Guitars

[tooj]

I am quite elderly and I have just acquired an acoustic guitar to give me another interest.
I find the strings seem quite high from the fingerboard and I. find it almost impossible to press the sixth string down with anything other than my index finger and get a note.

Can I loosen all the strings so that it isn't quite so hard to push them down, and still tune it properly. After all Dolly Parton can play hers with long false nails and have no trouble.

Quite honestly I will lose face if I can't get a tune out of it!

Any suggestion would be quite welcome.

[anaxcrosswords]

Winner - never had to resort to that myself, but for a while I did use one of those picks that you actually slide onto your fingers (thumb, in my case). Although it gave a really nice clicky, earthy sort of sound to the bass, it had to fit very tightly, so it hurt after a while... and tended to fall off anyway!

[TheWinner]

yes, I know the one you mean.

[Tilly2]

My first effort was Jimmy Crack Corn.

[tamborine]

its the easiest song I know; Will think of more 2 chord songs to start

[anaxcrosswords]

Is "You're All I Have" by Snow Patrol a two-chorder? Or near enough?

[tooj]

I think nylon strings could be the answer but I don't know enough to swop them myself. I'll have to try and find someone. Thanks all you good people

[anaxcrosswords]

Chances are you'll have a Dawsons not too far away. Technically they're more PC World than bespoke computer shop but, overall, pretty competent. Changing from steel to nylon WILL need different set-up, so don't try it yourself. As a 'for example', when I changed my bass strings from light to very light gauge (I have to play a lot of slap/pull bass with the band) a lot of adjustment was needed to the bridge to ensure the strings were in tune from open to octave fret positions - even as a moderately experienced musician it was something I couldn't do properly.

[Owen Money]

Yes, of course you can slacken the strings, you can do what you like, it's your guitar lol.

Try lowering the tuning by a semitone or whole tone, (one or two frets) then use a capo * on the first or second fret, which will bring it back up to "normal" pitch (EADGBE).

The capo will also hold the strings closer to the fingerboard, making it easier to play. Voila!

Don't worry about all the "rules and regulations", it's just about music, if it sounds right, it *is* right lol.

When I was first learning to play (over 50 years ago now) I had a guitar that was made by my cousin in the woodwork class at school, it was absolutely awful, but I was so obsessed with wanting to learn to play that I persevered with it (much to the amusement of all my mates, hahaha) until I got my first "real" guitar, 3 quid, brand new, lol.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capo.

If you don't want to go to the trouble/expense of getting a capo, try using a biro or pencil, held in place with a strong rubber band lol. Just do whatever it takes to get a tune out of it, I wish you all the best with your endeavours, I still play almost every day :)

[Owen Money]

Oops, the link doesn't seem to be the right one, try this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capo

[tooj]

I've now got plenty of things to think about, I didn't think I would get relplies in the middle of the night, I'm ashamed to say I was in bed when some of them came through!

[jomifl]

The problem could be that the base string is not setting into the groove in the nut. When guitars are knocked out in factories it is not economical to set them up properly so this is left to the retailer, however the mass retailers don't set them up either so there are a lot of decent guitars that are unplayable because of 'economies'. As suggested earlier take it to someone who knows what they are doing, it probably just needs a bit of tweaking.

[Octavius]

I have a very nice Martin acoustic and found the same problem, it was ok, but I just wasn't getting the capable sound out of it as much as I'd like. On my guitar there is a bone saddle sitting in the bridge and I set about sanding the underside of it down gently and putting it back in over a long period until it got to the point where it was low enought to fit my style. It was well worth the effort, but if you are a starter you may want to consider a replacement saddle or just getting the advice of the shop you bought the guitar from, they may offer a lower action replacement.

[jomifl]

Just had a thought, as it is a steel string guitar it will almost certainly have a truss rod in the neck. The tension can be adjusted with the tool provided with a new guitar. The adjustment is either under the plastic cover just above the nut on the tuning head or at the base of the neck accessible through the sound hole.You will need to tighten it to lower the action.