any thoughts on techniques to toughen fretting fingers

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Ron Carter

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Been playing for just over a year. Milling wood for my second build when I caught the first two fingers of my left hand in the table saw. Stupid blunder on my part. Those fingers survived but will never be able to fret strings again. I restrung my ukes for left hand play. The chord shapes are coming along nicely with the right hand but I have no calluses. Anyone have thoughts on how to expedite callus formation other than 6 months of regular playing?
 
Based on personal experience, if you play acoustic guitar, you'll start feeling the callus in about 2 weeks, and after 1 month it'll be noticeable, and after 2 months the callus will have flattened your finger tips and they'll be capable of fretting chords impossible before.

I've heard people using credit card edges or other stuff to press their finger tips, but I've never tried any of them. I guess it can't hurt.
 
Just play every day. Even if it's just for 5 minutes. Even if you don't play a song. Just strum some chords and do a bunch of chord changes. Make your fingertips work a little bit. It really doesn't take much.

It won't take 6 months. Maybe a month or two.
 
Sorry to hear about your accident. It's great that you are able to switch hands. Best of luck with you relearning the muscle memory. It's a challenge.

When I first started to play uke, I strummed my old steel string guitar and made familiar chord shapes on the last 3 strings and did runs up and down those strings. Every day, or several times a day. Especially when I was watching TV by myself. Within a week I had proto-calluses. After two weeks they were fairly thick and established.

When I was watching with my wife, I just did the runs without picking the strings.

If you don't have a steel strung instrument, just do runs on your uke as often as you can. The calluses will develop a little slower, but pretty fast overall.
 
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It took almost 6 months last time, before I could play over an hour without some finger discomfort. Progress is being made daily but I was just wondering if there was some magic bullet I wasn't aware of. Thanks for the replies.
 
Rent a mandolin. Fastest way to calluses....... Seriously though, sorry about the table saw accident.
 
Practice fretting notes around the fifth frets of the neck on down. Fretting near the nut will be more difficult for a while. As you develop calluses you will be able to handle fretting close to the nut.
 
Play more frequently but in short sessions. Keep playing. Don’t press too hard, lower the action to help.
 
Install wound G and C strings, if you like low G tuning. I find the course texture from the wound strings really speeds up callouses. At least for your first two fingers ;)
 
Do play mostly low G with wound G strings. Action is low enough to flirt with buzzing. Strangely with the two bum fingers decent strumming is as hard to come by as decent fretting. Making progress every day and will get back to my prior level of playing eventually. Wasn't all that good but sure enjoyed it.
 
Aside from Django with three fingers, I can also think of Jerry Garcia missing a finger, and Tony Iomi playing with a prosthetic fingertip. You got this!
 
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