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Location: Flahdaw | When I measure the maximum distance I can spread my thumb and pinkie, it comes to 8 1/2" tip to tip. I'm learning a new song (drop D)where one of the chords is 500032 (low to high)where the 2 is hammered on. I'm about 50/50 getting that high E clean or the palm muting it. It's pissing me off. Are my hands tiny, or is this just a tough chord??? |
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Location: south east Michigan | Approx 7-1/2"
So stop yer bitchin' |
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Location: Flahdaw | Well yeah, but you have hands like a Ken doll. |
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Location: Parrish, FL | I'm 9 1/4". (That's across my palm so we are clear what I'm talkin about.)
So what, I still can't make them move with any kind of coordination to produce what you'd want to call music like you do, so stop your whining!
(The other) Brad |
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Location: Bellevue, Washington | 9 1/2" here... but I still can't easily make that reach! |
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| Just spreading my fingers as far as I can, it's 9-3/4" tip-to-tip. I can easily fret that shape you describe on my 1-11/16" nut guitars; not quite as cleanly, but doable with practice on my 1-3/4" nut guitars. |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | 8-&-1/4"- and that's with my good hand. |
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Location: Flahdaw | Funny, the distance from my thumb to pinkie is the same as my thumb to ring finger. If I use my ring finger, it changes the hand configuration and doesn't mute as much as using the pinkie. Weird.
Still, I'm learning an Eric Bibb song that he plays so clean, and he has leprechaun hands (like Slipkid). My hands SEEM to be bigger, but there ya go..... |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | 8-7/8", and I can make the chord, but it isn't very comfy. I suppose it has as much to do with the shape and dexterity of our fingers as it does finger length and palm spread. Long-fingered guys always have it easier. |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | The distance from my thumb to my ring-finger is Farther than my thumb to pinky.
Shouldn't the measurement be how far you can spread from your index to your pinky?
I can make the chord... It isn't comfortable, nor is it a nice sounding chord.
Isn't there something else that you can put in it's place? |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Do it the easy way, drop the 5.....
...you can pick it up in passing earlier or later if it's important to the overall tonality.
But I'm lazy. On a good day, my hands reach all the way to the guitar. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | I was about to measure mine and then decided you guys are just too f---ing weird. |
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Location: south east Michigan | Mark... I know you figured that out a long time ago yet you're still here.
Come on... man up and measure up. |
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Location: Ohio | Guess I have Herman Munster Hands... 9.5"
Steve |
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Location: Flahdaw | Doesn't owning a Porsche add a couple of inches? |
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Location: closely held secret | Only on the backside. |
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Location: Seymour, Tennessee | Hell, I had to go measure too....9 1/8th.
But my fingers aren't long, I've just got wide ass hands, I tried it and that chord is rough for me. |
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Location: NW Washington State | I put it on the table and measured thumb-to-pinky and thumb-to-index at 7 inches. Maybe 7.5 if I stretch 'til it hurts.
Remember, size doesn't matter. I'd be equally inept even if I had larger hands.
-Steve W. |
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| Originally posted by fillhixx:
Do it the easy way, drop the 5..... Sometimes you can't. In this piece there are a couple of phrases that require the bass note played with the pinkie on the 5th fret of the low E string to hold a full measure while you play a descending melody line on the 1st and second frets of the treble strings. |
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Location: Flahdaw | Wow! That was beautiful. Makes what I'm trying to learn sound like "twinkle, twinkle" |
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Location: Colorado | 8.5" but short fingers... |
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Location: south east Michigan | 7-1/2 too, eh numbfingers?
I feel your pain. |
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Location: Newington, CT | 10.75...So, if I understood that correctly, it's like doing an open strings "G" cowboy chord, while putting the pinky on "A" of the high "E" string?
If so, it was easier for me to do the "G" cowboy chord and just add the pinky on the "A," while leaving the ring finger right where it sat on the "G" of the high "E" string.
Yes, it's redundant, and doesn't affect the sound because it's the pinky fretting "A" on the high "E" string. However, it made it so that I could go right to the chord.
Of course, that's if I understood it correctly in the first place. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | 9 1/2, but I'm not going to try that chord. |
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Location: Colorado | So Mark, you just couldn't stay away... |
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Location: Nashville TN. | a stubby 8 1/32 |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | Originally posted by Todd G.:
So Mark, you just couldn't stay away... I didn't say I wasn't weird. |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | 10" and I can make the chord without too much trouble.
I can also palm a basketball without too much trouble.
DB...you want to know the circumference of my thumb? |
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Location: Flahdaw | Originally posted by stephent28:
DB...you want to know the circumference of my thumb? I hear they call you "needle-thumb", or something like that... |
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Location: Flahdaw | It's not that I can't get into that chord. It's the quick progression from 004030, x02030, TO 500032...that "2" just wants to mute. And it's all fingerpicking, so you can't disguise it with a big ol' strum.
So, it sounds like my hands ARE on the smallish side. (just not dwarfish like Slipkid's) |
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Location: south east Michigan | My friends call me Gimli. |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Yeah, and he had a BIG axe! |
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Location: Utah | 8", maybe just a tad less. I can get the 2nd fret hammer on just fine, but the open 5th string is muted by my pinky on the 6th string. |
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Location: New Hampshire, USA | 9" exactly, but I find it easier to make that chord using my 3rd finger instead of my pinky to fret the 5th fret on the low E (er, D). If I use my pinky, my third finger is "in the way" - I don't know where to put it such that it doesn't 1) mute any of the strings, or 2) inhibit the movement of my pinky. |
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Location: Flahdaw | Well, I decided to video the song I was working on. It came out okay without to much "damping" on that chord. It helped that I capo'd up to the 4th fret...
Connected |
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| Very, very nice. |
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Location: Alpine, CA | All o' ya quit'cher bitchin'. I'm missing the pinky finger of my left hand completely. So, there are many chords I can't play, e.g., those requiring four fingers or those requiring a long reach, such as the chord in question.
Not to hijack the thread or anything, but just how do I know which note of a four-finger chord I should drop (and, please, don't tell me to take up another instrument)?
Thanks in advance (and OP, good luck with your chord). |
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Location: Tennessee | StephenT28 used to display a great quote from Keef: "All you need to play guitar is five strings, two fingers, and one asshole". So that chord is out for me.
Nice job db. That's an excellent song, and your playing and singing does it justice. |
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Location: south east Michigan | Well done DB... well done |
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Location: Flahdaw | Thanks, guys.
Anyway, it doesn't sound it, but that picking pattern on those first 3 chords was tough. Took me almost 3 days til I could get that hammered on high E to sound clear, not muted. That's why I was thinking I must have small hands. Nevertheless, I still could never get it without a capo. |
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Location: SoCal | Don't need to measure myself. Got 12 inches, but I tell people it's only 6 so as not to scare them.
Hey db, good tune. Funky looking Ovation tho'.... |
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Location: Gardnerville, NV | so your hand is a foot? |
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Location: Right now? | I think this is THE Funniest post I've read yet. You are all scoundrels and story tellers, haw!
What's the saying? "Big feet ..."
w. |
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Location: Flahdaw | Originally posted by WillaMuse:
What's the saying? "Big feet ..."
w. In Moody's case, "Big feet, HUGE smell" |
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Location: Philippines | 9.5" here. That's my hand, OK? I could cleanly make that 500032 chord. I actually make use of the long reach when I'm fingerpicking and usually receive compliments about it. But having big hands also means that I need to be extra careful when I'm making tight chords to avoid unintended string contact.
This is a hilarious thread. That thread title is really asking for it. |
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Location: GATLINBURG TENNESSEE :) | "10.75"...
BRAGGARD! ): |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Its never about length, and all about technique. Its tough on those of us with neither. |
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Location: Newington, CT | Originally posted by bvince:
"10.75"...
BRAGGARD! ): Lol!
It ain't braggin' if it's true! (<-- Bear Bryant and Dizzy Dean, I think)
Anyway, I see that I read the chord backwards... again!
I tried it according to what the video showed, and it was ok to get to. Just a different chord, so I had to practice it a bit.
Nice recording, db! Very nice! |
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Location: Upper Left USA | Nine and 5/8 inches.
Just Drop D or use a cut capo... |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Originally posted by dp2macrae:
I'm missing the pinky finger of my left hand completely. So, there are many chords I can't play, e.g., those requiring four fingers or those requiring a long reach, such as the chord in question.
Gerry Garcia, Tony Iommi, and Django Reihhardt managed to work something out....I have faith you can too. (and I don't have faith in much) |
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Location: Alpine, CA | Thanks for your faith. I'ma workin' on it. |
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Let's measure ourselves.