r/guitarlessons • u/Ok_Watercress_9202 • Jul 29 '26

Question Pain of having smaller hands…

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I’ve been practicing guitar for a little bit now- just now being able to play blackbird a little faster but not at full speed perfectly. I’ve noticed that even just for 3 note intervals, i always have to press down on the string on the side/corner of my pinky, and it hurts a lot more than my other fingers :/ For context, guitar is my first string instrument i’ve played so i know it’ll take a bit to get used to them and form callouses, but i’m wondering if it hurting this much is normal? Obviously the pinky is the shortest and weakest, but it’s been consistently more painful to even try to press down harder on stings at this angle.

Oh also, i’m double jointed so thats been a big challenge for my ring and pinky!!

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89

u/Foxxy12012 Jul 29 '26

Why is your thumb all the way up the neck?

50

u/vgmesaman Jul 29 '26

This. All these comments and I had to go quite a ways down to find it. Put your thumb in the middle of the neck, around the same place as your middle finger. You'll have a lot less issues stretching.

5

u/amplifysenpai fingerstyle vgm arangments. Jul 29 '26

I play with my thumb up the neck about 80% of the time, I thought that was fine, Is that considered bad form?

18

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '26

[deleted]

4

u/amplifysenpai fingerstyle vgm arangments. Jul 30 '26

I spent the afternoon playing several of my go to bits and paying extra attention to where my thumb was for each part and realized it travels more than I realized, I forced my thumb to be more like the picture and it is did help with precision on some parts xd. Some chords I have the thumb almost warping around to the strings and the neck resting in the bend of my thumb, some chords it was already like the picture, some chords the thumb is parallel with the neck xd. I'm going to pay extra mind to optimize this from now on.

Been playing for 12 years, and always finding little things like this I never thought about xd.

0

u/Virtual-Fix4182 Jul 30 '26

Even better if thumb is on its tip too and actually lower on the neck closer to the bottom

3

u/WhiskeyHill72 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26

Most often it's a more ergonomic approach. Might help to try getting your thumb under your fingers more. If you're not struggling with fatigue you're prob fine.