Years ago I tried to learn the guitar. I even took lessons for a short time but gave up. I’ve had musical experience, playing the cornet in the school band, but my attempts at the guitar were unsuccessful.
My problem was with fingering the strings. My fingers are relatively short and it was difficult, if not impossible, for me to properly hold down the strings. I couldn’t do it without bumping adjacent strings.
I recently discovered a website that claims to sell guitars that are designed “to play easier than any other guitar made”.
They’re custom built (actually custom modified) by Denny Zager. He was half of Zager and Evans who were one hit wonders in the 60s with “In the Year 2525”.
I’ve googled around and found varying opinions on his guitars. Some feel that they suck. These appear to be in the minority. Others are of the opinion that they’re good but over-hyped and that any good “setup guy” (their term) can do the same thing. Others think they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.
I’m not really qualified to judge. I want something that is physically easy to play but doesn’t sound like crap. Obviously it also should be durable and not fall apart or something after a few years.
Are his guitars worthwhile? Is there something better out there (without spending thousands of dollars)? Does my previous experience indicate that I won’t have much success with any decent guitar?
One good thing is that he does have a money back guarantee, but shipping a guitar back would be a major hassle.
I’m remembering something about Mr. Zager being completely nuts. But I may be wrong. That being said, the bracing and the fret is a ‘to taste’ thing, and the rest of it looks like good setup work.
I’ll be honest, when I started playing guitar, I had the same problem. And then, eventually, I didn’t. You’re gonna hurt your fingers. But really, it’s one of those things where it winds up being entirely up to you. And a lot of practice.
Anyone who plays guitar for a reasonable period of time and bitches about his fingers hurting, like this guy, is probably doing something wrong. I’ve been playing for 20+ years and my fingers only hurt if I play for like 3 or 4 hours straight, and then it only the typical soreness you get when you overdo something. The only reason that happens is because my standard playing period these days is about an hour*.
Without actually picking up one of the guitars it is impossible to tell if they are worth anything.
I’d suggest going into a local music store and asking them to help you find a guitar with a thin profile neck.
Slee
*I used to play ~8 hours a day. Never had a problem with soreness. Wish I could play that much now…
Give me gone time to dig up some relevant links from acousticguitarforum.com and/or umgf.com. The gist of it as I recall was that Denny was buying cheap Chinese made guitars and filing the frets down to nothing. Nobody had anything good to say about the instruments, and in general, you’d be better off buying an inexpensive but reputable instrument and taking it to a local luthier for a setup that suits you best.
I’m hoping Word Man shows up soon, but I can tell you a couple of things that i’ll bet he’ll agree with…
Take a lesson or two. A good teacher can tell you what to look for in a guitar to suit your hand size and other limitations, but more importantly, can analyze your technique and help you get to the point of being able to play cleanly on any instrument. When you’re learning to play guitar, you’re gonna bump the wrong strings all the time no matter what your hands look like. Playing cleanly takes a while.
Browse around the forums I mentioned, particularly the Acoustic Guitar Forum. Theres plenty of discussion of multi-thousand dollar instruments, but also lots of talk about more reasonable guitars as well.
I have big fat fingers, and like E-Sabbath mentioned, I too had problems fingering the strings without hitting adjacent strings. And problems forming chords. And problems only strumming the right strings instead of all 6. My fingers would hurt, and yeah, a couple of times I drew blood.
Over time, that all goes away. My fingers only hurt now if I’ve been away from home without my guitar for a month and I try and play for 2 hours my first day back. I’m still pretty sloppy, but it’s more by design than inability now.
I can recommend Gibson necks over Fender necks for width: they are a little wider, so more space between the strings, so easier fingering. The height of the strings (or "action) is something any decent guitar tech should be able to configure properly for you, however you want it.
I’m sure WordMan will wander in here soon, with his usual excellent advice on this subject.
Have you tried a classical guitar? Not only are the nylon strings much easier to press, the fingerboard is wider with more room between the strings.
The sound is completely different and that could be a deal breaker depending on your preference. The sound is not objectively worse than a steel string, just different (sweet but lily livered).
The other potential problem is you said your fingers are short and you’ll need to reach a little farther on a classical.
That said, I’ll reiterate what others have said.
time and practice may be all that’s needed to overcome your problem. Other people with fingers like yours play beautifully. The difference is not innate talent; it’s the time that’s been spent.
a good luthier or “setup guy” can make even a brand new instrument sound better and play easier. I just spent $140 CDN on my acoustic which included adjusting the truss rod, setting the string height, tightening the tuners, gluing a broken brace and re-gluing the neck joint with magic glue that seeps into the joint so you don’t have to disassemble anything. Still can’t believe it’s so cheap.
I have small hands. I had trouble at first but my hands adjusted. Honestly the best advice is to spend enough to get a good action. The less trouble you have pressing the strings down, the less trouble you will have bumping other strings. Also a lighter gauge string while you are learning will help a lot as well.
I would say it takes most people about two months of serious daily practice to get to where they can do passable job of fretting at a beginner level.
Guitar necks come in a range of widths. I think the widest are typically classical/Spanish guitars. You may want to learn on one of these. The string spacing on any guitar can be adjusted rather easily (replace the nut), although the amount of adjustment is limited by the neck width. I’m thinking the right guitar with proper set-up would address your concerns.
There are several things that bother me about the Zager website, not the least of which is calling himself a “Master guitar builder” when by all accounts it appears he is simply a guitar modifier. The comment on the acoustic-electric, “It’s truly like having 2 guitars in one,” is almost juvenile in its claim. Every model is on sale, and I’ll bet they’re always on sale (which would be deceptive pricing). This site strikes me as designed to impress people who don’t know much about guitars.
That said, if Zager has a true 100% (including shipping both ways) money-back guarantee, there’s no cost to try one out. You may find the shipping it back is easier than you think. If they provide a return shipping label, UPS can pick it up from any location they deliver to.
Hope you’re convinced that the Zager thing is not the way to go; his website is just marketing-speak with no real information – Special string spacing? What is the spacing? Look at other guitar sites and they will tend to tell you the nut width, not just say Special. Phooey on this guy.
Classical guitars do have a wider neck,typically between 48 to 52 mm, and more space between the strings, making it easier to press the strings separately, but that causes other problems. Steel string guitars are not as wide but they also vary; you can look for the wider ones if you want.
So it’s not the fingers that matter, it’s the technique. And yeah, your fingers are going to hurt when you start out; that’s just part of the process. I concur that fat nylon strings hurt less than thin steel strings on an acoustic guitar … and the skinny strings on a straight electric guitar may hurt even less.
A cheap guitar will almost always be harder to play than a very good one but you don’t have to spend thousands. The difference between the $99 Walmart junker and a $400 guitar is probably bigger than the difference between the $400 one and a $4,000 one.
I think these days about $400 is a reasonable expectation to get a decent acoustic guitar. You might look for something from here: http://www.lasido.com/. They have a very good reputation. I actually like my $400 LaPatrie more than some guitars I’ve paid over $1,000 for.
Davidm, one of the reasons I was asking about acoustic versus electric is not the sounds they make, but rather the profile they have.
Acoustics are thick. Electrics are thin. Acoustics have nylon strings (the better ones do), electrics have steel.
Generally, acoustics are a little bit harder to play, rule of thumb. Less forgiving, at least.
Electrics require buying extra gear
Any guitar will wind up with you spending lots and lots of money over time, because there’s a lot of neat stuff these days.
Now, what I’d do, if I were you, is I’d go wander over to a guitar store, and look at a Epiphone Les Paul, and a Fender Squier. They are very different guitars. Most importantly, their necks are very different, one being longer than the other, one being wider than the other. One’s also generally deeper than the other, but that tends to vary around.
Once you figure out which of those you like better, you can tell which features you want in a neck. Then go look at the acoustics.
(I picked electrics for examples because I know them better, and can predictably say that the necks on those two guitars will be as different as butter and bread.)
Might as well add, we have a Great Ongoing Guitar Thread.
It starts with me knowing jack about guitars, and everyone kindly offering help over the year or so.
It’s incredibly educational. Might want to give it a look.
I probably didn’t play enough, but my problem when trying to learn guitar was that I’d develop callouses which would then PEEL OFF. Leaving me with yet more tender skin to try to build up.
This happened for two years, and I gave up. Also had issues with finger reach, as I had small hands, but did find a guitar with a narrow neck <just by feel; kept picking up guitars in the stores until one said ‘Take me home!’> but it was the inability to callous for long that killed me.
As I enjoy the sound and playing for myself, and not for professional reasons, the idea of an ‘easier to play’ guitar doesn’t sound bad at all.
Of course, it’d have to pass the ‘take me home!’ test, which isn’t possible online without lots of returns.
Perhaps you can find a guitar such as that one in a store somewhere, and try it out for yourself.
They are nice though the bowl backs bug the heck out of me because the body wants to slide out from the bottom when I play them. Other than that they are pretty nice.
Bumping adjacent strings is usually caused by either high action (string height) or not holding your hand correctly. When holding you hand on the neck, you want your thumb about in the center of the neck with your fingers parallel to the frets. Also you want your wrist to be fairly traight in relation to your elbow, not bent. Most beginners want to hold their elbow in, close to their body. Holding your elbow in twists your wrist which lowers the finger dexterity and also makes it very hard to fret a string correctly. Pop your elbow out away from your body.
Have someone knowledgeable about guitars check out any guitar you may want to get for playability. They should be able to tell you if it is a dog or not.
If you are learning acoustic, play with the guitar resting on your left leg, not your right. It is easier to get in the correct position that way. Once you’ve been playing for a while the positioning will become automatic and you can then get all rock star by hanging your guitar at your knees.
Friend, you still have much to learn about acoustic guitars. Nylon vs. steel strings is not related to quality, it’s related to the particular guitar design. Better has nothing to do with it.
Yes, and the guitar I started out with had the frets with razor sharp edges. No pain, no gain.
It’s where the pain goes that I was talking about. Why would you play something uncomfortable, when you could play something that doesn’t dig into your chest?
Gary T: I was simplifying. Vastly. I’ve found that the cheapest of the acoustics are steel-strings, though. Washburn Lions, for example. After a bit, then you have the choice, but I’m talking the cheap-cheaps (100 to sub-100). I may be wrong, but that’s what I’ve gotten out of seeing a small parade of things people broke.
Speaking of cheap acoustics, Seagull is a decent brand, I hear, they’re Godin’s budget brand. Washburn isn’t bad, either, but not great. Ibanez is good, acoustic or electric, but interesting in that they do not have a separate brand for their cheaper stuff, it’s all Ibanez.
First Act is a Bad Idea.