The Best Guitars for Small Hands

Not everyone can be as tall as Thurston Moore (6’6”). We all get handed a genetic card deck that we have little to no control over. This shouldn’t be an issue for guitarists, but unfortunately the topic is constantly overlooked or hand-waved for new guitarists. I’ve heard this response way too many times before: “oh, the size of the instrument does not matter. I’m small and I play a big guitar. You’ll get used to it.”

But that’s not a helpful response for someone who is struggling to play. The reality is that the shape and size of your guitar—and especially it’s neck—can and will have an impact on how easily you can play it. Today I want to break down that topic a bit more and provide small guitarists with a few suggestions on what guitar they can pick to make playing easier for them.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this article. When you make a purchase through those links, I may earn a small commission from Thomann or other retailers at no additional cost to you. I only include affiliate links for products and companies that I already use and recommend.

The Pragmatic Fallacy of Guitars

A pragmatic fallacy is when someone believes that just because something worked for them, it will work for everybody. In the world of guitars and how they relate to your hands, people assume that any person can play any guitar comfortably. A person will assume this because they never personally had an issue with the guitars that they played.

But it’s entirely anecdotal and it may very well suffer from survivorship bias. This is a form of unintentional bias where people only take into account the survivors of a situation and overlook everyone who didn’t make it. For playing guitar, survivorship bias would mean you only account for the people who successfully learned to play and ignore all the people who gave up, without ever questioning why they quit the learning process.

I dug through the internet trying to find research on the topic of people quitting guitar, and I found little to no actual scientific data to illuminate the topic. At most, I found a promotional campaign by Fender that claimed “studies show that 90 percent of people learning to play guitar quit within the first three months” but I could not find a citation for this number.

Is it not reasonable to assume that hand comfort can be a factor in people struggling with or even quitting to play guitar? A guitar neck that is too small or too large for your hands can cause cramping and make certain stretches across the fretboard harder than they should be.

Size Matters for Guitar Necks

The most overlooked element to learning guitar has nothing to do with your skill level or hand size: it’s the shape of the neck! Necks can come in a wide variety of shapes, sized, widths, fret sizes, radius, and scale lengths. And that does not even take into account the variety of string gauges and materials. All of these elements will have an impact on how comfortably your hand fits around the neck and onto the fretboard. Yet hardly anyone talks to beginners about the importance of finding a comfortable neck first and foremost.

If you have smaller hands, you’ll likely hear an experienced player claim “any hand can play any guitar, you’ll just get used to it” but that advice is far too presumptive. Some neck designs will just leave your hand feeling sore and fatigued, more sore than a well-fit neck would.

Comfort and ease-of-use play a huge factor in any habit formation: your brain does not want to start a new habit, so any difficulty in the new habit will be more fodder for your subconscious mind to resist. Make the habit of playing guitar as easy for your brain as possible.

My Experience with Neck Designs

I started playing guitar on a cheap pawn shop dreadnought that was too big for my skinny little fingers. Also, the neck was always sticky from the overdone finish on it and—unbeknownst to me at the time—the action was high enough to let a barge pass underneath. It hampered my efforts horribly. Fast forward a few years and I eventually got a Fender Stratocaster as a gift, which had a much thinner and slicker neck. It helped, but I often found my hand cramping after playing chords for even a short period of time. It was not until I bought some cheap Chinese knockoffs that I realized my biggest issue was the radius of the neck.

Almost all Fender and Squier necks come with a 9.5” radius, but all of the Chinese copies I bought had 14” radius. The difference to my hands was noticeable to say the least. That’s why I sold my Fender Strat and now play an $80 Harley Benton ST-20 with a flatter radius.

Suffice to say, my experience in learning guitar could have been a lot more comfortable if I knew what kind of neck would pair well with my hand dimensions.

As for acoustics, I currently play a Martin 000jr which, like most Martin guitars, has a whomping 1.75” nut width. But surprisingly, the neck is quite comfortable for me and I now prefer the wider nut width so my fingers have more room for playing fingerstyle. This leads me to my final comment on the matter of hands and necks…

You Can Move Up in Neck Size As You Progress

Do you remember all of those people who successfully learned guitar, who may tell you that “any size hand can play any size guitar…you’ll get used to it”. There is a bit of truth to their statement. As you progress in your guitar playing and you improve the muscle strength of your fretting hand, you indeed can get more comfortable with larger necks. That’s because the muscles in your hand will tone with time and your fingers will develop greater dexterity. You’re fingers won’t physically get bigger, but they will become more flexible—giving you greater movement over a wider range of neck shapes.

The point of this whole PSA is simply this: an experienced guitar player has less trouble playing any kind of neck because he/she has trained their hands. But a beginner is be less flexible, so the size of the neck can more readily impact their progress.

That is why I advocate on beginners with small hands finding a comfortable neck to make the learning process easier for them. When they’ve built up the necessary hand strength and dexterity, they’ll be less physically restricted. But in the meantime, small players should make the learning process as easy as possible by making their hands as comfortable as possible.

How to Find the Right Guitar Neck for You

So with all of that said, how can you benefit from this information and find the best shape and profile of neck for your hands? The most surefire way is to visit a large guitar store with plenty of variety and try out as many guitars are possible. But that’s not always possible, depending on where you live.

Rather than spit out a bunch of complicated neck dimensions for you to study and agonize over, I’ve decided to compile a list of guitar that might feel more comfortable for small hands. I’ll provide some dimensions on each pick so you can get an idea of why it may suit you. This should not be considered a definitive list, as the specific size and girth of your fingers and palms make neck shape a very subjective subject.

6 Electric Guitars for Small Hands

Several of the guitars mentioned below are available from Thomann Music. The reason I prefer Thomann over GuitarCenter or other US retailers is because they have a better selection and a good customer service reputation. If you use my affiliate link to place an order, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

5 Acoustic Guitars for Small Hands

Other Articles to Consider Reading:

If you found this guide helpful, here are a few more articles I’ve written that may be of value to you:

• How Do I Play Barre Chords with Small Hands?
• Do I Need to Learn an Instrument to Write Songs?
• Are Chords the Same as Melody?
• What Keys & Scales are Used in Indie Music?
• What Instruments are Used in Indie Music?