hand size and being good.

[dchladmar]

i have been playing guitar for 8 years. i have started chalanging myself to play harder stuff that realy streches my fingers. i have fairly large hands,..( from bottom of hand to tip of middle finger is 7.5 inches. so my fingers are kinda long. it seems to me that every realy,realy good guitarist has long fingers. is this true for the most part? or do you guys think anyone can do hard stuff on the guitar with practice? from what i am gathering anyone can learn to play and play pretty good with practice but have to have atleast averige size hands to be able to pull off some wicked stuff. or a person with small hands maybee has to be faster to pull off some hard stuff?




what do you guys think?

[jsgksu]

Tim reynolds' hands are tiny...

[markTR]

A lot of Dave Matthews' songs require long streches of the fingers, and require one to slide around in that same position for a better part of the song (off hand, I'm thinking of Captain and #41). This is where someone with smaller hands could run into trouble, and even people with larger hands too. I know I personally have longer fingers, yet those stretches still give me trouble. Not because of the actual stretch itself, but because it just starts to fuckin hurt after a while.

I guess the point is, it really shouldn't matter that much what the size of your hands are. Obviously it will make it slightly easier to have longer, more slender fingers, but anyone, with a good deal of practicing, can be able to play Dave's songs well, if not efficently enough to sound good to you.

[Hydro120]

Size of hands doesn't matter. I am 5'7 and haver pretty small hands, and can play Captain/Crazy and #41 just fine. It's just like stretching your muscles. It hurt initially, but I got used to it.

Also, you don't need to play really complicated and uncomfortable chords to be a good songwriter either.

[i like tictacs]

long fingers help, but they aren't necessary.

[GSR]

long fingers help, but they aren't necessary.

what's more important is how thick they are.

[Hydro120]

long fingers help, but they aren't necessary.

what's more important is how thick they are.

you can't be serious....

[GSR]

Sharp guy, that hydro. Always thought so.

[Hydro120]

Sharp guy, that hydro. Always thought so.

Thanks. I agree.

[brian_ok]

One thing that's nice is big thumbs, for playing chords commonly used by John Mayer, to fret the bass note with your thumb. Hand size is something that is basically just an excuse though, either you have big hands or small hands, just make do (due?) with what you have.

[mangold]

woo hoo im 8"

[Kahn]

all I know is that my hand is bigger than my face

[dmbandummer]

woo hoo im 8"

TMI.

[DrumsFoDaSoul]

all I know is that my hand is bigger than my face

That means you have cancer.

[littlefriend]

all I know is that my hand is bigger than my face

That means you have cancer.

Ha! I thought the same thing.

I can play fine and I have pretty small hands (7 1/4" from wrist to middle finger) with sausage-like fingers. It's about stretching the muscles not the size. It just takes a little extra work. Look at KG from Tenacious D. Those sausaged paws lay down some pretty tasty grooves.