[Guitar Players] Small fingers/short hands players

I used to a very long time ago. I think I already mentioned in the other thread that I taught this kid how to play and now he is a pretty well known guy in the metal scene.

Do a youtube search for marc rizzo. I was his first teacher for about a year or so and another kid in my town took him after that. Personally I dont like the way he plays and I cant really stand his music but you cant argue with success. :)
 
assfrags said:
Your elbow should always be away from your body.
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My elbow is always away from my body. Except when it isn't.

Upon further review, the elbow pretty much never goes inside the body line.


Does anybody else have a hard time visualizing things unless they have a guitar in front of them?

Sometimes I can't think of the simplest things until my hands are actually on the guitar and then it all kicks in.

It's really odd.
 
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Merranza said:
Yeah, you know who you are...

I'm in that situation. While some say having small fingers and short hands is a plus because you are less likely to stumble on other strings and have an easier time playing the higher frets, I kinda think having trouble reaching 1st-3rd fret for power chords is quite frustrating :angry:

I refuse to quit on guitar because of this though. Those facing that same problem, what are your tricks/ways of improving? My hands are small, my fingers too and my flexibility is extremely limited. To give you an exemple, while playing Sunday Bloody Sunday (1st finger-2nd fret-G string/2nd finger-2nd fret-e string/3rd finger-3rd fret-B streing/4th finger-4th fret-G string), to go get that 3rd finger position, my 2nd often stumble between the 2nd/3rd fret on the e-string or doesn't press at the correct spot so I get a muted/buzzing sound instead. 4th finger got some more flexibility so I can reach the 4th fret but still, to achieve it, my hand is completely crisped around the neck and my palm almost touches the e-string which sometimes mutes the note. All this cramping/difficulty to relax and reaching frets also prevents me from getting some well hoped speed while playing. For my example, if I take time to place my fingers, I finally manage to play the notes, but when I try to play at a decent speed, I never can place my fingers on the correct frets to play the song normally.

Any advices to help a poor but hard working beginner guitar player? :cry:
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Al DiMeola has small hands.
Hendrix and McLaughlin ...huge fingers.
Stanley Clarke? Monsterous.

Stretching exerciese. You need a small hard rubber ball. Several would be better.
I used to place them inbetween my fingers to loosen the muscles.

Soak in hot water before playing.

Get a guitar with a tiny neck.
My es345 is perfect for that.

Then you can just really work and stretch.
I used to sit with my fingers in different chords in different positsions to get muscle memory working.

Playing a B Maj6 (third form) covers seven frets, from first finger to fourth.

Also placing your thumb dead against the neck instead of curling it around the neck will provide more stretch for you. One of Al's techniques.
 
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Anguish said:
Hand size doesnt matter if you learn how to play properly.
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No, but it helps immensely. There are always ways around certain chord voicings and scale patterns and so forth but it's nice not having to work around them.

The bigger issues are flexibility, strength and stamina. There are no workarounds for those unfortunately. It can take years of steady practice and exercises to build those up.
 
Just find some chords that span several frets - 6 or 7 - and if you have to use your other hand to put your fingers on the strings, do it. A couple of favorite chords of mine:


E:-----------------------------------------------
B:-----------------------------------------------
G:------------6---------------9-------------7---
D:--------5---------------5-------------4-------
A:----2---------------7-------------5-----------
E:-----------------------------------------------
------1---3---4-------2---1---4-----2---1---4---

You just need a chord chart. Find some neat sounding chords that are hard for you to finger, and force your hand to do that. Before long you'll be able to hit them with no problem.
 
These are, in my opinion, the best books ever written for the instrument as far as theory and fingerings go:

Guitar Grimoire Products

Scales and modes\Chords and Voicings are just unbelievably concise and easy to read. I prefer referencing them to anything I've ever found on the web. Go down to Barnes and noble and at least check them out, you'll be glad you did.

There is enough stuff in those 2 books to keep you occupied and practicing for years if not forever heh.
 
I have seen guys from HUGE body building hands with fingers like logs to small tiny fingers with some of my 6-9 yr olds.

I have small hands and I have really good stretch. I can sweep from 12 to 22 at furthest reach. Small fingers are a lot quicker than large clumsy hands but there are some things I would like to do with chords that my teacher does in his songs. He will hold jazz chords and sweep up inside the chord with his pinky flying out and hammering on notes at the highest point of the sweep. Its really cool, but hard to do with smaller hands.

I am happy with how my hands are, I hate sloppy playing so I guess my hand size is best for what I like... so it works out well, heh.
 
One thing you might concentrate on is linking your mind with your fingers and working on fretting accuracy. I have my students run chromatic scales but once 1,2,3,and pinky are down on the 1st 4 frets you cannot lift a finger until it is needed. (i.e. once the pinky is down on the 4th fret you can lift the index finger to play on the 1st fret of the 5th string, then once thats down the middle finger can raise for the 2nd fret on 5th.)

This forces you have good arch with your fingers because the remaining fingers on the 6th string will be likely to cut off the 5th string by touching it out.
 
didn't really read the thread other than the OP. i have like medium sized hands with thin fingers (lucky i guess). for finger stretching warm ups try this:

first part (skip to around 7:45, everything before it is pretty stupid):


part 2:


if you're in anyway confused by it, i can tab it out i guess. just don't kill your fingers, you probably won't be able to do the last 2 or 3 sets of the stretches for a long time. it should basically feel like your stretching the hell out of your fingers, if it HURTS, just stop. if your fingers just can't handle it at all, move up to the 12th or 13th position.

it works great for finger strength too, i don't even play the guitar anymore without first using these stretches.
 
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Sorry for not having answered all your replies yesterday or the day before, I was barely at home. <3 Thanks again for all your advice, this is one of the most informative thread on guitar exercises and I hope it will benefit to others as well. I'll work on these, and give an update in a few days on how it progresses.
 
Alvarez said:
One thing you might concentrate on is linking your mind with your fingers and working on fretting accuracy. I have my students run chromatic scales but once 1,2,3,and pinky are down on the 1st 4 frets you cannot lift a finger until it is needed. (i.e. once the pinky is down on the 4th fret you can lift the index finger to play on the 1st fret of the 5th string, then once thats down the middle finger can raise for the 2nd fret on 5th.)

This forces you have good arch with your fingers because the remaining fingers on the 6th string will be likely to cut off the 5th string by touching it out.
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This sounds like a good approach. I'm going to give that a spin.
 
Alvarez said:
One thing you might concentrate on is linking your mind with your fingers and working on fretting accuracy. I have my students run chromatic scales but once 1,2,3,and pinky are down on the 1st 4 frets you cannot lift a finger until it is needed. (i.e. once the pinky is down on the 4th fret you can lift the index finger to play on the 1st fret of the 5th string, then once thats down the middle finger can raise for the 2nd fret on 5th.)

This forces you have good arch with your fingers because the remaining fingers on the 6th string will be likely to cut off the 5th string by touching it out.
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I do this as a warm-up exercise, usually at the 5th fret. However, I don't force myself to keep those fingers down. Great idea - that'll make it a lot harder. Thanks!
 
no problem! its a really good accuracy excercise that forces you to not only maintain great finger arch but also connects you with the finger needed. The faster those synapses fire in the mind the faster you are in the long run.
 
Another thought, jazz chords can be pretty brutal as far as fingering is concerned.

Also, this lesson from the Ultimate-Guitar website is where I have gotten a few of my warm up exercises. Some of them are pretty basic, but some of the ones further down the page are pretty good for warming up the finders and working on dexterity. I've only been playing three years or so, and when I started playing I made the critical mistake of avoiding alternate picking. I've only truly been working on alternate picking for maybe half of the time I've been playing the guitar, and so I try to utilize workouts like these whenever possible to work on fretting/picking accuracy. When a riff alternate picks on the E and A strings rapidly I tend to lose a bit of clarity and its something I constantly work on.

For the record, the music forum is probably the most informative forum on TW.
 
Tuck & Patti: Tuck's Corner

Go read his stuff on picking (and playing in general for that matter).

For those who do not know who tuck andress is check out some of his stuff on youtube, granted there isnt much. Be prepared to either be totally inspired or completely crushed knowing just how incredible the guy is. After years of struggling with alternate picking (hitting the speed wall) I'm going to give his method a try and see what happens. btw, he is a total fingerstyle player ;) but his advice on how to correctly pick sounds like a revelation and i'm going to give it a go. :)
 
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