Thumb Chords

klaatu

From wrist to the tip of my middle finger looks to be about 7 ¼ inches. The middle finger is 2 15/16 in length.

When I first began to learn to play standard jazz chords (way back before turning to GJ) what nearly killed me was having to plant my thumb on the back of the neck. Six months of that eventually caused me such severe pain that I thought my playing days might be over. Fortunately, it passed. Keep working on the thumb chords, it will come in time.

Jon

While I think it is a good thing to persevere with these shapes, I think that often the thumb is just muting the strings (like some people do in that D minor shape). Sometimes not though, so you have to be able to do both. Hands stretch and grow. Well, they stretch at any rate.

Craig Denney

klaatu wrote: »

From wrist to the tip of my middle finger looks to be about 7 ¼ inches. The middle finger is 2 15/16 in length.

My hand from wrist to tip of my middle finger is 7" exactly, and my middle finger is 3".

I guess my hand just needs to stretch.