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Hello guitarists,
I am seeking feeback on how people get on with standard guitars.
I am talking about neck/fingerboard widths.
I had always struggled with my standard guitars; I found that in holding chords my fingers often lay on and muted adjacent strings.
I found also that with my right hand when I was finger-picking, that I couldn't pluck strings cleanly enough.

People who play with a plectrum will not have problems in the right hand; but you cannot do half the stuff with a plectrum that you might do with your fingers... I mean non-lead guitar where you are acompaniing a voice or paraphrasing a keyboard perhaps.

So is there anyone who has found their electric guitar neck too narrow who has any thoughts on this?

My soloution to this for my sausage fingers, has been to make myself a developemental series of wide necked guitars.
My most recent one is a Washburn WG-587; a seven string guitar that is now a wide-necked six string.

These guitars have really been a revelation for me, and I really feel like my playing has opened up and developed since I made my first wide-necked guitar; also I make a much cleaner stronger sound with fewer muted strings.

I would appreciate feedback,
Mark D Phillips................

ps. There are photos of some of my wide-necked guitars in my profile.

Hi all,
I forgot to add: that here in Sussex my wide-necked guitars have been well received by some rocking farmers who have big hands from years of manual work; but all big guys with strong hands might find the wide string spacing a huge help.
Cheers,
Mark D Phillips...................

ps. And the photo on my avatar is a Peavey Predator wide-necked six string that I made a couple of guitars ago.

i can play on little necks and big necks... and have gigantic hands... but not so much fat. what I've found is that wide necks are great for some things... while narrow necks are better for others. it's super easy to fret chords and such on my tele (thin) but it's hard to do intricate classical stuff on it (lol classical on my ibanez jem or es296!).

Hello Mike,
You have the best of both worlds with big hands but slim finger tips; one friend of mine has much longer fingers than me but the tips are about 25% smaller, so he plays well on a standard electric or whatever... but now and then when he is round at my place he tries my wide-necked guitars and is increasingly finding his fingers like the extra space.

Clearly for the plectrum player, if there is any advantage it is just going to be in the left hand (unless left handed!).
For two years now I have played solely with fingers, which is for me a vastly more satisfying way to play; I am though still in a state of transition between the fairly classical way I played runs of notes at first with the first three fingers of the hand, and now also I use the more Mark Knopfler method of thumb and the first two fingers.

The farmer friend of mine who I am helping learn guitar, has fingers and finger tips that dwarf mine, and since playing my wide-necked guitar he is convinced he is wasting his time trying to play his Strat... I am rushing to get my wide-necked Washburn right for my own use, so I can let him have my Stratocaster VII.

It is really the kind of thing the idividual needs to try out; certainly when you have your first go your head is still used to fitting your fingers into narrow spaces and it feels very strange to have so much room; after half an hour or more on a couple of days your hands will start to tell you whether they like it or not.

So thanks for the feedback Mike, and if any others have thoughts on guitar neck width I am keen to hear as I want to know if it could be worth making a small batch of wide-necked guitars.
Thanks,
Mark D Phillips....................

Hello again all,
Checking my own profile after directing people to go there to look at my wide-necked guitars, I notice that of the many guitars shown, only two are wide-necked guitars.
One is the purple Stratocaster, and the other the black Peavey Predator.

Thanks,
Mark...............

ps. Now I am starting to try to remember which of the recordings on my audio are new enough for me to have played them with a wide-necked guitar... certainly 'Money Gone' and 'Christmas at the Priory', but I have only had wide-necked guitars for one year.

I've seen some guys with huge fat sausage fingers playing the hell out of a mandolin, & for the life of me I can't see how they do it. I've tried to play their instruments & they are standard skinny neck mandos, which give me hell & hand cramps if I play them too long. They can even chord the thing, which drives me nutso trying to figure out how they do it.

I guess it's all in how you hold the things, Mark.

I had one student who's fingers were so short, and swollen from years as a stone & brick mason, that I literally had to find him a special slide in order for him to be able to play anything at all. Each of his digits was more than an inch across! I've never in my life seen anything so odd, & I'm not exaggerating. His pinky was wider than my thumb!

If you're accidentally muting strings, then your fingernail may be 1/128" too long.
If your fingernail is too long, that prevents you from fretting correctly.
If you have to roll back away from your fingernail to pad the string - trim it - but - just a tiny, tiny amount. Too short, and you'll encounter other problems.
I need to trim my fingernails every 2 days to play my songs, which have a wide variety of unusual chords and finger positions.
With 'standard' songs, I only trim maybe about once every 5 days or so . . .
The key is to trim the least amount possible. Then test it with 8 - 10 different chords. Only trim more if needed.
When playing a guitar, remember that your finger tips are part of the instrument.
You'll find that your guitar sounds better when your fingernail lengths are perfect.

Gee, RM, when mine are too long, I just rip 'em the hell off...or bite 'em.

Hello Phil and Rythm Man and others,
I keep all my nails clipped to nothing as I pick with my finger tips not with nails... nails just seem one better than a plectrum to me, and you still lose the tactile experience of feeling the strings with your skin.

I do try to leave maybe a milimetre of nail on my right index finger as it is my strumming finger and once when I cut the nail right back I did get a sore tip... though it was when I had just returned to the electric guitar two years ago, after twenty years away on just the classical guitar and piano and cello.
The little finger on my right hand just gets used to steady that hand so nail length is not critical at all on that one.

I was fascinated by the 1/128" figure Rythm Man... I didn't quite catch on to what it represented, though I expect most others did.

My series of six string electrics made from seven string guitars have been such a revelation to me to play; I write and create much more freely now.
I don't think it is just a case of holding the standard guitar the right way etc to be able to play it with sausage fingers; I think someone with standard fingers will be fine on a standard neck, but if your fingers are 50% thicker than standard then you will be better on a neck that is 50% wider... simple stuff really!

I think that making guitars to fit hands, rather than making hands fit guitars is the way to go!
Thanks for any input on this one,
Mark D Phillips..........................

The 128 is 2 to the 7th power - strong mojo in numbers, man!

Ive been told that women prefer wider necks.

I just saw this. Its cool that you have overcome a problem with a basic guitar and solved it in a manner that works for you. Im sure there are others out there that could benefit from a wider necked guitar.

I guess I never thought of this. I have a variety of guitars and have average sized paws so i just adapt to the guitar Im playing at the time.

It did open my eyes cause I saw a 7string on Craigs list the other day. I think I would look cool with that big ole neck! So would the chicki-poos!

Hi JW,
Right back in the early seventies I had a guitar built for me based on a Les Paul, and I asked him to make me a wide neck for it but he flapped around and made excuses and I was so young and green I didn't try to push him.
I never really felt that happy with the guitar and thirty years later I started seeing seven string guitars that the owners said they never got on with all going quite cheap on Ebay, and I suddely saw that here was the guitar I had wanted thirty years earlier.

I have done a Schecter Omen 7, a Peavey Predator, a Squier Strat VII, and now a Washburn WG-587, and each seems an improvement and suits me a little better than the previous one.
When I go back to playing my standard narrow Strat neck it feels now like a girl's guitar after the space and clarity of chords on the wide-necked guitar; though at first of course your fingers go looking for notes where they used to be.

I am doubly blessed by the wide neck as I play guitar with hands only not a plectrum... if you do use a plectrum you just get half the advantage I guess.
Some guys in Spain bought my Schecter Omen 7 off Ebay for their band ; they said they like it very much and it works very well for slide guitar too, and playing in Hotels they do rock in cellar bars and softer stuff in lounges sometimes, and the wide neck can be picked like an acoustic guitar for the quieter stuff.

They are quite easy to make as well.
Try one sometime!
Mark.............

I met David Gilmour back in the 80's, shook his hand. That dude had some of the biggest meathooks with plump sausage fingers I've ever encountered. Yet he plays the hell out of a guitar.

I also have somewhat fat fingers, pretty much have difficulties playing the proper A chord, but thats about it. I really cheat on that one too... just lay my fat assed finger across the fret and mute the high E string (or hit an open A on the 5th fret).

We all have our little tricks to get around things

Hello Kramerguy,
Yes I agree,
You can find ways round having fingers that don't fit the guitar, because fingers are remarkably adept at sorting problems for themselves.
I did that for years; but now that I have made the step to a guitar that fits my sausage fingers it feels like those were years when I was trying to dance with my ankles tied loosely together.

My fingers are a bit stumpy and short (see profile shots), but they are not actually that bad; my farmer friend has hands and fingers far thicker than mine, and he loves my guitar so much after struggling with his Strat for too long.

I am only saying that I think there is something worth looking at... many will find there is no issue for them, a few will ask why it didn't occur to them sooner, but most will just decide they can manage okay with what they have and what they have got used to.
True enough, one problem of getting to like a wide neck is that you can't just jump on a nice Strat or something and play as you normally do.

I am thinking I might build a batch of guitars and sell them through our national farmers magazine!
Cheers all,
Mark D Phillips.......................

Kramerguy wrote:I met David Gilmour back in the 80's, shook his hand.

Wait. What?!
The Gilmour? Nice.