Best Guitars For Small Hands – Guitar Buyer’s Guide and Comparison
Small hands or large hands, there’s a guitar for everyone! We’re often asked if small hands will hinder guitar playing, and our answer to that is “no!” Many famous players and virtuosos have small hands and that one trait hardly stopped them from picking up an instrument and progressing! Play A Note, Change Your Life!
#bestguitar #smallhands #buyersguide #guitarreview #topten
Baby Taylor → https://www.alamomusic.com/taylor-baby-taylor-acoustic-guitar/
Taylor GS Mini → https://www.alamomusic.com/taylor-gs-mini-e-walnut-acoustic-electric-guitar-natural/
Taylor Academy → https://www.alamomusic.com/taylor-academy-series-a10-dreadnought-acoustic-guitar/
FenderCC-60SCE → https://www.alamomusic.com/fender-classic-design-series-cc-60sce-cutaway-concert-acoustic-electric-guitar-black/
Gretsch G9531→ https://www.alamomusic.com/gretsch-g9531-style-3-double-0-grand-concert-acoustic-guitar-appalachia-cloudburst/
Squier Contemporary Stratocaster → https://www.alamomusic.com/squier-contemporary-stratocaster-hh-dark-metallic-red/
_________________________________________________________________
∘ Guitar Buyers Guide → https://www.alamomusic.com/discover-musicdont-get-a-good-deal-on-the-wrong-guitar-guitar-buyers-guide/
∘ Interested in a different guitar? Talk to an expert here → https://www.alamomusic.com/find-your-guitar/
__________________________________________________________________
? Talk to an expert here → https://www.alamomusic.com/find-your-guitar/
♪ Contact us: https://www.alamomusic.com/contact
♩ Call toll-free: (844)251-1922
♬ Connect:
Twitter → https://twitter.com/alamomusic
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/alamomusic
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/alamomusiccenter/
#Guitars #Small #Hands #Guitar #Buyers #Guide #Comparison
Originally posted by UCIB3DqQuXKmM7DzEMppafDA at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy0GIDHlDHE
(Odd Meter) GUITAR SOLO PLAYTHROUGH (Progressive Rock / Metal) ???? #shorts 
Very nice video review. Just a little disappointed that you didn’t demo the last 3. It would have been nice to hear them.
what about martin?
Thank you so MUCH! Very helpful and informative!
Squires are too big, homie.
Get yourself a tenor guitar, only 4 strings 2 less strings to worry about , skinny little neck lucky for me a very wonderful client i had gave me her fathers old arch top Orpheum. She kept telling me it was banjo. But much to my surprise it was not.
Not the body size the width of the neck from the nut with down how about 1.575 artist taper ..?
Fender Jaguars have a 24" scale length.
Fact. My small hands make playing harder. That said, I don't buy baseball bat necks. Except my 1st guitar. A yamaha FG-360. Fat big neck. But I learned. I played a Tacoma Roadking in 1999. Never looked back. You find the one that works. You also have to know your limitations with smaller hands. No thumb over, at least cleanly. No 5 fret spread until after the 5th fret.
Understand your limitations.
Anyone else click on a couple of the links in the description to see a price on one of these guitars here's talking about?
14k.. 8k…
I sat here through 3/4 of this video and should have checked out a link from the start.
I have been playing guitar for 4 years now and I play on my church worship team. When I first started out on guitar lots of people gave recommendations for what guitar to buy. I listened and bought multiple 14 fret full size dreadnoughts. I struggled playing and didn't know why. Then I bought a smaller "scale length/nut width" guitar Taylor GTE mahogany and all my playing struggles went away! Know your limitations. Find out what works for you.
When do we start considering hands as being small
When do we start considering hands as being small
The Alvarez RS26, sold as a "student" acoustic and VERY inexpensive is a very nice package, smaller but not too small, with a 1-5/8" nut (the reason I bought it). Sadly, I bought mine online, and the quality was crap: viciously sharp protruding fret-ends, rough neck finish, literally a cracked bridge. But I liked the overall guitar enough to spend $320 for a luthier to make things right, including shaving down the fat neck profile.
SIZE DOES MATTER. As petit boned female, radius makes a huge difference when it comes how you play the neck. Take it from a 58 year old that has small hands, so no way even a radius of 9.5 on a fender my thumb can muff 6th while playing cords on PIMI. It is difficult, yes if you are driven you adapt and do something just way different because I can't physically do it the way others do. But Size does matter. ITs All in the Radius of the neck that makes a huge difference. I can't even watch. dude is clueless as he has never lived it
I generally love your videos, and the guitar part of this one is typically great.
I have to push back a bit on the intro. In a way, what you say about practice and discipline is true, but small hands are a huge impediment. I know. I am male and tall (6’1.75”) but have small hands. When I started, I knew this, and resolved to play anyway, no matter what, no matter my limitations. Thirty years down the road, I’ve played hundreds of gigs, recorded three records, played on the radio, etc. But the fact is, there’s a ton of stuff I just can’t do, and yeah, I practiced til my fingers bled, mastered the instrument, etc. Small handed players just have to approach it that way in my view. Yes, you are limited, but just get what you can do down 100%, and then use that. Sorry, you’ll never be a great Travis picker, though, or to be able to play Robert Johnson tunes close to the original.
And yeah, I’ve always played Taylors. My advice: Do anything and everything to make the guitar easy to play. Thinnest neck, shortest scale, lightest strings, lowest action. There are more options now than there used to be (as this video shows) but we need all the help we can get. If you think about it, the sound quality is not a big deal—you’re usually through a PA, outside somewhere, in a loud bar, or in a studio where you can manipulate the sound. And after all, Hound Dog Taylor played a $50 guitar. My 2 cents: Low expectations, endless tenacity, strategic choice of model/make. Enjoy.
So if I wanted a dreadnought or a grand auditorium guitar. What is the lingo to ask for a smaller fret spacing and neck thickness guitar?
I can do chords but not the F chord or B chord. Fingers to small.
They shouldn't call these guitars with words like "baby", "mini", it's like they say " here a guitar for your baby hands" .. can hurt feelings ^^
UNSUBSCRIBE…..Hate greedy people that put adverts in their videos….dislike his video as well
I have been trying to learn the intro mriffs to orion for 3 years and still cannot do it without accidentally muting strings so please don't tell me that hand size means nothing. i can play a lot of other things sure but there are limitation to what I can play.
Wow, I agree with these comments. It’s just physically impossible to deaden the low E with your thumb if it won’t wrap over the neck. Medium and large handed players just don’t get it.
i have a taylor 200 series and STRETCHING for a 4-net chord is EXTREMELY hard, and i'm not sure if that taylor acadamy being 5/8TH smaller in scale length would make a huge difference in smaller fret spaces?
Maybe this topic could be covered by a woman with a small hand? I have small hands, I can’t even by gloves for adults as my fingers are to short. The size of the hand does matter.
Thank you very much for your tutorial….we novices are so hesitant to ask a saleperson…who always seem to be a bit condescending. You come across as genuine and experienced…Kudos!!
So just to clarify…. its not about the short hands persay it's hand dexterity. So this should help with people have less scale mobility.
The point is to play with other people. Thats where the incentive lives, Your comfort or not will become less important.
Been learing guitar for 3 months now, got a squier telecaster for myself as my first, I’m soon gonna look into trying out a mustang or a jaguar because i feel like the shorter scale length would feel better for my smaller hands
2:06 This is so annoying… like dude… I've been playing ukulele, clarinet and piano for years. No problem. But the guitar is physically too large for me. Like dude some people genuinely have hands that physically cannot play a chord.
Martin's little LX1 is about the best I've found. Not a beauty but easy-playing fretboard and neck, and bulletproof construction. The slightly larger Eastman ACTG1, with its solid wood top, back, and sides, is also nice, although I'd prefer a thinner neck profile.
Small-hand folks should be cautious about "parlors." They have small bodies, but often wide, flat fretboards. Plus, they're usually 12-fret instruments, meaning greater distances between frets.
Small hands/fingers not only affect reach; they also affect hand strength, requiring more playing effort.
Get a nylon guitar Stubby. Apostle Mark was nick named for the same reason.
Chris, I have to somewhat disagree with you. I have arthritic fingers and therefore when fingering chords I find having extra wide string spacing helps me avoid string buzz. I am able to form cleaner chords. I also think this is helpful for people with fatter fingers. I believe when selecting a guitar string spacing is very important, if not critical. This is particularly important if you play finger style where you end up plucking individual strings. I believe guitar sales staff should help new customers understand this critical component in advising them on the right guitar for them. I find in practice they don’t do this.
Sure, there probably are things that people with small hands can do better than people with large hands, especially when it comes to playing cords way up the neck, but there are certain things that people with small hands definitely have more trouble with such as using your thumb to either press down on the top, strings or mute, while you’re doing a chord. If you can’t physically get your thumb over the top like Jimi Hendrix, then you can’t so to say that small hands don’t matter is totally untrue in certain situations. I’ve got small hands and eventually I learned to do things a little bit different, but there are certain things that I will never be able to do. When it comes to stretchy cords, I don’t really have too much of a problem with that but certain Barchords were definitely challenging because when you have small hands you just don’t really have the weight or the mass that somebody with larger hands has. When you have larger hands, you don’t really even have to press. You just kind of lay your hand on the guitar and it holds down the bar and sure that’s the way you want to do it with small hands to rather than like pressing, super hard but still I think people with larger hands have an easier time with it for sure. And personally playing lead guitar people with smaller hands and stubby fingers definitely are at a deficit when it comes to playing lead. It’s just a matter of physics, if you have a longer fingers, it requires much less movement to go from one string to the other. Most of the monsters of guitar that are really good usually have pretty large hands and sure there are exceptions, so I’m not saying that it’s impossible to play good lead with small hands but to say that it’s just as easy is a complete lie. Ideally, in a lot of cases it’s better to play more with your thumb and first finger, then with the stiff wrist and the movement all coming from the wrist and if you have big huge long fingers, you’re gonna have way more capability and reach. It’s just a matter of math, so just say that you can play lead just as easily with small fingers just isn’t true. You can still become a great guitarist for sure, but there are going to be a lot of things that you come up against that you’re just not gonna be able to do as well as somebody with large hands.
As a beginner with tiny hands, things are A LOT easier on my 3/4 than on the full size. It really makes a difference.
Very informative video on small guitars.
Fabulous helpful video for a head scratching issue for me. Thanks.
Thanks great video.
what model was that Taylor Academy guitar? There are more than one on the Taylor website. Thank. you,
im lucky that despite having small hands, i have ,any years of violin experience behind me so my hand is used to contorting weirdly, but even still i have small hands and my dads guitar which im trying to learn on is kinda big.
I know this is old but I need to comment. It's not just about small hands but small hands create two problems, strength and length. It simply requires more strength to play with small hands because of leverage and I'd be careful about thinking otherwise. Who said give me a long enough lever and I can pick up the earth? It double downs the challenges of playing. I have a beautiful Martin guitar that I've had the action lowered and I basically can't play it even though I've been playing a strat for 30 years. You might be short with short finger but you have a lot of muscle bulk and strength.
Hi, I am 5’ and playing guitar since 6 years now. If I can talk about electric guitar, I bought a Fender “squire”. That is better than my old E335, but not even perfect for I am frustrated with things like “Johnny B Goode” : I can play the intro, however I can’t play the lower chord from 5 fret to 9 fret. And some barrée chords give me hard time. That could be fun that companies think of us when they are doing guitars, because I would have wish a small telecaster instead of Stratocaster. Thanks for your advises. I will check it out. Thanks
Amazing playing on the GS mini Chris ????
Having small hands, can’t play frets with thumb. So annoying.
I know this is old but… this intro is kinda whack.
No offense dude, but as a 5’2” ish, 100 lbs-soaking-wet, petite woman with hands small enough that every “small”-sized glove is too big (and joint issues, some specifically in my hands, to boot), your hands don’t seem very small to me.
I love your content (you and Cooper are a riot) but I feel like the intro discounting people whose hands may literally be too small for full-sized guitars and essentially implying it’s strictly just a cushier choice for people with less tolerance for discomfort or challenge you are seriously overlooking just how varied adult human anatomy is, and the many joint, connective tissue, and pain conditions that exist out there in the world.
What’s the resistance to people playing smaller guitars anyway? Like, genuinely. Cause I’m assuming the whole dismissive Your Hands Aren’t Really Too Small, You Just Need To Practice More bit was to make sure you’re discouraging as many people as possible from trying a smaller sized guitar. But if we zoom out from your own personal anecdote about believing your hands are small, and include people whose hands may actually be very small… What’s wrong with accommodating your anatomy to allow you to do something at the same scale that most average-sized people are used to? I am SO CURIOUS how you’d manage with a guitar made to the same size ratio as a full size guitar is to me.
Can some—hell, even many—very small-handed people manage to learn and play full-size guitar anyway? Of course, and more power to ‘em. BUT, acting like the people who can’t manage to do it (or don’t want to injure themselves trying) are just impatient wimps who can’t stand a little discomfort or difficulty or aren’t putting in the requisite blood sweat and tears is one of the most annoying attitudes to have about it.
Anatomical limitations and struggles are a real thing. Interestingly, it’s almost always average-sized & structured people who blow off my occasional mentions of struggles and limitations because of my size or joint problems and essentially tell me it’s just some failing on my part or because I’m “not trying hard enough” (never mind the fact that being very small with iffy joints often means needing to put in more physical/logistical effort to accomplish “average” things, so half the time I’m trying harder than normal to accomplish the same thing).
I recognize that I might sound overly sensitive about it, and I apologize if my reaction is disproportionate. I’m just super DUPER tired of people who don’t have substantial limitations making assumptions about or brushing off people who do. Or pretending we don’t exist by saying that “everyone can do it you just have to practice.” It just makes the world an unfriendlier place.
I get that it’s apparently your opinion that no one’s hands are too small for a full-size guitar, but as someone who can still fit into children’s sizes at 31 years old, I’m gonna have to disagree with your opinion there. After many years of not being able to learn on my full-sized guitars, I bought a tenor ukulele and realized just how much of my struggle was a size issue. I came to this vid bc I realized I might finally be able to play guitar without hurting myself if I can use a smaller one and your content is usually fab.
Anyway, looking forward to checking out your recommendations!
This dude is speaking truth. It’s gonna be uncomfortable before it gets comfortable. Stick at it and trust the process
Help: It would be more helpful if you could play some chords that reach-out across 4 or 5 frets, as this is where most of the problem is.
Chris… is there a way to measure your hand to find what size/shape of neck would be best for a beginner/first time guitar player??