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Fret Spacing and Reaching
In the Blues session, watching Tony’s fingers, I notice that his guitar frets are closer together than mine, resulting in his ability to move from fret 2 to fret 4 (finger to ring fingers) without sliding his wrist/arm up and down the neck. My fingers, although large, male, adult, do not naturally lay at the 2nd and 4th frets as it seems Tony’s do. He needs only to raise his pointer finger and lower his ring finger to play the Blues. I have an Alvarez AGE950CEARSHB with a distance of 3 5/8” from fret 2 to fret 4. I’m committed to getting this right, practicing every day. But there is always a long pause between finger/wrist/arm movements. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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6 Replies
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First of all, fret spacing depends on a guitar’s scale length – and 99% of the time that scale length will either be 25.4/5″ or 24.75″. Your Alvarez is 25.5 and I believe in last week’s exercises Tony was playing his Santa Cruz Vintage Southerner which is 24.75. So yes, what you are noting is correct – he has less of a stretch than you do on your guitar.
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Are you measuring from nut to bridge? My Zager50 OM is smaller than a dreadnaught and it measures 25-3/4″, and from fret 2 to fret 4 is 2-1/2″. It’s bigger than a youth or parlor guitar, and I can reach most things, though I have to rock my hand on the blues shuffle.
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Yes nut to bridge, but I go by the ‘official’ specs listed on the guitar company’s website. So your guitar’s scale length is ‘officially’ 25.5. Now this does not determine body size – a Martin D-28 which is a full sized dreadnaught. has a scale length of 25.4, but your smaller body sized guitar is 25.5, or 25.75 as you measured it.
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Thank you! I guess I’ll just have to practice, practice, practice stretching my fingers sideways and rotating my wrist to reach. 🖖
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Well when I started out about 10 years ago I thought I had to stick to 24.75″ scale, because 25.4 felt too much of a stretch, mostly of course in the upper portion of the neck near the nut. So at the time I got a Martin HD-28 but with a short scale (24.75) which was a custom option. However, after several years of doing Tony’s daily challenges low and behold my left hand ‘stretched’ and got better at making the reaches needed and so now I can play both scale lengths without problems. I still have the HD-28 which is a fine guitar, but also a standard sized D-42.
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Thanks!!
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