The current bane of my existence

The D-major chord. It’s the first chord shown on this page. Doesn’t look to bad, does it? Let me tell you, that’s not much space to fit three fingers in cleanly without the third finger (the one on the third fret) touching any other strings. Grr. A clean strike of that chord has eluded me in the nine days since I’ve started playing. I have a handful of other basic chords down and can even switch between many of them fairly cleanly and quickly (relatively), but that damn D chord…

KHAAAAAN!

Ahem, sorry.

In other news, I’m getting better used to the sound of strumming. I’m not doing much with rhythm yet (and hence have yet to actually be able to play a song), but I can strum a simple beat without dropping the pick in my guitar or on the floor. The grip is becoming less unnatural.

Dr. 7 (my roommate) has decided that me playing guitar (or, more particularly, my shyness about playing guitar) means that he now has a source of endless entertainment. He walks through my room waving his arms like he’s at a concert or as though he’s holding up a lighter. Fucker. Apparently I am not his first roommate to endeavor to play the guitar, poor fellow.

My fingers hurt less, and I’m definitely getting stronger in the wrist and fingers, because I don’t feel as though I have to exert as much effort to get a clean sound on the chords I know.

Unfortunately, I have to actively saw down the fingernails on my fret hand, which kind of sucks, since I finally stopped biting my nails enough to be able to grow the fuckers out. (Ah, the joys of stress management.)