A Hendrix question to the Forum guitar players

Hand size isn't that big a deal for playing electric guitar. Dexterity, fluidity, that connection between synapse and fingers thing... Jimi just had the gift.
Now bass players, especially stand-up acoustic, I can see where having a nice pair of meat hooks would be a definite advantage.
OTOH violinists, of which I was one at an early and miserable age, one would think would prefer small and dainty hands. Yet Itzhak Perlman, the greatest violinist I've ever seen live, also has fingers you would swear came from the neighborhood deli. You could barely see the instrument at all when he played, but boy could he play.

 

Yea, large hands (particularly fingers) can be a real hindrance when trying to jam them all into a tight spacing of some chords.

I play the A chord with just my index finger pressed against all three strings, where as other guys can individually hold each string with a single finger on each. My fingers can't cram in there like that. Not very quickly anyway.

I also have a hard time sometimes fretting a single string without touching / muting the string above or below...

 

A

And webbed apparently!

 

Jimi's large hand size were an advantage for sure, but surely not the main reason for his musical abilities. Here's what made Jimi great IMO.

1. The 10,000 hour rule........ Common wisdom says 'it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field'. If one practices for 4 hours Every day, that's about 7 years.... When Jimi was young he was known to Always be holding a guitar.
2. His deep understanding of Blues & R & B (years on the Chitlin' circuit) and Rock Music..... Lot of the British players have noted that even though they were playing the blues, Jimi was years of ahead of them in that arena with his background. And he also had a great understanding and curiosity of Pysch. and progressive Rock.
3. His spiritual and artistic philosophy which brought him to seek different sounds and expressions, and to take a lot of chances. He was a serious artistic risk-taker, which sometimes made his live performances sound a bit uneven. He was a real seeker, which isn't always that easy to do as an artist.
4. And yeah, big hands.

5................ others?

Just sayin'

 

Being able to reach around easily with the thumb is an advantage, not just in Jimi's case but for any guitar player. You won't see Jimi play a straight across barre chord, or very seldom. Having the thumb control the bass strings kind of opens up the fretboard and frees the remaining fingers, as opposed to the index finger holding all six strings flat with a thumb behind the neck. Players who integrate chords and notes together, which is really playing the whole guitar, generally don't barre chords in the traditional way. Keith Richards and Ron Wood are examples of this also, lots of partial barre chords with thumb and fingers.

 

I'm really surprised nobody mentioned his large thumb made it possible for Jimi too play rhythm and lead at the same time, no easy thing! So yeah having that large thumb and fingers added too his already genius.

 

I can't cram three fingers in there either, but sometimes I want that open E string on top, which isn't possible when barring the three strings with my index - so I fret the D-string with my middle finger and then fret both the G- and B-strings with my ring finger, works perfectly!

 

yep using the thumb over the top has a distinct advantage to the 1 finger barre chord. You are free to do all the little embellishments around the chord wheras you are locked in more with the one finger. you get better note clarity with the thumb on top if you are doing more than power chords aswell.
John Frrusicante mentions the more freedom he has using the thumb technique (eg. cant stop would sound different)

with Hendrix turning a strat upside down, the slanted bridge pickup is reversed to a regular strat, so the bass strings would be brighter, and treble strings darker. Little things for a unique sound

 

Yes, Robert Johnson was turned into an amphibian when he sold his sold to the devil at the crossroads. ...

 

I of course meant "SOUL". Bad typo on my part.

 

Yes, but how did it affect his painting?

 

5. He played with fire , and no i don't mean Monterey.

 

That's actually what Eddie Van Halen thinks...

 

The interesting/unique stuff he did wasn't a product of his hand size. I'd say they were a minor factor, at best.

 

If you get a chance to watch the Ritchie Havens segment in the movie, "Woodstock", you'll see how he used his enormous thumb to bar the strings. The clip is available on YouTube. Of course, he had one of the most unorthodox playing styles I've ever seen. He really did not know how to play the guitar at all. He would tune to an open chord, bar up and down the neck with his thumb, and just strum the heck out of it.

I have small stubby fingers, so, as someone who has been playing guitar (not well) for 50 years, I can tell you that having long, thin fingers is a big advantage. And, not just with guitar, obviously. Piano, horns, pretty much any musical instrument.

As has been noted above, though, guitar necks vary considerably in width, thickness, and scale length. Classical guitars have wide necks, but Andres Segovia, perhaps the greatest classical guitarist ever, had relatively short, stubby fingers. But, look at the muscles in his hand.
To sum up, long fingers help, but you need talent first.



How about the scene in the great sci-fi film, "Gattaca", with Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, where they go to a piano recital, and the musician plays this amazing piece, then the Hawke character learns that the pianist has twelve fingers, and she says, "Of course. That piece can only be played with twelve..."

 

With Hendrix it wasn't any one thing -- It was EVERYTHING! All the disparate elements coming together at the right time and place for maximum impact.
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No.

 

His hand size was critical to his technique. Something else that was maybe even more critical was his hand and finger strength. His hand and finger strength allowed him to play with a higher action with no problem of hand fatigue.
His hand size was a factor in how smooth he played some songs. Try playing Little Wing without using your thumb to fret the bass notes. It is almost impossible to get the sound Jimi gets unless you can easily use your thumb. His hand size was a factor in his sound.

 

Yes

 

Yeah, Mitch Mitchell, loathsome drummer...

 

The late great Shawn Lane had small hands, but he could do huge stretches and technically play rings around Hendrix.

 

Sorry, my friend, but this is simply not true. There have been periods over the years, when I was playing electric, that I could play LW (the great live RAH version), note for note, never using my thumb (which I have used to fret bass notes on many acoustic blues songs, btw), and any difference that may have existed between my "copy" and Jimi's original was so small as to be indiscernible. You may well not believe this, but it's true. And I don't consider myself to ever have been a truly good electric guitarist, btw; the acoustic has always been my thing.

 

Mitch was an incredible jazzy drummer. And Billy and Buddy were solid as hell.

 

I understand it can be played without using your thumb but I'm sorry, everyone I heard that tried to play it like the studio version without using their thumb, it did not sound the same as the studio version. Especially the gliss in the bass. It just does not cut it IMO.

 

The big mitts helped. That's all -- they helped. The magic was between his ears.