UBER beginner guitar player

Hey guys (and ladies),
My name is Mychal (pronounced michael, just a , shall we say, *unique* spelling :) ) and I have always wanted to play guitar, but throughout school I made the choice to be in the select choir classes instead of band classes, and didn't have enough time to learn on my own. I still don't exactly have the time, but this is kind of my way of stickin it to the man! haha

My fiance actually just got me a guitar for christmas, (i was gonna get one after new year's anyway! :) ) and have been kind of trying to teach myself from websites such as youtube, and various other free lesson websites. They didn't really cut it for me, but before I went into one on one lessons and paid a couple hundred dollars a month, I thought I would check out some paysites, that way I can practice and learn at my convenience! I'm loving this site so far! Great beginner videos, and tools during the videos to be able to repeat parts of the video without starting it over, I love it.

That said, i'm wondering if it's normal for your fingers to feel, shall i say, FAT or too fat to be able to place them on the neck without touching other strings? haha i'm havin some trouble, hopefully it will get better!

oh and I have an acoustic guitar, it was the yamaha guitar that came with the gigmaker set, just in case anyone was wondering!

Hi and welcome to GT
I can't say if it is normal but I have some fat fingers. I still have a very hard time playing an open A chord because my fingers are just too fat. I have experimented with different fingerings but then I am afraid of developing a bad habit. I have got considerably better after a lot of practice.

I have read trying out different guitars to see if they might fit your hand better. The trouble I had in the very beginning was getting my fingertips pointing straight down into the note I was playing. It feels funky at first but now it is second nature. It hurts at first to play with your fingertips but after awhile they harden up.

I too play an acoustic and by far the hardest part is developing those callouses. That is about the only advice I know for sure works is make sure to play with your fingertips and come straight down into the string and that should help you from inadvertently muting other strings. Stick with it,

Ed

That very well may be the biggest part of the problem, I am definitely havin troubles getting my fingers to come straight down onto the string, hopefully those callouses come sooner than later! Thank you for the welcome, I wasn't expecting an answer for at least a couple days!

Looking at my own fingers, what strikes me is that the calluses don't extend all the way around, they are only on the very tips.

So I would say that you guys are on the right track by working on the curvature of your fingers to solve the problem of not having enough space for your fingers.

I have been playing guitar for 30+ years, but when I try to play the piano I wind up with the same problem you are describing. :)

Have fun.

Jon

i thought something was wrong with my fingers when i started, but after about a month they really started to learn not to be lazy.

I know everyone says practice is key...so practice some more, if you deaden a string try to keep going and get back too it. Im friends with some really talents guitarists and they always if your stuck, move on and come back too it later.(hasnt failed me yet lol)

:D

Hello all,

I don't have any callouses...never have had any. I just tried to make sure I had guitars that were easy to play. :-)

BH

I've seen some guitarists with some chubby fingers who could really tear it up. I don't think this matters. No one guitar player has the same hands, but its interesting how the hands figure out their own posture and take to the neck. Congrats on getting into guitar, and you seem very excited about it. With that attitude you'll learn a lot. Just devour all of the knowledge that's out their, you'll have a lot of fun doing it. There's also plenty of good and free guitar lessons that you can fin if you do some searching around.

http://www.guitarticles.net

I'm new to this site and am hoping to make many new friends with an interest for music and loving to play the guitar. I played a little while I was in high school, but that was a few years ago and have found a renewed interest in playing. I remember the caluses and hope they come back...LOL!! I really like all kinds of music, but really have a love for the blues....starting out with an acoustic and maybe moving onto an electric, but have been told acoustic is a really good way to get started.

Chris Chonos

I to am also brand new to Playing Guitar or any instrment for that matter. I always wanted to Learn, but Never thought I had the patience. I am Now thirty and finally doing it. I Bought the Squire Strat Pack and love it. It took me 1 Week to build up those Callouses Playing 2-3 hours a day. It Is Nice to know Im not the only Noob.

my girlfriend bought me a guitar for christmas too. This was the most informative site I could find as well. The only thing is my fingers feel too big also. Sometimes feels like I can't get my hand or arm or fingers to flow correctly on the neck, and in some positions I feel like i am bending my arm too much. I am not having problems with the simple chords and little songs, just trying to remember all the diffrent chords, majors and minors. Anyone have any thoughts on how to put them in an order or something to make it easier to learn them as far as finger placement and chord patterns.

Originally Posted by: fordgmy girlfriend bought me a guitar for christmas too. This was the most informative site I could find as well. The only thing is my fingers feel too big also. Sometimes feels like I can't get my hand or arm or fingers to flow correctly on the neck, and in some positions I feel like i am bending my arm too much. I am not having problems with the simple chords and little songs, just trying to remember all the diffrent chords, majors and minors. Anyone have any thoughts on how to put them in an order or something to make it easier to learn them as far as finger placement and chord patterns.

when i was learning my major and minor chords i would learn thre new ones that sounded ok together and make a little riff with them. then i would slowly incorporate other chords and drop a old one. if you keep this up u will run out of major and minor chords and start using the sus , add and other less common, but beautiful chords. I also had problems with my fingers feeling fat and positioning, just keep it up those dead strings will go away and become second nature.

I am a brand new guitar player also. I just subscribed to this site for the convenience of taking lessons anytime due to a busy life (4 kids, job, wife etc...) like the rest of us. So I just tried to play my first chords with open strings and my finger touches at least one other string. Frustrating to say the least, but I will get though. It is nice to hear others with the same issues. I read all of the posts. Does anyone else have any pointers on "fat fingers."

The fat finger thing is usually a matter of just incorrect positioning of your finger... and I know you guys have heard it that before. But the solution lies back in what Christopher said in Guitar Fundamentals 1. You need to get the mechanics right before you try to make music.

However, I'd bet this is what might be happening. You learn a chord, like Emaj, then Amin, then say a B7... each chord you can play no problem, but that B7 WAS a little bit tricky to get right... strum... sounds clean, good to go. Now you start playing the chords together, making music and *bzzzinggg* you start hearing buzzing strings.

What to do:

-for any given song, play all the chords you'll need to know one at time, strumming slowly once so you hear each string, and make sure it plays cleanly.

-once you have that down, start playing the chord progression, slowly, making sure you have the changes down pat, and you don't have bad notes.

-if you get a buzz or dead sounding note, FREEZE. Look at your fingers and see where the problem is. Buzzing is usually caused by a fretting finger's fingernail (say that 3x fast!) rubbing up against a lower string. A plinking or muted sound is ofter caused by the fretting finger touching the string above, or not fretting the note hard enough to get a clean tone.

When you freeze and see the problem, correct it, make sure you can play the chord cleanly. Then, go back to the chord before, play through slowly to where you had the problem, and continue, watching your fingers. Chances are, you're adjusting your hand position as you change chords, and moving your fingers into a position that causes a buzz. Happens to me all the time with new chords, or chord progressions, especially with unique fingering patterns where I'm changing notes within the chord as I play.

The good news is that it doesn't take long to correct. Just freeze when you hear the problem, visually confirm where the problem is happening, correct it, and then play through that part again, going as slow as you have to in order to play through with no mistakes or buzzing strings. In no time you'll be playing cleanly, but make sure you don't try and "work it on the fly". If you just keep trying to play through and hope that the buzzing will get better on its own, chances are it won't. You have to work at it, but it doesn't take much.

Also, make sure your fingernails are trimmed nice and short on your fretting hand, as this will allow you to really get the pad of your finger vertical and minimize chances of buzzing.

Good luck guys!

Its just gonna take alot of practice, before you know it, you will have forgotten that you had this problem!