I seemed to be having trouble with my pinky feeling the Strat’s high E string of the EB 9-42’s. My pinky has a tad bit of numbness from a pinched neck nerve that I’m working on. It’s very slight.
My action - it could be this is also a factor if too low -
treble, high E action set to (4/64, 1.6mm, .06")
bass, low E action set to (5/64, 2mm, .08")
I spent a long time using EB 9-42’s and I play pretty well with them. I tried D’Addario 10-46’s but they seemed too difficult to fret and are tough to get through a practice with. I checked my setup.
So, I then bought some EXL120+ 9.5 strings to match the string tension of my strat to the prs se ce 24 with 10’s. All well and good. It’s been a couple of weeks with those strings. I find the F chords of Module 9 tougher, but I’m working on it. Much better than the 10’s on the strat.
But now, I’m wondering the wisdom of this move. I am wondering if it is better to go back to the EB 9’s and keep working, or even raising my action some.
I am also wondering if the thickness of my fingers is a factor. With a low action, I risk inadvertently fretting adjacent strings. Yet, if I have to press harder with stronger strings, I worry my fingertips flare out too much and touch the adjacent strings anyway.
I’ve attached a pic of my two finger A chord so you can see my fingers. Not the thickest out there, but not piano player fingers.
I think that 9s or 9.5s are both good choice. The gauge are quite similar, it will not have a huge impact on your journey, so you can choose the one that makes you feel better with your medical condition of numbness in your pinky.
Usually, in my personal guitar struggles, changing the string gauge never fixed a problem. The problems disappeared after more practice. But, at the same time, each problem is different and it does not hurt to change string gauge. Trying things is an important part of learning .
If you want to experiment with action too, you are lucky since the tension on electric guitar string is pretty low compared to acoustic, so eventually with some practice, you’ll most likely not feel any trouble having a little higher action. What I mean is that you have a little margin on electric before it makes the instrument hard to play🙂
I find I prefer 8s myself. I Have a guitar I enjoy quite a lot, but it is stuck with 10s, so I keep others at 9 so the difference in feel is not large. I do not think the difference between 9 and 9.5 is enough to care about more than to make a note for your next string purchase on which you like best.
I agree with @math07 that practice is likely a better solution than fiddling with strings too much. As I compare your fingers to my own, you seem to have a lot more width facing down the string than I do. This could be some of the adjacent string problem. What happens if you rotate your pinky knuckle around to the neck a bit more? Does that ease up on the muting problem?
As for low action, I liked having lower action until I started string bends. The problem is that the adjacent strings would slip under my finger tip and make noise. Once I raised the action a bit, that problem went away.
I’ll lose the grip on the B string. Finger is holding down two strings. That’s why I turn my hand.
I lowered the strat action to be the same as my prs. It was a bit higher. It’ll be fine, the strat is pleked and I’ve had it there before. I raised it initially to see if it helps with bends. I think it does, but then the F chord, etc. became harder, so, I’ll have to find the sweet spot.
All this fussing and tweaking your guitar is not going to really help you play better. I would guess your guitars are reasonably set up (given your attention to them). Now, you should just leave them alone and learn how to play!
I hope I don’t sound mean, and I don’t want to single you out: I find there are many people around here who, when they are struggling with something, try to find the solution in some sort of tweak. If your guitar is reasonably set up and you don’t have some crazy thick strings or something, then your gear is fine – you just have to quit overthinking the gear and learn how to play the damn thing!
I have nerve damage in my fretting hand/arm due to damage in the neck/brachial plexus.
I have 9s on my guitar, and put up with the problems that my nerves cause because I found that changing them made little if any difference.
The 9s are comfortable enough to play, and having 10s on there did nothing other than making things a bit tougher - the difference in feel didn’t really exist.
It’s still a pain in the butt to miss notes, to mess chords up or to think I’ve moved position but the fingers didn’t get the message and just stayed where they are; but as I’ve said many times 'I’m not playing the Royal Albert Hall next week, so it really isn’t important.
Your fingers are different to mine, and will cause different issues - that is something you will get round though as everyone thinks their fingers are the wrong shape/size etc/.
My ring finger on the fretting hand has a wonky end due to a previous break which causes problems, but so what? I swear at it occasionally but short of breaking it again, it ain’t going to change!
Take things slowly - stupidly slowly. Talk to your fingers - literally. Put the fingers down on the strings so slowly that you think you are going to grow cobwebs on them before you put them down. Lie to them, but get them to understand (to the best of your ability) where they need to go.
I am with @jjw. If your guitar is set up well, just keep playing. From my years in the forum and my own experience, it seems common for us beginners to go through a period of time where we feel our equipment is limiting us. The reality, unless you really have a crappy set up, is that we are beginners.
The numb finger is something that you will have to learn and figure out over time. I have a numb left index fingertip. I have average hands for my size (small) and feel at times my finger tips are too big, and that is on a 2” nut classical guitar! Yet there are plenty of players with sausage fingers who figure it out.
Keep playing and these will become less of an issue.
Looking at your picture you might need to get you thumb behind your chord on the neck. This should rotate your hand to get the finger tips more parallel to the strings.
That’s on purpose, so I can get two strings with one finger since I can’t fit 3 fingers on the A major. Most other chords I fret the way you’re talking about.
Pinky slightly numb, but can still feel with it, high E is a bit squirrelly under it. Let’s raise the action a tad, it should also help with bends. Then, (looks over at prs), y’know, that has 10’s, perhaps if I go to 10’s, I can feel the high E better. Tries 10’s. No, this kinda sucks. Let’s go to 9.5’s and it will match the string tension of the prs. Last night lowered the strat action. What’s next? Go back to 9’s? That would complete the circle, lol.
lol. another rabbit hole.
Thanks for tolerating my tendency to over-analyze! Not just in this thread, but a lot of them.
What’s next is forgetting about all these gear adjustments and sitting down to practice some guitar!
Regarding your numb pinky, you’d be better served trying to figure out when it’s usable and when it’s not. And when it’s not, you should figure out alternative fingerings that avoid the pinky. As an example, I could imagine that the pinky is ok for chords like B7 and Dsus4, but maybe not for lead stuff with pull-offs and whatnot (I have no idea what level you are). So, for the lead stuff, you might have to use your ring finger in place of the pinky (which a lot of people do anyway). This sort of investigation will help mitigate your pinky issue, not changing string gauge or action.
