Powerchord Question

Yet another beginner question

I only recently started to play on an electric guitar.
Playing power chords seemed rather easy to me, so I never had a deeper look into how to playing them properly.
However, as soon as I tried to do some repetitive powerchord slides, I noticed that something was wrong with my left hand position, as my ring finger was about to start bleeding.
I first thought the small pain would just be my fingers getting used to the steel strings, but this can't be right

Here's how I "grabbed" powerchords until now: (sorry about the bad picture quality, cheap laptop webcams coupled with a dark room doesn't work too well)

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As you can see, I use my index, ringfinger and pinky to grab the chord, however what you can't see well is that the side of my ringfinger is touching the string, rather then the flat part because it is rotated at a certain degree. In this part of the finger, the skin is much softer, so the string starts cutting into it after some time.
Trying not to rotate the ringfinger, and pressing it flat against the string does work, but it feels unnatural, and I have trouble sliding up and down the neck if I don't rotate it a bit.

I found another way to grab a powerchord is to only use the indexfinger and pinky.
This works rather well, but sliding is a bit unstable, as there seems to be a lack of strength in my pinky.


So, should I force myself to play without rotating the ringfinger, or should I try to play powerchords with only the indexfinger and pinky?
Not using the ringfinger at all feels more natural to me then forcing myself not to rotate it.

Thanks,
Hyu

Greetings From Luxembourg

Hello GMC!

I'm 22 years old, live in Luxembourg, and study game development / media informatics in Germany.
I suppose it has been 10 years or so, that I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, but since none of my friends seem to be into it, it took me until I went to study in Germany, until I finally got the courage to go ahead with it.
I've been playing for about 3 months now, mostly on a Yamaha CG151C acoustic (which I like quite alot ).
However, since my passion for music is in a more rock/metal direction, I recently bought an Ibanez rg370dx with a roland cube 15x amp. (My parents prefered the acousic )
A friend at school was kind enough to sell me his used boss me-50 multieffect for cheap, which is quite nice
The EdgeIII tremolo on the Ibanez isn't exactly beginner friendly, but I got the hang of it now

There's a ton of awesome lessons here on GMC, it's hard not to do too many at the same time, I'm currently working on this one: http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/in-the...-black-sabbath/
while trying to improve my muting technique at the same time, as this wasn't really necessary on the acoustic.

Hyu

Muting Question

Hello GMC,

I've been playing the guitar for about 3 months now (had to take quite a long break due to school), so I'm quite a beginner
I finally felt confident that I could take a try at the following lesson:

http://www.guitarmasterclass.net/ls/in-the...-black-sabbath/

I ran into quite a problem though, which I can't seem to figure out on my own.
When moving my finger from the A string to the D string on 3rd fret (or the other way around), I get a very high pitched screamy sound when releasing the first string, just as if I would have played a natural harmonic.



For some reason I only encountered this problem on 3rd fret on the A and D string.
Since I'm a beginner, and I'm mostly trying to teach myself (with the help of the lessons here at GMC of course), is it possible that something is wrong with my technique?
Am I somehow supposed to mute the strings in a special way in this specific area?

Thanks!
Hyu