

e|-1-|---|---|---
b|-1-|---|---|---
g|---|-2-|---|---
d|---|---|-4-|---
a|---|---|-3-|---
e|-T-|---|---|---

If none of that helps, you might want to see a doctor just to make sure you don't have something like carpal tunnel (sp?)/tedonitis. My cousin, a jazz guitarist, had that a few years back, and he couldn't play guitar for months...almost drove him crazy.

Hope it helps!
Grahame

[Austin]

If you practice bar chords enough you should be able to get the strength you need to play them. However your wrist may still hurt from your guitar being too low. But I just live through it because some chords I can’t even play with my guitar higher because sometimes I need to use my thumb and it cant reach with my guitar higher. i do get tons of hand and wrist problems all the time from this.

[12bar]

thanks for your input but i play alot of classical so i play really high. bar chords aren't a problem either. i think it might be the angle that i hold my guitar. the front of my guitar faces about two or three o'clock, so my wrist is really pronated (we'll pretend that i spelled that right). i've tried to change but i'm a session musician and i can't afford relearn to play. my banker wouldn't understand.