Hi guys,
This might be a strange one but here goes.
I know people say that no matter how small your hands are you can still play the guitar. Unfortunately I have some fingers missing and that obviously hinders me being able to play a six string guitar.
I have a Loog Fender 3 string electric guitar which I can actually play. My question is, can I still use this course with this 3 string or would that not work and only works with 6 strings? It’s tuned GBE.
Thank you for reading.
Regards.
Sarah
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Welcome. You should be fine with just the top 3 strings. Just ignore the lower 3. You might want to have a look and skip forward to the triads lessons that only use 3 strings.
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Welcome to the community, Sarah 
I’m watching a video about your guitar as I’m writing ( I know nothing about them). I see Peter is also typing… He is a much more experienced guitarist than me.
I guess there have to be some ways that you can follow along in some ways at least . You can’t follow every lesson maybe, but lessons in strumming patterns and rhythm would work just fine for the most part I guess. The D- chord is movable, a range of triads use these three strings. Maybe focussing on Triads would be an idea?
Full disclosure: I’m still at the very beginning of Grade 2 and apart from listening to one or two Triad lessons because I was curious, I know next to nothing about them.
Maybe @Richard_close2u can help?
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Thank you all very much. I was totally convinced I wouldn’t be able to play or use this course. That’s given me some hope at least. Much appreciated to those who replied
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Hi Sarah,
Welcome here and I wish you a lot of fun 
I know that there are useful lessons here, guitar lessons and other stuff for you…so I hope to see you around more than once 
Ask play and say 
Greetings,Rogier
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Welcome to the forum Sarah. Peter is on the right track. Jump ahead in the lesson to triads. Here’s the link to the introduction lesson. There are 3 main shapes this is the first one
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You’re all so very kind. Thank you so much. I appreciate it
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Here’s another link to Justin’s old mini series on triads
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Welcome to the community Sarah! I think a great deal of Justin’s lessons would be of help.
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Welcome to the community, Sarah! 
Agree to the others: You will still find valuable input here and no matter how many strings, we all play guitar, that’s why we are here. So I wish you loads of fun on your guitar journey!
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Sarah I really don’t know of any problems whatsoever that could stop you playing apart from your own self imposed one!
In fact I’m going to make an interesting suggestion to you, if it were me I would get myself a decent quality Octave pedal or maybe even an inexpensive multi fx unit. With the octave pedal you could set it up to give you a full octave difference down, so essentially it would sound like a six string guitar playing the triad in two octaves - it would sound amazing! I have used that idea myself to make a six string sound like a twelve string - it’s great fun!
Having fun is an important part of learning, without it you get bored!
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Welcome Sarah,
Like others have said, no reason why you shouldn’t make progress. You may need to adapt fingering but certainly triads are the way to go. And as they exist on all sets of three adjacent strings, you could use them on a 6 string down the road. Experiment and have fun.
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Perhaps even some open chords on a 6 string guitar might be possible?
The following chords only require 2 or 3 fingers…
A, Am, C, D, Dm, E, Em, G … you can play literally 100s of songs with just these chords.
Power chords can also be played with 2 or 3 fingers…or 1 finger in drop-D tuning.
There are a lot of possibilities, depending on your specific hand challenges.
And finally, big respect for creativily pushing through these challenges in your quest to make music!
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Django Reinhardt, with only two functioning fingers on his left hand, plays guitar better than almost anyone with even all their digits.
Django’s hands were severely injured in a fire.
More crucial to his music, the fourth and fifth fingers (ring and little fingers) of Reinhardt’s left hand were badly burned. Doctors believed that he would never play guitar again.[12]: 43–44 [14]: 10 [16] During many months of recuperation, Reinhardt retaught himself to play using primarily the index and middle fingers of his left hand, using the two injured fingers only for chord work.[12]: 31–35 He made use of a new six-string steel-strung acoustic guitar that was bought for him by his brother, Joseph Reinhardt, who was also an accomplished guitarist.
Django wasn’t a beginner when he lost use of his fingers. He was a world class Jazz player who played better than the worlds best already.
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Hello Sarah and welcome to the Community.
Kudos and good vibes to you for wanting to overcome your difficulties and be a guitarist.
My fellow mod and approved teacher @LievenDV recently spent some time coaching a learner with a similar issue to yours on a 6-string. Perhaps he may be able to bring some useful advice.
As others have mentioned, your guitar matches the thinnest three strings of a regular 6-string.
Much of the early stage beginners course will be teaching you things you still need to know about and learn, even if some of it isn’t strictly transferable. So not not skip past all of those early basic lessons.
When it comes to learning chords and chord shapes you have a unique difference. The triads that have been mentioned by several people will give you three movable shapes for major chords and three for minor chords. With those you will be able to play thousands of songs.
Will you sound like a full-on guitar player if you strum triads only? No.
Will you be able to play songs in a recognisable way - to sing along with perhaps? Yes.
Will you be able to play along with recordings, backing tracks and other people? 100% yes.
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I repeat this part loud and clear!
Indeed, since it is tuned to the top 3 strings of a guitar, triads spring to mind.
You will have to mix and match the lessons together a bit but the main journey will be the same.
My advice for people in your situation is:
- get to know the fretboard notes
- learn moveable shapes and where the root note is (= the base of the name of the chord)
- learn what the major scale is
- learn how chords are made based on the major scale
and… build your own chord shapes with this knowledge!
When learning the A chord, you will need to check “A triad chords”
This tool can help you to see the logic of how a chord is formed.
Just remember to use only the top 3 strings:
https://www.oolimo.com/en/guitar-chords/analyze
example: A (=Amajor)
top string open (nothing fretted),
2 frets below that fretted.
The numbers indicate the step of in the major scale.
1= the first note. an A major chord is based on the A major scale to the first note is C
To make a major chord, you need the first step (root note), 3rd and 5th.
You can see on this graph how all three are there.
Yes, having each of these notes only 1 time IS ENOUGH to make a full major chord.
6 string guitars often double or triple notes (from different octaves) but the absolute minimum is here.
Cool thing is, that website shows you which chord you are building right away
Change a note and it says what chord it is.
Am (Aminor) is closeby
move up the shape of A major 2 frets and it becomes a Bmajor
You see how that same shape moves up?
That’s why it is useful to learn the notes on your instrument; the position of the root note (green) corresponds with the chord name
Now you will have to put down a finger on the top dot and find a way to fret the two other notes.
That could be a mini barre of 1 finger going flat to fret 2 frets at once.
You will have to figure out what works for you fingers
when you are not comfortable with the theory yet, let the tool do the talking
Meanwhile use your ears
This one could be a little odd. It says E but it has no 5th
Bottomline.
You can follow the course to absorb all the lessons on strumming, technique, strength, rhythm,… but when it comes to playing certain chords, you’ll have to be resourceful with tools like these
OF COURSE we are here to coach where necessary.
If needed an occassional private lesson by a teacher (Lee, richard or myself) or a teacher lcose to you could be enough to confirm your methodes and point you towards your next milestones.
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Thank you so much for taking the time to send this. It is very kind of you. I will study this
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Absolutely welcome;
You have a challenge ahead of you but I’m certain there is a way that isn’t necessarely harder…it’s just different and less documented because it’s hard to predict which fingers you can use and how.
It might mean you have to develop your own “barre” technique, for which we can’t give specific pointers. You can apply much of the best practices of regular guitar though.
You’ll need to be creative and persistent while there is no real “right or wrong” that applies to you.
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But you can always ask here and folks will be only too happy to help you out.
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