Playing guitar will definitely change the shape of your fingers. But in what way?
You may wonder if playing guitar makes your fingers longer. Well, is it true?
Playing guitar does make the fingers of a fretting hand longer. That’s because fingers are stretched when they’re in play. Over time, with stretching and strengthening, fingers do become a bit longer.
If you play guitar for more than a several years now, you should notice the difference.
Take both of your hands and compare them. Your fretting hand fingers should have the ability to stretch themselves, more than fingers of your picking hand.
You should see the difference, not only visually. Even if you’re not looking on your hands while stretching their fingers, you’d sense how your fretting hand is more stretchy than your picking hand.
That’s kind of what you’d expect. Over time, it is not a surprise to have your fretting hand fingers longer, overall.
If you’re a beginner, you probably struggle with fretting your fingers onto the fretboard. That’s perfectly normal. Your fingers are not developed enough to exert pressure on frets.
Also, your fingers don’t have enough strength in themselves. That’s why you shouldn’t worry if you’re feeling sore. Over time, your fingers will certainly become stronger and stretchier.
Are Long Fingers Better For Guitar?
Long fingers cannot make it worse, that’s for sure. But it doesn’t matter that much. As long as you don’t have midget hands, you shouldn’t perceive any struggle while playing guitar.
There are tons of guitarists that have small, fat fingers. Yet, they can perform anything on a guitar. So, if you think you have small fingers, don’t worry.
Even if your fingers are small, remember this. Fingers tend to stretch and adapt to new situations. Over time, you won’t have any problems whatsoever in your playing.
Can My Fingers Be Too Short To Play Guitar?
As it’s been stated above, no fingers are too short for playing guitar. Unless you have world record smallest fingers.
Anyway, if you still think your short fingers are affecting your guitar playing, check this out. There are guitars with thinner necks out there. Those may make you feel more comfortable when playing guitar.
What Happens To Fingers When You Play Guitar?
There are several things that happen to your fingers. First of all, there’s a process of adaptation. That happens, of course, when you take the guitar in your hands for the first time.
But what happens, exactly? First of all, you’ll almost certainly have soreness in your fingers. At least during the first week or two of playing guitar.
Our fingers are naturally weak. In order to play guitar, your fingers have to apply pressure on frets. To apply pressure, strong enough to produce the tone from the string, your fingers have to have some amount of strength.
At first, you’ll feel soreness, because your fingers are not that strong.
Second, you are likely to develop calluses on your finger tips. That’s also something to expect in the beginning. When that happens, take a day off from playing guitar.
Calluses will go away. Your finger tips will develop thicker skin soon after. After some short period of time, there won’t be calluses again. That’s because the skin on your finger tips will become thicker.
Anyway, it can happen that, due to thickening of the skin, your fingerprints become less detailed. Although, you cannot erase your fingerprints.
Check the article from this site about it, if you want to know more about it.
Can My Fingers Be Too Fat To Play Guitar?
No, fingers cannot be too fat for a guitar. A lot of guitarists have very fat fingers. Nevertheless, they play their guitars with ease.
There are many guitar players that have a lot of rings on their hands, also. So, don’t worry (in case you have fat fingers).
Those fat fingers will lose weight after some time, anyway.
Do You Need To Have Long Fingernails To Play Guitar?
Having a long fingernails isn’t necessary for playing a guitar. However, longer fingernails can really help when it comes to fingerstyle playing.
Your picking hand will play fingerstyle easier with longer nails. But it’s not something that’s of upmost importance, anyway.
I don’t have long fingernails, either.
Long fingernails on your fretting hand will make it worse. You don’t want your fretting hand to grow long nails. It can hurt your fingers. Also, it can leave scratch marks on your neck, and you don’t want that to happen.
Do Guitar Players Have Strong, or Long Fingers?
Guitar players certainly have strong fingers. It is impossible to perform various guitar techniques and tricks without strong fingers. For example, you can’t perform string bending if you have weak fingers.
Or tapping. Or legato technique that incorporates pull of and hammer on technique. All those, and many more, require having a strong, well exercised fingers.
Do guitar players have long fingers? It depends, from one guitar player to another. You can watch some videos showing performance of your favorite guitarists. See for yourself. Do they have long fingers?
It seems to me that it’s not so important issue, anyway.
Final Words
I hope this article gave you valuable information about this topic. Let’s recap.
- playing guitar will, indeed, make your fretting hand fingers a bit longer.
- that happens over some longer period of time, due to regular stretching of your fingers
- fingers from fretting hand also develop thick skin on their finger tips
- that thick skin adds in overall size of your fingers, also
- if you’re a beginner, you’ll have to go through this “initiation” process of sore fingers, developed calluses and so on
If you enjoyed reading this article, as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it, I’m more than happy about it. It is always a pleasure bringing interesting content to my fellow guitar buddies, all over the world!
Don’t forget to check out other interesting articles from this site about various guitar topics and issues!
Cheers, and rock on!
