As a player with small hands.....

JanekLubanski · June 2023

It was good to watch a recent TV concert of Peter Frampton. Think his finger length is smaller than mine. So..... that's Peter....Paul Simon and that gadgey from AC/DC who can inspire us hand challenged players to keep at it.

viz · June 2023

https://youtu.be/6lzxQP1cf08

Winny_Pooh · June 2023

Buy a Musicman

roberty · June 2023

I always think of this when considering my disadvantageous hand size

You can achieve anything in life with a gun pointed to your head

https://youtu.be/DeGdJgWXJ6Q

DNH · June 2023

I’m in the same boat. Don’t let it hold you back. Check out Mateus Asato - tiny hands but what a player!

roberty · June 2023

This Django Reinhardt clip has been recently colourised, you can see how mangled his left hand is. He does appear to be playing of his own free will though, and not for the glory of the Republic

https://youtu.be/Qj8lhweSIM8

digitalkettle · June 2023

roberty said:

I always think of this when considering my disadvantageous hand size

You can achieve anything in life with a gun pointed to your head

https://youtu.be/DeGdJgWXJ6Q

You'd think, having being grown in a lab, they'd have engineered large hands for them from the start (I'm veering onto one of your specialist subjects here, aren't I?).

JanekLubanski · June 2023

Winny_Pooh said:

Buy a Musicman

S'pose I could get a shorter scale guitar. I generally just bung a capo on the first fret. Shorter scale.....and I don't have the task of setting string heights at the nut

allen · June 2023

Nearly all my guitars are 24.75

I don't think I have short fingers per se, but I don't seem to have much flexibility to stretch laterally.

Although I've been convinced it's been important for a long time I recently played a 25.5 guitar and I'm not sure that I can tell the difference compared to the size of issue that I've made it in my mind.

Certainly there would be way more improvement in my playing just from practicing more.

theatreanchor · June 2023

Just play louder than everyone else.

Philly_Q · June 2023

Conversely, I always think it must be difficult for people with big fat sausage fingers to play certain chords.

Jez6345789 · June 2023

I have found just about the perfect hand size in gs mini scale or 24 inch.

I still play all scale lengths but gravitate to shorter scale with the arthritis.

I think there is a lot of macho bullshit around guitar scale length and string gauge real men play Strats with 14 gauge strings. And snooty types who like to say it will never sound right on a shorter scale.

none of that is an impediment to self expression.

for a lot of things in life if you are serious about a particular activity as you get more advanced you get something made to fit you

roberty · June 2023

digitalkettle said:

roberty said:

I always think of this when considering my disadvantageous hand size

You can achieve anything in life with a gun pointed to your head

You'd think, having being grown in a lab, they'd have engineered large hands for them from the start (I'm veering onto one of your specialist subjects here, aren't I?).

Thanks for the prompt inspo. I have some midjourney credit to burn

Philly_Q · June 2023

Jez6345789 said:

I think there is a lot of macho bullshit around guitar scale length and string gauge real men play Strats with 14 gauge strings. And snooty types who like to say it will never sound right on a shorter scale.

Heavy strings being "better" was certainly a "thing" for quite a long time - a couple of decades probably - but I think there's been a bit of a backlash recently with more people saying play what's comfortable for you. And there's always the contrary example of Billy Gibbons with his .008s.

As for scale length, I never notice much - if any - difference between 24.75" (or less), 25" and 25.5" but I'm just fart-arsing around. If I played "properly" I might be more aware of the nuances.

PetGerbil · June 2023

Have you got small hands, or are they just a long way away.?

bbill335 · June 2023

as a smaller-handed player, i'd say that nut width and neck profile are of greater importance to me than scale length.

guitarjack66 · June 2023

PetGerbil said:

Have you got small hands, or are they just a long way away.?

No. That's my playing ability!

TheBigDipper · June 2023

I've got short fingers and always envied people with long fingers for their (apparent) ability to achieve stretches that I couldn't. And then I stopped thinking about it and got on with playing the guitar using the hands I've got - adjusting my own technique to do the things that I can do well and leaving the things I physically couldn't do to other people.

I'm one of those people who really don't worry too much about scale length, string gauge or fretboard radius. It just gets in the way.

But even so, I do notice players with smaller hands than most because it reinforces the idea that hand size only matters if you let it matter. And those players don't let it matter. So neither should I! :-)

guitarjack66 · June 2023

bbill335 said:

as a smaller-handed player, i'd say that nut width and neck profile are of greater importance to me than scale length.

Yep. There is always a capo available.

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As a player with small hands.....

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