Short & thick fingers

[RCee]

I tried yesterday to do basic guitar instruction to my adult nephew. He really wants to play guitar. He has made attempts in the past but always runs into problem of sides of his fingers touching strings & messing up the sound. I worked with his on a few basic chords -- C, G7, D7, etc. -- and we always ran into the same problem. I examined his fingers and sure enough they are a bit shorter than mine and quite a bit thicker. Because of the shortness, he has to really stretch his fingers and then the flesh of his fingers gets in the way on chords. And this is on an acoustic classical guitar with the wider spacing. Now he very much wants to get past this problem & will continue to try but he wonders if there aren't some fingers that simpy do not work with a guitar.
P.S. I am well aware, of course, of how clumsy chord formation feels for all beginning guitarist. In this case, I think that is not the issue.

[cyberfret]

I have run into a couple of student in my years of teaching who did have fingers that would make playing very difficult. They just couldn't play chords no matter how much they tried. But that is a couple out of thousands. Most of the time it just requires some work to find the right hand position that will work. He might have better luck on a steel string acoustic to accommodate his smaller hands......even with thicker fingers.

In the beginning just about everyone thinks that their hands are too big, too small, too short, too long, too fat, too skinny....

--Shawn

[RCee]

Thanks, Shawn, for reply. Only a couple out of thousands is a pretty low ratio. I was informed on another Message Board that B.B.KIng does not play chords because he can't. The poster seemed entirely sure of this. That would be a surprise to a lot of people, I would think. Anyway, my nephew is going to keep on keeping on & see if he can get over the hurdle.