Are Your HANDS Too SMALL (Or Big) To Play GUITAR?
If you’re learning guitar, you may have thought to yourself at some point "I just don’t think my hands were built for this!”"
Everyone will give a different reason for why they think this, maybe their hands are:
- too small,
- too big,
- too average,
- too lanky,
- not lanky enough,
- too dainty,
- too shaky,
- too flaky,
- too veiny.
...I’ve heard enough different reasons to give Dr. Seuss material for 20 or 30 more books.
(Stay connected for my upcoming book "The Hand in the Band" about a guitar player in a top hat and red bow tie who endlessly complains with his bandmates about the length of his fingers...)
The thing is - sorry for dropping the bomb - every single one of those excuses are just that; excuses. None of them is a good reason why you can’t learn the guitar.
Why so many people believe in excuses like this? Simply, the guitar is harder to learn than they expected it to be. They thought it would be easier (because the pros make it look easy - it's their job!)... and when it isn’t, it’s just natural to blame their hands and call it a day.
(Nobody ever complains their hands are too small to scroll on their phone, or to type a scathing email answer, though - like the ones I will receive after sending this out. Lol)
To learn the guitar, you need to be patient. You need some discipline, and some commitment. It will take time.
... but it is also extremely rewarding to learn.
... and to be fair, you can learn to enjoy the challenge.
So, as harsh as it may sound, to learn the guitar you need to stop looking for excuses and simply put in the time and effort. Everybody (with moving fingers) can learn the guitar.
You may be thinking, however: "wouldn’t it stand to reason that extremely small hands would make certain aspects of the guitar harder? Or really big hands? Or any other physical obstacle? Even if it’s possible, surely these obstacles still make the instrument harder to learn?"
Surprisingly, not really. In fact, if you believe this, you might be thinking about learning guitar the wrong way entirely.
In the video below, I’ll explain why these obstacles are actually not obstacles at all, and have no real effect on your ability to learn the guitar. I'll also share some extreme stories.
Looking for more resources on learning the guitar? Check out my Master of the Modes guitar course if you want to expand your knowledge on all things scales and modes!
Video Transcription
Hello, Internet! Have a look at this comment! When I first started playing years ago, my guitar teacher told my stepdad in front of me that my hands are way too small to ever play guitar. I worked and worked and stretched and adapted, and some things may seem harder, but with work, I've been able to succeed.
So, first of all, I am very sorry you had to go through that. Some people should not be allowed to teach. And I say this very seriously, because as a guitar teacher, saying this to a student is the worst thing you can do.
If any one of you had a teacher telling you this or something equivalent, quit. Quit that teacher. Go somewhere else. Learn from somebody who actually believes in you. Because here's the thing. I had people, I taught people with very small hands.
I taught people who were very old. I taught people who had other problems. They could not raise their hand properly. They could not be in position. I taught people with missing fingers. Those people, all those people, can learn and they can become decent, if not even great, at what they do.
Do they start at a disadvantage? Yes, formally speaking, yes, but sometimes the disadvantage actually makes you concentrate on the important thing in music, so that can compensate. My point is here is, find a teacher who believes in you, first of all, okay?
Because there is very little, okay? I mean, unless I'm missing all the fingers, okay? There is very little that can hold you back if you want to play guitar. There are people who learn to play guitar with their feet, okay?
So, I mean, come on. Don't accept any of that from any guitar teacher. They tell you your hands are too small. Find somebody who knows how to teach people with small hands. Simple as that. They exist.
It is possible, okay? And you can become as good as you want, regardless of the size of your hands. Period. I've seen this happen so many times. I have smallish hands. I know people who are hands smaller than mine who can play better than me.
So it's not even a problem. Okay? But second, I'm actually angry at this teacher here because, I mean, how do you dare limit your students this way? How do you dare? Okay. You don't know how much those people, how much work those people will put in.
You don't know what's the limit of those people. You just don't. Okay. People overcome much bigger limitation than that. Django Reinhardt was missing two fingers. He got in a fire and he burned two fingers of his left hand.
So he was playing everything with the other two fingers and he was playing pretty well and pretty fast. Tony Iommi was missing part of one of his fingers. Other people had other problems. I know people who play guitar.
I've even interviewed a few of them. I'm not going to make names right now, but I know people who play in internationally known band who have focal dystonia and they cannot move a finger of their left hand.
If you don't notice, but they never use that finger. I know people who have crippling problem, crippling health problem at their elbows, at their back, etc. And they still are able to play guitar. Small hands, relatively easy in the grand scheme of thing.
So do not accept teachers who don't believe in you. It doesn't matter what your problem is right now, what's the perceived problem, it can be overcome one way or the other. Sometimes it requires creativity.
If you're missing fingers, it requires creativity. If you're missing the index finger on your left hand, one of my accidents did, playing the standard scale with three notes per string is going to become harder.
Impossible. No, you can still learn that with the other three fingers, okay? Which is what we did with the student. And they still were fast and the guy was still able to shred even without an index finger.
Do not let physical limitations stop you. If you desire to play the guitar, it's just a matter to find a creative way of doing it. Okay? That's today's message. Don't let anything stop you. You never know.
That famous player that you like, you never know what kind of physical limitation they had to overcome. And you will be surprised at the physical limitation that some very famous player had to overcome to get where they are.
If you're thinking, oh well, but they are talented, they have big hands, they have this, they have that, you really don't know. Music you like may have been written by somebody who had bigger problems than yours.
So don't get discouraged. Practice, find somebody who believes in you and then can teach you, and then practice and get better. It's possible, you can do it. This is Tommaso Zillio for musictheoryforguitar.com, and until next time, enjoy!