An issue with meaty hands

Josh Wright · Mar 21, 2018

I teach lessons and one of my students has beefy hands that make it to where playing chords just isn’t really a possibility with the guitar he has, he has a fender knock off which has a very small neck and everytime he tries to play a chord either his fingers won’t fit in the fret together, or he is touching a string causing a buzz sound. He plays left handed electric. Since I don’t have this problem I don’t know if there is just another way to play things that will help or if he needs a different guitar. If it is a different guitar, which brands do y’all recommend that tend to have bigger necks?

Calvin Phillips · Mar 21, 2018

I’ve always noticed zacky has huge hands lol maybe he should lean in on this one

Josh Wright · Mar 21, 2018

Haha maybe he should.

Jak Angelescu · Mar 21, 2018

When you say ‘meaty’, are his hands short but plump or are they just all around beefy, large hands? If he has large hands in general, you could lean him towards classical guitar for acoustic because they have enormous necks. I play on an ESP Horizon II and an American Fender standard strat, and they both seem to have pretty wide necks. I always like to take Johnny Hiland and Freddie King for example. Those dudes have some thick hands and they do what they do I guess I could say, it CAN be done. It is just a matter of making sure your fingers are curled enough to not mute the strings.

Josh Wright · Mar 21, 2018

Think sausage fingers, but his palm is also big which seems to make it hard for him. But not being him and not having this issue I struggle with giving him advice. I took him to guitar center and he seemed to be able to play the $2,000 Gibson, but I haven’t found anything else that he comfortably could do chords on.

Guest · Mar 21, 2018

It just takes practice over time! I’m currently teaching a student who’s strings vibrate – their hands are very small. But the more practice they put in, the less vibrations.
I suggest to students to play a chord one string at a time, never any rush, whenever they feel comfortable they will strike individual strings – and readjust position if need be.
A mate of mine for example, plays a huge 6-string bass and has the smallest hands. Fingers and hands do adjust over time so maybe suggest practice more, and if need be, a new guitar a last resort?

Jak Angelescu · Mar 21, 2018

There are guitars online that are wide width which help for that. Unfortunately, most of them are custom shops and they can get expensive. But here’s a tip (maybe?). I feel that he’s going to be better off with something that’s more for jazz because jazz uses a lot of crazy chords that probably require smashing your fingers all over the neck. I think the best thing to consider is I think there’s something called a “nut width”. You could take him to a shop and say that you need something with a larger nut width. All in all, there are loads of blues, jazz and country pickers that make their sausage fingers wail. I’m sure it’s just going to take patience

Josh Wright · Mar 21, 2018

Ok thanks, we have moved onto lead so to say, just so I don’t burn him out. For awhile, we would spend the entire hour lesson trying to get one chord, I would have him play string by string and he would get fristrated and stopped enjoying guitar, and so now we are learning lead parts to songs and working on syncing the pick hand and the fret hand. I’ve got him to where he can do power chords but anything more than 2 strings he struggles with.

Jak Angelescu · Mar 21, 2018

What style is he trying to learn?

Josh Wright · Mar 21, 2018

He wants to learn every style pretty much, he likes pretty much every subgenre of rock, he loves jazz, blues, and metal. He is about to join here soon too. I have him working on alternate picking a chromatic scale to help with syncing up his hands for about 15 minutes. Then I do about 30 minutes of theory every lesson. Then the rest of the lesson is what ever he wants to learn, or a lead line that uses a technique that I am working on teaching him so he can apply it to songs.

John Tierney · Mar 21, 2018

I have bigger hands and like Ben said you need to practice it. Ultimately if he’s good on a 2000 dollar Gibson, try Epiphones they are similar in size and shape in my opinion and you don’t break the bank. I have a friend who has way bigger hands than me and he uses an Epiphone les paul (not sure if its standard or custom) but he can do crazy Randy Rhodes stuff.
Overall use this as an opportunity to have him explore himself and his playing

Josh Wright · Mar 21, 2018

Yeah most definitely, he is really nervous and shy when plays too, which is one reason I’m trying to get him on here because he needs the community around him that will give him more courage to explore, he is afraid to explore his own licks.

Noah Berends · Mar 21, 2018

Ibanez Wizard necks have a generous amount of space between the strings. Have him try one of those if possible. Longer scale lengths may also help, since the frets are slightly more spaced apart.

idssdi · Mar 22, 2018

B.B. King has really big fingers. He can’t/doesn’t play chkrds though be just completely rocks blues solos. Maybe he can try to do some B.B. King style blues for now. Or try to find some voicings that he is able to do
Hope this helps

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