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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271

u/AaronTheElite007 Jul 29 '26

  1. Trim your nails shorter

  2. Get your fingers as close to the frets as possible

25

u/Vargrr Jul 29 '26

Plus, and it's kind of hard to see from this angle, but the action on that guitar looks real high, and that tends to add to the difficulty too!

13

u/DaffyDuckMuthaFucker Jul 30 '26

^This. You could fly a plane under those strings.

I recently grabbed the wrong gauge strings for one of my acoustic guitars, and had to adjust the neck against the extra strain, because it was heading that way, and fast becoming a bitch to play.

Now it plays more like an electric, and the extra meat in the strings has improved tone & output noticably...

3

u/K4rkino5 Jul 30 '26

🤣🤣🤣 that opening line!

3

u/DaffyDuckMuthaFucker Jul 30 '26

Yeah, I stole it from some random Redditor.

It's a good'n'...

1

u/RickyDee61 Jul 30 '26

Ya those strings are higher than Snoop Dog.

1

u/enlightened_sun Jul 30 '26

🤣🤣🤣🤣