I have a Squier Strat, and seem to be having a hard time with the fingering on many chords. My fingers always seem to touch others. I was just wondering if the strings are any closer together on those than other guitars? I was looking down the road, and have been eyeballing an Ibanez S series, which has jumbo frets, but that's just the width of the fret, and has nothing to do with the string spacing right?
Each guitar has minor differences in spacing and some have more narrow necks but I don't think that is your problem.
My guess is it may just be a minor change in technique required. Make sure your finger tips are straight and perpendicular to the string/fret board. You may have to adjust where your thumb is on the back of the neck. A common cause for this is having you thumb near the top of the neck or even worse over the top which forces your fingers to be at an angle to the strings.
One other possibility is you may be just pressing the strings too hard making your fingers spread out more.
Fender's do have fairly skinny string spacing, especially relative to the Gibson string spacing, or a nylon string classical.
Most of the time, you just need to tighten up your technique, maybe adjust your hand position a little bit. If you have especially huge hands, you may find a wider neck to be more appropriate. Ibanez's tend to have big string spacing and many of them are in the entry level price range.
Do something you love and you'll never work a day in your life...
Hello, I had the exact same problem. I wanted to try different guitars and don't have access to a guitar or music store where I am located. So, I bought an Epiphone Special II (Les Paul knockoff) and a Squier Strat. I found that I had no end of trouble making chords and fretting notes on the Squier. I'm not sure if the spacing of the strings was the problem or if the angle of the neck had something to do with it. (Fender types have straight necks, Gibson types have necks angled back a bit.) Anyway, I ended up selling the Squier Strat to a kid who wanted to get started. (I let him have it for what I paid, minus shipping.) I like my Epi Special pretty well for a cheap guitar. If you have access to a guitar shop, try several types yourself, and good luck. But, it definetly isn't just you!
Play what makes you want to play
I was out of town over the weekend and visited a Guitar Center, and looked an both Ibanez and Epiphone Les Pauls. Both seemed to have much more space between the strings. The Ibanez I've been looking at is http://www.ibanez.co.jp/world/products/eg/page/S470DXQMNF.html Is that a decnt guitar? I like it because it has both humbuckers and a single coil. Would the Epiphone Les Paul Classic Plus,
http://www.epiphone.com/default.asp?ProductID=160&CollectionID=6 which has two humbuckers have more of a metal sound? I'm just curious about these two brands, because when I upgrade I don't want to for quite some time, and being a newbie wasn't sure if these were enough of an upgrade.
That Ibanez is pretty sweet looking. You'll probably be able to get good metal sounds out of it and it looks like it'll probably give you a bunch more sounds beside metal. It looks more flexible than the Les Paul.
What sort of amp you gonna put it through? The amp is at least half of any good sound.
I got a new Roland 30 Cube today :)
