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i was just wondering how much you guys (& gals) practice on the guitar. i have been reading several sites that say you should practice at least 5 hrs a day, other that say one day on one day off and some say as much as you want.
i struggling to play for an hour without my fingers starting to ache and my thumb blister! i know that my fingers will toughen up and my left finger tips ar4e starting to callus so the pain is not oo bad but my right thumb has blistered every time i practice my pulgar technique
try a bit of vaseline on the thumb to reduce the friction, may ruin your strings quicker but thats the trade off.
another flamenco i know rubs a tiny amount of olive oil on his hands after practice to "moisten" up the hands as constant hitting of the strings removes the natural oils in your finger tips and thumb. also he said it help recovery, i think he got the idea from sabicas or nino ricardo.
i striggling to play for an hour without my fingers starting to ache and my thumb blister!
just play for 45 mins then! but do it maybe for 45 mins once or twice per day...gradually you will find over weeks and months that you can play for longer, but don't push it and strain something. i try to have one day off a week when i don't touch the guitar, but it doesn't always happen that way!
personally i like to do technique/scales/exercises etc in short bursts of only 20 mins or so, but if i'm learning something or making something up it could be hours on end....
i use to play a lot. untill i started to work 2hrs and 20 min (oneway) from where i live Basicly im traveling to or from work the time i normaly would practice.
together its 4hrs and 40min!! Lucky for me teaching guitar is my job or i´ll only get 30min each day or something...im not very happy about this....
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This is hard stuff! Don't give up... And don't make it a race. Enjoy the ray of sunshine that comes with every new step in knowledge.
well, we could start an entire thread just on that topic alone.
Lot's of folks love D'Addario Pro Arte strings. I find the bases a little rough for me. But I love the trebles. I prefer other brands such as Labella, Luthier and Savarez. There's lot's to choose from. Do you know about this website?
like i said, it's not just the strings, but also the guitar, so the same strings sound and feel different on different guitars.
Someone asked Gerardo Nunez what strings to use and he said something like "don't use flamenco strings, they're crap, use classical strings" but my memory is a) crap and b) imaginative, so don't trust anything i say....
like MarkMc says, lots of people use D'Addario Pro Arte, but others use Labella, Luthier and Savarez. I have mostly used D'Addario Pro Arte or Savarez, but have found La Bella strings pretty bad on my guitar, but then i didn't take Gerardo's advice, and tried La Bella flamenco strings, so for all i know their classical strings might be ok. You really are gonna have to try several brands in several tensions and see which you like best in sound and feel.
I checked out the strings by mail site, and there are many string manufacturers, or should I say "marketers".
How many real string manufacturers are out there? Does anyone know? It would not surprise me if there were only a couple and most are made in Taiwan or something and just repackaged under different labels, with minor tweaks to separate the brands, including adding colours. Always the sceptic am I .
For example, this happens a lot in cycling, with a one or two taiwanese companies making the bulk of the frames, and some manufacturers selling the exact same frame under a different brand label
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Lucky for me teaching guitar is my job or i´ll only get 30min each day or something...im not very happy about this.... 
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