Originally Posted by: adam14bikes2hi, I'm a complete novice slowly working my way through "guitar fundamentals 1", the course is superb and I would recomend it to all beginners.
My question is this, are there any excercises I can do when I am away from my guitar to help me to reach the fingering of chords? I am struggling with my short, fat, stiff fingers!! Lol.
Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Adam.

You don't want to 'over-grip'. Remember that you don't need to press the string in to the wood of the neck. You just need to press hard enough so that the string meets the fret. I have short fingers, I feel your pain. In the beginning it feels like you might need to 'really' press the string but in reality, it does not really take that much pressure.

An exercise: While picking a steady pattern on the low E string, start by not touching the string but bring your index finger closer and closer to the neck (best at the second fret position) until you touch the string and it gets buzzy. Continue to slowly press until you hear the string ring true. Notice how little pressure it took to get the string to ring. This gives you a calibration with how it should feel when you're fretting chords.

Also make sure that you have the guitar in a comfortable position...and for god sakes, if your beginning, sit while you practice! ;) . This will make sure that your arm is at a good position. Ideally, you forearm should almost be parallel to the ground if not very slightly inclining from your elbow to the neck. The guitar from lower bout to the headstock should also incline upwards a little.

Why all the position stuff? If you fight the ergonomics of playing, it's only that much harder for you. It's challenging enough to be coordinated for a player but if you struggle with all the stuff above, it's going to be that much harder.