Coppersmith Studios Presents

How to Play Guitar with Fat Fingers

The following are the various options for a person with fat fingers who wishes to play the guitar.

1. Get a wide neck guitar. Unfortunately, this only works if your fingers are slightly fat.

2. Just play medley. This is an undesirable remedy as most players desire to play chords, arpeggios and arrangements.

3. Play baritone ukulele. You give up 2 strings but otherwise most people will be able to fit their fingers in between the wider spaced strings.

4. Modify a guitar to have only 4 or 5 strings, but spaced further apart.

5. Get a custom made guitar with a neck as wide as you require.

Before exploring the details of each option, let us first go over the terminology. The width of a guitar neck is defined as the nut width. This is the width at the end of the neck where the lowest note can be played. Most guitars have a nut width of 1.69" (43mm). Classical guitars are generally wider, but not more than 2.1" (53mm). The middle finger on the left hand is the fattest part of your fingers. For me, the end digit of that finger was 14mm at its thickest and 17mm wide. I cannot press one string with that finger without touching an adjacent string, even on the widest available guitars with a nut width of 2.1". I know this because I tried. All of the advice on the internet about subtle changes in technique are completely useless for someone with fat fingers of this size. The handspan is measured as the distance from the end of your thumb to the end of your little finger on an outstretched hand. My handspan is 9" which is about average. Lastly, the scale length of a guitar is the distance from the saddle to the neck nut. This is the length of the string that vibrates when no frets are pressed. The average scale length of most guitars is 25.5". A typical 6 string guitar is tuned, from low to high, as E, A, D, G, B and E. Now, let's go into the details of the various options.

1) Get a wide neck guitar. If your fingers are as fat or fatter than mine then getting the widest commercially available guitar, which would be a classical at 2.1" or some electric guitars designed for classical music at 2.0", will not solve the problem. I tried this so I know. The advice I heard was to just keep trying, keep practicing, try to hold your fingers at a certain angle, etc. None of those people making these suggestions ever mentioned at what size finger does their advice break down. I can assure you that their advice will not work for a 14mm X 17mm or fatter finger.

2) Just play medley. After trying option 1 for a few months and just getting frustrated I tried this option. The guitar is such a fun instrument to play and has such a great tone that I spent a year enjoying this option. Sometimes you can play 2 notes at a time, especially when there is a string in between the two. You can improvise a medley all day long. If you like to play classical music you can pick up books meant for a single note instrument such as flute, violin, oboe or clarinet. I tried this and had some enjoyment doing so. When you get proficient at this I recommend some of the Bach sonatas for flute or violin.

3) Play baritone ukulele. This may be surprising to some, but a baritone ukulele, which is a smaller instrument than a guitar, having a scale length of only 20" compared to the 25.5" of a guitar, actually has more space between the strings than even the widest classical guitars. It is important to get an instrument with a nut width of 1.5" (38mm). Stay away from the narrow versions at 1.3". This comes out to about 10mm spacing between each string. The tuning of a baritone ukulele is similar to a guitar minus the 2 bass strings: D, G, B and E. I recall when I made this discovery and got a hold of my first baritone uke, the ability to finally play chords, arpeggios and arrangements was like a dream come true. I was so happy with this new found capability I immediately sold my guitars and spent the next year playing nothing but baritone ukulele.

I had two acoustic baritones and one solid electric, all with a neck width of 1.5". I have a maple acoustic one which sounds best when using fluorocarbon strings. This sounds a little like a classical guitar. I have another with a spruce top that sounds best with plastic strings. That one I like to play a bluegrass or folk type music on it. I also obtained a custom made solid body electric baritone from the Sparrow company in Virginia, USA. That sounded like a typical electric guitar and was a lot of fun to play. For some reason the string tension was very high and was not easy to finger pick so I ended up using a pick to play it. Perhaps if I would have experimented with other strings the tension could have been decreased but as you will see I then moved on to options 4 and 5.

If you go on sheetmusicplus.com you can order several thousand pages of classical music transcribed for baritone ukulele. It doesn't sound as good as played on a 6 string guitar but it still sounds OK. While the closer frets can make the fingers feel a little more crowded on the fretboard it never prevented me from being able to play something. On the contrary, the smaller scale of only 20" allows your hands to reach more notes.

The acoustic baritone ukulele doesn't have as much resonance as a guitar. The body is proportionally smaller than that of a guitar. There is more string noise and of course you only have 4 strings instead of 6. Nonetheless, I found it to be an instrument worthy of my time. It also makes a great travel instrument, small and not too loud, and as they are small and cheap you can have several laying around the house to pick up and play whenever you have a spare moment. If I had to spend the rest of my life just playing that instrument I would not complain. However, as you will see, there are still other options.

4) Modify a guitar to have only 4 or 5 strings. After playing ukulele for a year, I had an idea to get a 2.0" wide classical guitar and modify it to have just 5 strings, but to spread them out across the neck. From my experience on the ukulele I knew how much space I needed and so I figured this would work. I recall explaining this to the guitar luthier and he looked at me with a surprised expression and asked if I ever did this before. I said "No, did you?". He never heard of such a modification but did it anyway for a fee of $400. It worked out very well. Of course, I still couldn't play standard classical music but it expanded what I could improvise and I could still play most of the classical music arranged for the baritone ukulele, with an occasional passage where I would have to omit a note because my hands have a lesser range on the longer scale of a guitar.

I later decided I wanted a steel string guitar. I couldn't find any with a width of 2.0" so I ended up getting one with the standard width of 1.69" and had it converted to a 4 string instrument. I gave detailed, written instructions to the luthier explaining exactly how I wanted the strings laid out. I wanted the strings spaced at 10mm intervals, starting at 5mm from the lower edge. This would leave a little extra space at the top part of the neck where the low E traditionally goes. Amazingly the luthier ignored my instructions and spread the 4 strings evenly across the neck. This resulted in an instrument in which the strings feel uncomfortably spaced too far apart. I complained but did not demand my money back as by this time I was planning on moving to the final option - a custom made guitar.

By the way, if you wanted to do this with an electric guitar you would have to use what is called a floating bridge. There would be 4 or 5 individual pieces of metal screwed into the body that the strings would run thru. This means a whammy bar would not be an option.

5) Get a custom made guitar. I recommend that you first experiment with options 3 and 4 to make sure you know what type of spacing your fingers require. A custom guitar can cost anywhere from $3,000 to $6,000. For my 14mm X 17mm finger dimensions, I wanted a guitar with a 2.362" (60mm) nut width. The strings are spaced at 10mm intervals with 5mm on the two edges. So, 5x10 + 2x5 = 60mm = 2.362 inches. Because my handspan of 9" is only average I tried to make reaching the notes a little easier by reducing the scale from the standard of 25.5" down to 24". Since I only play finger picking style I opted for a flat fretboard. Jumbo frets have historically been easier for me to play, so I got those too.

I wanted 3 guitars: a classical, a steel string acoustic and an electric guitar. Halo Guitars in California was the only electric guitar custom shop I found that was willing to make such a wide neck for me. You need to contact their support department and work directly with a sales representative to get this done. And then I had to wait 2 years before it was delivered. And yes, it was worth the wait.

For the acoustic guitars, most of the custom shops that I sent an enquiry never responded. The ones that did respond usually said no. I finally found a place in Paraguay, known as either Mangore or Bellucci Guitars. Once again, you need to contact someone there to arrange a special order. They specialize in classical guitar but they also made a steel string acoustic for me too.

I divide my time between improvising and playing classical music. As a classical player I am at the intermediate level and doubt I will ever get beyond that. The extra wide neck makes certain passages too much of a stretch and I sometimes omit a note but otherwise I can still play the music fairly well. When I improvise I tend to focus on the upper 4 strings. Perhaps this is a habit from playing the 4 stringed ukulele and perhaps it is because it gets a little uncomfortable reaching across such a wide neck to play those bass strings, but in the end I play the bass strings when they are required and I have a most enjoyable experience with my custom guitars.

In conclusion, let me say that fat fingered people do have options when it comes to playing guitar. I have experience playing other instruments, including flute, saxophone, steel tongue drum and keyboards, and I think the guitar is the most fun instrument of them all.

Dan Coppersmith 01/26/2026

Created by: Dan Coppersmith 2026| www.CoppersmithStudios.com

Navigation

Contact Us

Coppersmith Studios Presents

How to Play Guitar with Fat Fingers