A little background that may or may not be helpful in defining my problem, will put a TL:DR version below
My Dad had a traveling group for years and along the way they wrote a bunch of songs. Unfortunately, the "joke" was that their official stationary was a napkin. Most jokes have a kernel of truth, this one had the who bowl of buttered popcorn and a soda besides.
The result was none of the songs got written down. A few were recorded on cds back in the 80s...okay, cassettes...but the masters are lost so now we have a copy of a download of a ripped version of a copy. Shockingly, they are badly degraded.
Meanwhile, most of them have died. Dad just turned 73 and the ring finger on his fretting hand curls under so badly he essentially cannot play anymore.
Many people have asked for copies of the music so about 3 ears go I put together a group of people, started working on getting the songs written on sheet music and started studying guitar.
I also started studying music theory, wanting to learn it right.
Stop me if you have heard this one before: in summer they would have more time in winter, in winter more time in summer. Upshot is I am going to end up being THE instrumentalist on this.
So I acquired a bass guitar, mandolin, and piano (and wife got a ukulele she never plays so add that to the list) and started working on them as well.
It is too much info for a pea brain. Bright side, knowing intervals means I feel like I can pick up any fretted instrument and bang out a tune. Dark side, I sound like someone with at best rudimentary knowledge of an instrument using their knowledge of intervals to bang out a tune...
anyhow, two of the songwriters worked a ton of the "A" chord in to their work. Trying to bar the 2nd freight, my forefinger starts hurting so much it can put me off even guitar for a day or two.
that is my warning sign my technique is wrong. I had taken a course from a local recording artist to get acclimated to the instrument and take regular guitar courses, but is there a clear and obvious think that would cause the forefinger to not work barring a mandolin? point of reference, I barre the guitar routinely in E and A form and occasionally D.
TL:DR my technique on barring the A chord causes finger pain, is there something understandable to help me fix that?
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