How To Play The Guitar With Big Or Small Hands Guaranteed

Well you’re the BIG guy trying to make claims that ANY one can play the guitar, regardless of big or small hands. WELL I can, and I’m the one to SHOW you, it can be done.

So how do you play the guitar with big or small hands? You must incorporate a consistent effort of not only playing the guitar but also the experience of how it works. And you must know the placement of the fingers on the guitar fretboard. As well as the techniques to overcome it.

You won’t leave here without knowing how to play the guitar with big or small hands. Packed with ALL you need to play the guitar, no matter WHAT sizes your hands are. And you’re making me work to tell you.

What Hands Do You Have?

Whether your hands are big hands, small hands or normal hands, we ALL can play the guitar. A fun experience it can be until we hit road blocks. It happens to ALL of us. From the late Jimi Hendrix to Eric Clapton to Greta Van Fleet.

Though it comes in all different forms to different players. Some have problems with learning chords quick. Some have problems with timing, after a sufficient amount of time playing guitar. We ALL have our problems in the beginning.

ONE problem that usually comes up after playing the guitar, anywhere from 1 day, to a couple of months is…. “I CAN’T PLAY THE GUITAR, MY HANDS ARE TO SMALL or MY HANDS ARE TO BIG!” It happens to a lot of beginner guitar players.

Hand toward bright sky. A glorious looking picture.

And it sometimes makes them give up playing the guitar. They REALLY think they can’t do it. I’ve seen ex players, even to this DAY, that think they seriously can’t play.

I know one person where he says, MY HANDS ARE TO BIG TO PLAY GUITAR. He says this when he sees me playing guitar. Or when I talk about the guitar to him, he’ll say that from time to time. And I’m like, “you’re crazy!”

But I’ve never got the chance to tell him yet, that he CAN play the guitar. BUT I HAVE told him that Chris Henderson of Three Doors Down of the famous rock group, has BIG hands, I mean HUGE hands.

That guy has enormous hands, if that guy can play guitar, I know ANYONE can play guitar. But I guess this person doesn’t get the hint, that I’m trying to tell him that he CAN play guitar.

How Do We Overcome This Obstacle Of Big Or Small Hands?

But let’s get after it….. How do we overcome this OBSTACLE?….. FIRST, you’re probably a beginner guitar player. Because most people say that when they first start playing….. So we will start at the age old culprit of the dreaded barre chord….. It’s a scary chord for some.

I’ve seen people playing the guitar, they’re doing great playing Open chords, single notes and then when they get to the barre chords, they freeze, it is hard.

That’s what happened to me….I was all nice and happy till I got to the BARRE CHORDS section of the guitar. It wasn’t working…… WAS it my hands?…. WAS it my fingers?…. My FINGER tips?…. Were my fingers not made to play the guitar?…. WHAT?

Finally my brother came and rescued me and said to stop pressing down so hard like your gonna kill it. And to also raise your fingers right on it’s tips. And I mean on the VERY TIPS of your fingers.

And to ask yourself…. what strings are you accidentally hitting OUTSIDE this chord? And to NOT hit those strings. And to practice till you don’t hit them anymore. So if you’re hands are to big or to small or you have normal hands you need to:

Don’t press down REAL hard on the strings like you’re gonna kill it.
Play on the TIPS of your fingers.
Don’t accidentally hit the strings OUTSIDE of the Barre chord.
Practice until you get it.

But not only can you have problems with the Barre Chords, if you have big or small hands, you can also have problems with OPEN CHORDS also.

You pretty much have to also implement what I told you about the Barre Chords, to these chords also. Which is, don’t press down REAL hard on the strings. And you must play on the tips of your fingers. And you also must not accidentally hit strings OUTSIDE of the Open Chords.

Ok, Ok, what about single notes? How do we overcome this beast…. well… quite simply, lets not over complicate this. ALL you gotta do is a couple of things.

One you must not accidentally hit strings your not supposed to hit, which would make them ring out. Guitar players like to call this Ringing.

You must ONLY hit the strings you’re supposed to hit, or in other words, you must only PLAY the strings you’re supposed to play. That’s your job, so to speak. And this will be accomplished by concentrating until you get it.

Also, play these single notes on the TIPS of your fingers. And another thing that will help, is if you mix it up with not only playing single notes but also barre chords and open chords, which is what rock and roll is all about anyway. “Some Good Ol ROCK and ROLL!” As them rockers say.

Lots and lots of radios, stacked up on top of each other, side by side, in rows. — Listen to some *good ol rock and roll*, on the radio, YouTube, wherever you can

But as I was saying, as you begin to mix them all up, the single notes, the barre chords, the open chords, you’ll begin to not try so hard. And you’ll loosen up and start STRETCHING your fingers, Which will in time, makes you play the notes and chords you are playing.

Because STRETCHING makes your hands, whether they are big or small, cause them to finally go where you want them to go. Which is on the chords and single notes you are playing. Which is what we will be talking about in this next paragraph.

Stretch Stretch Stretch Those Big Or Small Hands Of Yours

Why Stretch your hands by endless finger exercises? Which is the pulling of your fingers and the pulling of your thumb. And also opening and closing your hands, and doing grip exercises, for more grip strength etc. ALL in a effort to be able to play the guitar because your hands are to big or small.

WELCOME to the EASIER way of doing things, enter:

Playing the guitar and it’s chords and single notes, as a way of stretching when you’re playing the guitar.

You see after playing the guitar and trying to get your fingers to play them pesky chords you can’t shape because your fingers are too big or small, you will undoubtedly be stretching….

because EVERY TIME you are attempting to play the chords, EVERY TIME you are attempting to play single notes, even if you can’t quite get it yet (forming the chords or single notes) you are STRETCHING your fingers, whether you know it or not.

Man playing guitar on stage confidently. Black and white picture.

Then ONE day, you’ll get to where you CAN play that, which you could not play before because your fingers finally played the chords or notes you were playing because of the continual stretching you were doing. Your fingers finally have been broken in. (formed to where you can play).

Who Has Small Hands?

Let’s see who has small hands….

Angus Young of AC-DC
Paul Simon of the famous Pop Rock duo Simon and Garfunkel
Andy Summers of The Police
Kerry King of Slayer
Tommy Iommi of Black Sabbath, has two fingers missing

Who Has Big Hands?

Let’s see who has big hands….

Jimi Hendrix of The Jimi Hendrix Experience Band
Steve Vai is a famous Pro Guitarist
Slash of Guns and Roses and Velvet Revolver and also Slash’s Snakepit
Brian Patrick of Buckethead
Paul Gilbert of Mr Big and Racer X

What Else Can Big Hands And Small Hands Guitar Players Do?

Guitar capo on the guitar. — Guitar capo on the guitar

You CAN do all THESE things on the guitar. Just like normal hand size guitar players do.

You can play a Capo, which will allow you to play on smaller frets, depending on where you put it.
Play electric guitar. Which will allow you to play it because their necks are thinner than acoustic guitars. Which will allow you to reach around the guitar more. Thus, allowing you to play chords easier. The strings on the electric guitar are lighter, which make it easier to press down on the guitar, when you’re playing chords and single notes, making it easier to play.
Make your fingers OBEY your brain, meaning, play anything you tell yourself to. Which includes chords, techniques and single notes, and PLAY the guitar. Do them by practicing, TILL you get it.
MOVE your body around, as well as your hands. And use your posture, until you find the the positions you like. Which will allow you to play the guitar, no matter what your hand size is.
Don’t get down on yourself, telling yourself you can’t play the guitar because your hands are to big or small, but tell yourself, “I’m the MAN!” And “one of these day I’m going to learn it.” And keep saying that, until you believe it, which will turn into you eventually doing it.

Things I noticed

Guitar player, playing silver guitar, standing up.

One of the things I noticed while I was playing the guitar was the constant hitting of strings, that I didn’t want to hit, while either playing chords or single notes.

As I stated before, I was able to break that habit, which was accomplished by someone giving me good advice of how to stop.

Which leads me to say, that there is nothing wrong with people trying to help you play the guitar in real life. If someone sees a problem you are doing on the guitar, then admit it, find help for it, and move on.

Also if you need help, ask for it. Go up to a accomplished guitar player and say hey, I need help in how to do this, or how not to do this on the guitar.

I notice when I go to people for help on the guitar, I always grow quick, not slow, but quick. It’s unbelievable how better it makes you get on the guitar.

It’s been said Jimi Hendrix would go from place to place asking for help for how to play the guitar before he got famous. No wonder he got so good, real quick.

And also Randy Rhodes got real good, real quick. Even when he got famous he would still go ask for help on playing the guitar. In fact, every city they would play in while on tour, he would go into the city and he would find a guitar teacher to learn things on the guitar from them. And Randy Rhodes was already good at playing the guitar and he’s still asking for help, in how to get better at guitar.

So if you ask for help on the guitar, you will grow quicker, when you play guitar.

Wait Wait Wait What Happens If I Still Can’t Play Guitar Because Of My Big Or Small Hands?

Hand coming out of pond in fake drowning, in humor.

If you honestly can’t play the guitar after trying to play the guitar with small hands or big hands. “Try, try, again, until you get it.” Just like William Edward Hickson said.

He was a teacher who used to say it to his school children, to get them to do their homework.

You will do your home work to learn how to OVERCOME this and PLAY the guitar because THAT’S what YOU want to do. So don’t let your FINGERS, your HANDS, your BIG hands, your SMALL hands, tell you what to do in NOT playing the guitar, but you tell them what you want them to do, which is play the guitar because it’s FUN, and that’s what you want to do.

You can play the guitar regardless of hand size. Find a way. If homeboy Angus Young of AC-DC rock can do it, with his little bitty hands, then you can. If mammoth (big hand) Jimmy Hendrix can do it, so can you.

Now I know I’m not done with this blog yet, cause I guaranteed that EVERYONE can play, regardless of hand size. Whether it is small, big, fat, plumpy, skinny, short, huge. etc. No excuses……

Even if you have to get a smaller guitar to pull it off and play the guitar, do it. (if you have small hands.)

Or if you have to get a bigger guitar to be able to play it because your hands are to big, do it. But only do this as a last resort! ONLY IF YOU HAVE TO! And this is after only after a sufficient amount of time playing it, that you have to resort to this.

But 95% of you will be able to play on regular sized guitars. The rest of you, the 5% may have to resort to playing smaller or bigger size guitars. But this is rare, if you have to.

Your going to have to honestly tell if your in the 95% or 5% group, so that you will know what to do.

So give yourself some time playing the guitar. Because that’s the only way you’re going to know if you can play or not, with small hands or big hands.

I would say give yourself two to three years or more, to see where you fit in, which group you’re in. But for most of you, it’s smooth sailing for you, in that you play the regular size guitars.

Best Lists For Guitars For Small and Big Hands

What’s the best guitars for small hands?

Baby Taylor BT2.
Yamaha APXT2
Squier Vintage Modified Jaguar
Squier Strat Mini
Gibson SG Special
Fender Kurt Cobain Jaguar NOS

What’s the best guitars for big hands?

Ibanez GIO Series
Ibanez AEG1211NT Acoustic-Electric
Cordoba C3M Classical
ESP M-ll Floyd Rose
Seagull 039296 S6 Acoustic
Zager Guitar which are EXCELLENT of ALL Guitars for Players with big or huge hands.

If you just want to play the size guitars that most players play, then you can just click here, to one of my other articles, to see ALL KINDS of guitars! ALL KINDS!