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Hand/Finger fret sharing
When learning the G chord where the 4th and 5th fingers (ring finger+pinky) are adjacent and share the same fret, my ring finger (on the B string) has difficulty in getting near the fret because the pinky (on the high E string) is crowding it upward because there is little space between the two fingers to share that fret. Is this a guitar issue (needing to find a guitar with strings spaced a little futher apart) or more of a technique issue (where hand position can be improved to better fit adjacent fingers?
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4 Replies
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Not sure it makes much difference toward the issue you’re referring to, but I have definitely found that a wider nut size is better for me. My Seagull acoustics both have a 1.8″ nut, whereas my Taylor GS Mini has a 1.7″ one – that’s pretty close to an eighth of an inch difference. For fingerstyle learning especially, I find it very difficult to avoid string buzz from my fingers touching adjacent strings unintentionally (being an easily annoyed type by nature, this drives me crazy, alas!)
Regarding the G chord (and it would be the same for others like E, Em, Am), I don’t think you can avoid having one finger further back from the fret (not with my fingers, anyway). It shouldn’t cause problems if you keep a firm grip on the strings. I tend to play the G with a 3 finger position – middle on 2nd fret A, ring 3rd fret E, pinky 3rd fret e – which makes the very common transition to C much easier. The 4 finger position is also very useful, though, so it’s good to practice both of them.
Welcome to TAC and best of luck with your guitar journey! It’s great that you’re jumping into the forums, there are many very helpful and friendly folks who visit them regularly!
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@ReZ If you are just starting out keep in mind that your fingers are doing the most uncomfortable positions imaginable. As for the pinkie and Ring finger, just use the very tips of your fingers you will eventually get used to it and maybe with time they will be side by side. As long as they are on the same fret you should be ok thou. Like @GerryB56 said a wider neck may help, but it’s a longer stretch too. Good luck and Welcome
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Hi @ReZ , good advice for the above posts. Also you may want to look closely at the fingering that Tony uses in the instruction videos. At time he definitely has a “finger crowding” challenge on certain chords and has adjusted the order of the fingers he is using as well as the position and angle of his fingers on the frets. Tony also of gives the advice of moving your palm to as close to the underside of the guitar neck as possible as this creates a more natural curl to your fretting fingers which may help. He also suggests an exercise where you have your fretting hand on your knee, and begin a countdown from 5. When you begin the countdown immediately begin to get your fretting hand positioned so that at 5 you can strum out a clean chord. Once you have that down start the countdown at 4 and so on until you can finger the chord very quickly and cleanly. Keep at it and have fun!
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I’m 6 foot 220 pounds so I’m not very small and I definitely have large hands. When I first started playing I thought it was impossible for me personally to make any chords at all. Are used to skip every Friday chord challenge. My fingers were just way too big to fit in between the strings. All I can tell people is that things that seem impossible now will become easier in time but of course it will be in increments so small that you won’t even notice along the way until one day you’ll look back and remember how hard it used to be.
Fast forward three years and I have no trouble at all playing chords now. I don’t know what changed but it’s almost as if my fingers arent as impossibly big anymore. Maybe the calluses made my finger is longer and they don’t have to push down as hard anymore.
One of my guitars has a standard 1-3/4” size nut and the other one has a 1-15/16” nut. 1/16 of an inch divided across sixth string sounds completely insignificant but I can completely tell the difference. The one with the wider spacing as far easier to play. For now on any guitar by is going to have the largest size I can find.
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