Chord Question... With Short-Finger Adlibs...

Without seeing your hands it's hard to say but it should be possible, you might have to adjust the chord shapes you use to some degree or learn to live with the muting effect. It might be possible to find a guitar with a neck that agrees with your fingers more (slightly different scale length etc) but short and fat fingers kind of limits your options, EVERYONE feels their fingers limit them early on, you've been playing long enough to be beyond that point but with time maybe it will improve. If you are significantly overweight you might be able to make a difference in your fingers by losing some but this is all grasping at straws. Step one is probably to try various guitars in stores to see if something else might work better. Maybe post a pic of your hand splayed out with a ruler or something. For most people more practice usually cures the problem (I find my worst chord evils are when my finger is close enough to cause a harmonic vs actually muting a string...).

Without seeing your hands it's hard to say but it should be possible, you might have to adjust the chord shapes you use to some degree or learn to live with the muting effect. It might be possible to find a guitar with a neck that agrees with your fingers more (slightly different scale length etc) but short and fat fingers kind of limits your options, EVERYONE feels their fingers limit them early on, you've been playing long enough to be beyond that point but with time maybe it will improve. If you are significantly overweight you might be able to make a difference in your fingers by losing some but this is all grasping at straws. Step one is probably to try various guitars in stores to see if something else might work better. Maybe post a pic of your hand splayed out with a ruler or something. For most people more practice usually cures the problem (I find my worst chord evils are when my finger is close enough to cause a harmonic vs actually muting a string...).

Well Mate, I read this, and was going to do it, but my camera seems to have vanished... ( Electronics certainly do have a way of dissapearing when you need them :( )

However, here are some explicit measurements...

Index Finger : 2 3/8"
Middle Finger : 2 5/8"
Ring Finger : 2 1/2"
Pinkie : 2"
Palm ( from the bottom of my hand to the bottom of my middle finger ) : 3 5/8"

I hope that helps...

I think this is a very common problem among noobs. In all probability its not that your fingers are to short (heck even little kds can play guitar), its more how you hold your fretting hand. Concentrate on your fretting hand and form it so that only the tips of the fingers touch the strings, then you won't be muting the adjacent strings. OTOH if that don't solve the problem, maybe your fingers are to short and you need to find a guitar with a thin neck :D

Shoohead, you and I have basically the same hand size - it really has little to do with it. Everyone thinks they are limited by their hand size, the fact is, it's just a really tough instrument :P

I'll agree that you have short fingers. I had overlooked the possibility that you were using the 'pads' of your fingers instead of your finger tips, and that would make sense that you could be doing this if you can't easily reach the strings. Either way sounds like a trip to the guitar store to see if there are any smaller necks that might help. If you are already using the tips of your fingers I'm not sure what your options are then.

Shoohead, you and I have basically the same hand size - it really has little to do with it. Everyone thinks they are limited by their hand size, the fact is, it's just a really tough instrument :P

+1.

It's tough at the start. My fingers aren't short and fat, but they're quite broad and large. When I started there was no way I could stop from muting strings. In fact I abandoned the steel string and bought a nylon string classic guitar to learn on for the first few months, just because the fretboard is so much wider and I had more room.

Some acoustic steel strings, like Seagull, so have a neck that's a bit wider than others. But basically you just learn to adapt over time and make tiny adjustments to the position and angle of your fingers. But each time you learn a new chord you have some of the same difficulty. I can now play a heap of open position chords fast and accurately, and some barres. But I'm currently working on a few new barre chords, and for some of them it's back to "Impossible!!" :shock: for a few days or weeks. The difference now is that I know that if I put the time in I'll succeed. 8)

Good luck.

Chris

All players have problems muting strings by accident at first, in time you will play chords clean. The main thing is to arch your fingers over the strings, not lay them across. Here is a good example:

You can see that the fingertips approach from above, not lay across the strings. There are times when you do lay your fingers flat across the strings as when you barre a chord, or partial chord. But otherwise, arch your fingers over the fingerboard.

Just practice by holding a chord and playing each string individually. This is pretty normal and how almost every player learns at first. You will learn to fret chords cleanly in a short time and it will seem easy. Just takes practice.

Keep practicing. :D

you really should have your thumb lodged square behind the neck of the guitar...
i dont though...and i dont have this problem...i do however have spider leg fingers!! long and very skinny, really useful for songs like john mayers where the chords are...um...interesting...

I've got small fingers/hands, but one of the guys in our band has these short, fat little sausage looking fingers (no offense intended for those of you who might also have short, fat little sausage looking fingers!) and he can play the tar out of his guitar!! ColeClark is exactly right in saying that your thumb should be in the center of the neck. In some cases, though, I have to move my thumb practically to the bottom of the neck in order to form the chord and allow enough distance between my palm and the strings. It's only natural to try to hang your thumb over the top of the neck, but those of us with shorter fingers just plain can't do it! Try new thumb positions until you find what is going to work for you to keep you from deadening those strings.

EDIT: I found a picture of David's hand as he's playing. Note where his thumb is at the back of the neck.

Hi,

I think that the difference between thumb positions in Wes picture and Elecktrablue's is largely due to what is being played at the time, and that both are OK. I don't believe that it's either necessary, or particularly comfortable to have your thumb always behind the neck.

David is playing a barre chord in the 2nd picture. For those you do need to move your thumb round to the back of the neck as he is doing. But if you watch electric guitar players either live or on Youtube you will see that almost everybody (including the "masters") move their thumbs around as required. And mostly their thumbs sit alongside the neck, not behind it.

If you are playing 'Classical guitar' then the story is different. There is a whole posture and style of playing for which the "thumb behind the neck" is pretty much insisted on by classical teachers. If you sit in the correct classical posture you'll find that the balance and stability of the guitar is different and the thumb feels more comfortable behind the neck. It also feels 'right' for that style of music, and seems to give more control and access for the fingers to cope with the particular demands of that kind of playing.

However, if you switch to holding the guitar in the more casual way that rockers do then it can feel quite awkward and unnecessary to use Classical methods. I don't feel that I need to keep my thumb behind the neck all the time just because Segovia liked it that way. If I play my classical guitar in the 'proper' position it feels fine. But when I tried to carry it across to playing rock style I ended up with bad thumb pain and had to stop playing for a couple of weeks. I now play using the same casual style that pretty much everybody else does - thumb wherever it feels comfortable depending on the job it's doing at the time.

It's good if you can master the thumb behind the neck, because it's handy for many things, but don't be bullied into thinking you must play like that all the time.

That's how it seems to me anyway. Others may be horrified or disagree! :D

Cheers,

Chris

Not horrified, and don't disagree! My response came from 15 years as a short fingered guitar player! ShooHead's point was that he has short fingers and deadens strings, therefore, IMHO, he's got to adjust what he's doing with his thumb, whether it's in the middle of the neck, at the bottom of the neck, or even hanging over the neck. He's got to find that (or those, if you prefer) positions that allow him to comfortably form the chord without deadening strings. If you happen to be blessed with longer fingers, then this isn't something you'll ever really have to consider. Just do whatever sounds and feels right, exactly as you said. But, if you're stuck with shorter fingers and smaller hands, this becomes a very important matter! If a short fingered person tries to emulate what a long fingered person does with his/her guitar, it's not necessarily going to work in the same manner, simply because the reach is not there. And the thumb position is the key to the whole thing for short fingered players. And, you're absolutely right in saying that the thumb moves around the neck according to what you happen to be fretting. I'm all over the place. BUT, in general, my thumb is in the center of the neck, for barres, it's all the way to the bottom (even further down than David's in the photo, you would be able to see my thumbnail). And I manage to hit every other position possible on the back of the neck at some point! I even occasionally (well, rarely, actually) pop my thumb over the top of the neck. But it never stays there long because it impedes my chording because of my small hands and short fingers! I wind up deadening strings with the fleshy part of my palm. Which leads us back to ShooHead and his problem with deadening strings because of his short fingers!!

And, ShooHead, I measured my fingers against yours and this is what I came up with.....

First Finger = 2-5/16"
Middle Finger = 2-1/8"
Ring Finger = 2-3/8"
Pinkie = 1-13/16"

So my fingers are just ever so slightly smaller than yours. I just can't help but think that what's been working for me will also work for you, all things being equal, so to speak!

.....:D

Welp, as an update...

I finally found my way with the C chord ( which inspired the original post ), without muting any strings, along with mostly any other open chord...

Now... moving onto the barres.

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Question-

I have a book that lists finger positions for the various chords, and I've noticed for a majority of them, there can be up to 2 or more configurations for forming the same chord... Is there any difference between them, as far as functionality or theory goes, other than just a slightly different sound?