Hey Nicole, thx for kind greetings. I would post a photo so you understand, also how I can’t play classic A shape do to lack of the room on the frets. We are probably on the opposite side of the scales, however you have choice to go smaller guitars,where I don’t have option to go bigger, or do I? A major is a breeze as well as B Major or any other A shape chord. I’ll post shortly. Regards
Cheers mate, I’m looking at position already. My problem laying in my need to look down upon the neck and left hand. I was bending over far to much. Also I was not straight but turned right . I’m working on it, that will not slow me down , I got use to pain.
Don’t some manufacturers make jumbosized guitars? And such with wider necks? No you made me curious to research this… Because otherwise there would be an unmet demand for special needs guitars…
EDIT
I see that @Jamolay was faster than me and already posted link
See my above post!
They do make classical guitars with up to 54mm or maybe 55 mm nut width and you can always get a custom guitar made if you can afford it. There is a company in Texas that specializes in wide neck electric guitars, on par with classical neck widths.
However, there are a number of accomplished and even famous musicians with notoriously large hands.
“ Big Hands
The term “sausage fingers” gets thrown around a lot in the guitar community. It typically refers to having particularly wide fingers. This can make it more challenging to accurately fret individual strings. But just like small hands, there are a ton of amazing players that have abnormally large hands. Redd Volkaert, Johnny Hiland, Don Ross, Andres Segovia, and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole all have huge hands and have no problem being absolute monsters on the guitar.”
Not to mention Hendrix and Bb King and so on.
They all played on mostly normal size guitars, so I think the answer for those of us with small hands, or those of you with ginormous hands is to learn to play the way our hands permit.
Also an article on players with hand injuries:
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Thank you so much. Don’t get me wrong I didn’t even think to complain. I’m happy with who I am and how I look . After all this is just our outer shell. That will not determine who we really are. Imagine me whining why I can’t wear designers shoes. They usually come in size as big as 12 US or some brands might have it in 13. I remember I push my feet in to 13US Prada boots when I was in my 20s and that was important for me back then. I had blisters for a month, until they starch enough. Btw. My true size in shoes is 14 US or 48.5 Europe. Sports shoes 15US or 49.5 Eur. Good days though.
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No worries! I did not think you were complaining. It is an interesting subject that comes up again and again, how we all have our uniqueness and how we address it in our guitar journey and life. I think your attitude is great!
Your story has me thinking the contrast to my daughter who at one month shy of 14 yo looks destined to be roughly 145 cm tall and still wears only size 1 shoes! Her hands are to match. She is not playing guitar, though (nor is she likely to try a career in basketball…). Takes after her mom, who is not much bigger.
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Life is beautiful, diversity is what made us great species. I try to teach my kid kindness rather then anything else. True values are not words but deeds we do. she can see with her own eyes. If she pick up guitar, good. however I will not force it. She could be a athlete, but she choose not to , fine , she is 14 y.o and as tall as her mom around 175cm. We give them choice, let them pick it up. Best regards
Wow that’s amazing Ivan! Kudos! That’s something to be proud of!
If I had your height I might had a career too but…
Yes back in those days, I remember the 5s… Usually big guys, quite physical game. Today even the 5s are very athletic or at least much more than they used to be. But Serbia has produced so many good players (and national team cohorts!)
I used to be a “1” but I could play all the guards positions. In special situations I’ve even played 4 because I may be short but I could “match up” taller and heavier guys when it came down to pushing them out of the painted area 
More people (if not all) should be thinking like that.
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Ye absolutely, 5s are no longer as there were back then. Even when I was finishing, you would need to hit that 3s if you would consider euro league player. Also 5s are now days light as feather unlike back in the days of Shack when 5s were power in the paint. Anyway, struggle is real. I Think I might over do it. My index middle joint is in quite a pain. Ligaments?
Hello Ivan and welcome to JustinGuitar and the Community.
It seems you’re going along really well.
Remember to allow yourself time to stay on one place and consolidate.
In terms of a mini barre for A, I strongly recommend you use your 1st finger.
I know that A_shape barre chords require a barre with 3rd finger but the advantages further down your learning path of using 1st finger for A are many.
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Hello , thank you for your advice. I already start doing that. It seems index has much more strength and precision, no wonder. I start doing this already few days back. I still however play it sometimes with 3 fingers as Justin do, especially when I need to transition from A to A7.
Thank you for the advice to consolidate, I definitely need more structure, I am all over the place atm. So excited to learn new stuff, new cords , I’m still super behind in playing melody and I tried to do bit of finger picking just to try it out. My right hand is behind , strumming go so, so. Also I’m trying to tap but sometimes it’s so so hard to tap , count , change cords , sing and all that in same time. I want to ask one thing. Like if I know that song is in 118bpm and I metronome it to half that ( 59bpm) so it’s easier to tap is that legit ? I don’t have 1/4 chord changes to play ofc. It’s just to hard for me to tap on beat at 118bpm.
Yes, that’s perfectly fine when your are learning to change between new chords or are learning a new song. You will be able to change chords faster with time. Just slow the song down as much as you need and change the speed bit by bit as you get more comfortable playing. Was that your question?. 
Ivan, might sound like a somewhat stupid question, but how many hours per day are you practicing? That hurting index finger might be a sign that you are simply practicng too much?
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Hey Nicole, ye I think I did bit to to much those days. When I started I did 5+ hours per day, however lot of that time went in to videos and theory about notes and all that. My musical knowledge was basically 0, so I have to do all from scratch . Now I do just like basketball season, around 2x1.5 - 2h per day in average, each day I should just chill a bit. I have that problem , once I decide to do something im all in. I’m competitive person… 
usually compete against myself. I am trying to change that. I’m like that in business as well… Im running small b&b and running great ( nb.1 Tripadvisor b&b in Belgrade in last 13 years), but I do stres all that much if something is not 100%. I like to look at that as I’m very persistent and stubborn. My wife will argue that is not normal. But then again what she knows about dedication and hard work. I have her to chill me down, that’s good. You know how I feel? I feel like I missed so so much in life, like discovering music in mid 40s , now I want to catch up. I’m afraid I’ll not have enough time to learn all I want before I’m gone… Crazy right ?
We all miss a lot in life, you can’t do everything. I will never know what it is to be a basketball player, right? As long as while missing things you were doing something else, why sweat it? I appreciate where I have been and try to make good choices of where I am going. Why worry that I am missing playing piano because instead I am playing guitar?
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Fair point, i dont regret for any minute when I was playing sports. I do regret spending 15.000 hours in video games, again my competitive nature…
At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. No point in worrying about it. In the past now and it is part of who you are. You seem like a good person with interest, insight and drive, so far so good, right?
We just should not spend the rest of our lives watching tv.
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Thank you for you support. I really appreciate it. I also like your point of view. Cheers
Oh, I do recognize myself there. A lot. When I started with Justin Guitar in May 2023 I did exactly the same - more or less through the whole late spring and summer. I had summer vacation and other vacation days, and I wanted to learn. Granted, I had played before, granted I knew the basics… But I wanted to be better, I wanted to stay with it to finally consciously play different strumming rhythms consistently, etc. I finally wanted to understand music theory. There were days when I easily spent 10 -12 hours with a combination of playing, dry strumming, learning music theory, watching Justin’s song videos to figure out what I wanted to play and searching information on the forum. When I had to go back to work I would not really play guitar on workdays but again invest hours and hours on weekends. With such kind of practicing I was going nowhere fast.
I don’t consider myself a competitive person. I had no rush whatsoever. I knew that things take time. But yes, you are right, that’s competitive behavior. It seems, when I love something I burn for it and I am all in. That’s another thing where I recognize myself in you.
Burning brightly unfortunately also means that there is a chance of burning out (clichée as it sounds). That’s what happened in my case. My practice schedule was bad anyway with mainly practicing on weekends only and I flew through songs that didn’t sound as good as I wanted them to sound. I had a lot of stress at work and at some point I simply stopped playing. This lasted several months… I never had any intention to quit, I always knew that I would get back at it… But that took time.
Thus I’m almost glad to hear that you have reduced your practicing time to 3 or 4 hours per day - which is still a lot.
I see that all of these discussions are still happening in your introductory post. Just an idea: Many of us have our own Learning Logs. Meaning you essentially have your own blog on JG that you can use as learning diary, for reflection, for discussing struggles and asking for help, documenting practicing routines, sharing songs and techniques you are working on and asking for feedback. Perhaps that’s something that could help you?
(This post is too long already, second one coming for the rest)
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Yes, I do. And no I don’t think it’s crazy. I’m four years older than you. There is so much to learn and so little time. I agree.
Yet… if you take a few steps away from your sentences … It’s easy to give this perspective a different spin. Your self-evaluation might start to sound a bit more positive when you know what your long-term, mid term and short term goals are, for example. There lately were two fantastic live clubs focussing on practicing. Both Lieven and Richard posted resources. Seeing that you are very reflective, I’m sure that working with these resources could help giving things a more positive spin. See here
… And here…
It’s never too late starting with something you love (now that sounded kitschy, didn’t it?). It’s true, though. Again… take two or three steps back. Take a look at where you are. You started doing something that you clearly enjoy. You know what would be wasting time in my opinion? Spending time pondering things which might have been. All these “what ifs”… That’s something you can’t change. Might be hard, might be sad. But that’s a fact. You might never become as good at guitar as you could have, would you have started as a teenager and would have been practicing each and every day from then on. Fact. You will never have enough time to discover all the good songs out there and to decide which of them you would like to learn to play. Fact.
Still, look at where you are. You started an exciting journey. You will get as far as you will get. Still… You can influence the steps you are taking. You can influence how you want to reach your short term, mid term and long term goals. With very high probability, you still have many years that you can invest in guitar, understanding music theory and discovering new music. Isn’t that great?
Ha … Now you will have me searching your B&B in Tripadvisor. Nothing better than dreaming about beautiful sunny places on a cold Finnish winter day 
Greetings from my husband to your wife. He knows what it’s like. And I guess we can both really be happy to have such wonderful spouses.
(I hope that I now finally managed to do your thoughtful reply justice… )
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Omg what an answer, I’m not sure how did I deserve this. Thank you so much, I’ll try to understand all of your kind words and chew this and let it sit for a awhile, anyway I already agree on most of the things.
I’m not sure of this is even allowed, come anytime. If it’s not please delete this section, no bad intentions. It’s humble place, small , clean and cheap in the heart of old town. We put our souls in to it. Everything done inhouse. From reviews you can read more about me and my wife then about our rooms. In fact those reviews could be my CV and my introduction post anywhere
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294472-d2144871-Reviews-Selection_Apartments_Rooms-Belgrade.html
Look for us on Maps as well to understand location.
Selection Apartments & Rooms
065 2999942
https://maps.app.goo.gl/nv9Sk72YWH7jpfv39
This year we hosted a stay to a young boy Matty from Finland, he loved it so much that he want to come in Serbia as student exchange. He met a girl though…
We are exchanging messages and when we had 20C+ you guys already had snow and quite a cold weather. But this is all relative, we just came back from Barcelona (they love guitars, lots of street players) it was 23C there where in Belgrade was -3 .
Come over , i’ll let you play my Yamaha C40 !
No on the serious note, thank you for your kind advice and for the time you put in writing it. It’s such a motivation. I’ll make sure to get on this topics and start “blog” since I’m just on the begining and would be fun to have something to look down upon when I reach some great heights 
I am so happy that I joined this forum , you guys made me feel like family. Thank you again everyone. Didn’t expect this btw.
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