Any advice? Is this a common problem for beginners?
Keep catching the high E string with my palm

Hi all - first post here: I just started on Fundamentals 1 and I am practicing Lisa McCormick's "spider legs" warm up. I'm doing OK with the fretting and even getting a passably decent tone without catching adjacent strings. But here's my problem: When I'm reaching up to fret the low E string, particularly with my index or middle fingers, my palm is catching the high E string and muting it. I keep trying different thumb positions to see if that helps but I'm a bit worried that I'm just not anatomically inclined towards the guitar! I have relatively short fingers and wide palms, and it just seems that to get enough reach to fret low E and leave A open, my palm nudges up against high E.
Any advice? Is this a common problem for beginners?
Any advice? Is this a common problem for beginners?
# 1

Originally Posted by: adrian.jenningsHi all - first post here: I just started on Fundamentals 1 and I am practicing Lisa McCormick's "spider legs" warm up. I'm doing OK with the fretting and even getting a passably decent tone without catching adjacent strings. But here's my problem: When I'm reaching up to fret the low E string, particularly with my index or middle fingers, my palm is catching the high E string and muting it. I keep trying different thumb positions to see if that helps but I'm a bit worried that I'm just not anatomically inclined towards the guitar! I have relatively short fingers and wide palms, and it just seems that to get enough reach to fret low E and leave A open, my palm nudges up against high E.
Any advice? Is this a common problem for beginners?
First, I would say this is definitely a common issue.
In fact, there are a lot of situations during which you'll be muting strings or notes that you don't want muted.
However, with this particular exercise, it's probably "ok" to mute the high E string, either on purpose or not, because you don't need it when you're playing the low E string. If you're playing the lower (thicker) strings, you'll likely mute or rest your palm on a lot of the other strings that you're not playing at that moment, which is totally fine.
My guess is that your form as fine and that this won't cause any long-term bad habits or dysfunction.
Hope this helps!
# 2

Originally Posted by: GT StaffFirst, I would say this is definitely a common issue.
In fact, there are a lot of situations during which you'll be muting strings or notes that you don't want muted.
However, with this particular exercise, it's probably "ok" to mute the high E string, either on purpose or not, because you don't need it when you're playing the low E string. If you're playing the lower (thicker) strings, you'll likely mute or rest your palm on a lot of the other strings that you're not playing at that moment, which is totally fine.
My guess is that your form as fine and that this won't cause any long-term bad habits or dysfunction.
Hope this helps!
That helps a ton - thank you! I can stop contorting myself into weird positions and start working on some muscle memory :-)
# 3