Leftie with small fingers - jazzmaster or jaguar?

andrew00

Hi,

I just found this place and have been checking up on what everyone is saying, but have a question of my own.

I'm a left-handed dude, I live just outside London, and have only ever had one guitar, an epiphone. I want to get a new guitar and was looking at the Jag/Jazz's.

However I do have quite slender, short fingers - effectively they're daintly women's hands! Therefore I want to get a new guitar that is good for that - i.e. the neck isn't so chunky that it'll be a pain to reach around, that the frets aren't too spread out etc.

I wondered what you lot thought about the Jag vs JazzM in this respect. I've read your opinions about the differences in pickups, weights etc, but I'm not that good at understanding technical info. I've read the Jag has a smaller scale, which I think means the neck is shorter heh. I've had a play of a lefthanded Japanese Jag in a shop and that was alright, although hard to judge when you aren't standing up flailing around, but haven't been able to play a Jazz. What would you recommend?

To give a guide of what kinda stuff I play, the current bands I'm into are bands like the cure, the gun club, shiva burlesque, the sound, echo & the bunnymen, tv on the radio - aka sparse, arabic maybe, reverb heavy bands. I'd also extend that to post-rock reverb heavy bands - your mogwais, godspeeds and sigur ros's.

Some links if you can be bothered heh:

- Robert Smith here plays a white Jazz

- http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... d=35338748

- the only tv appearance of the sound i've seen

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs88bMAC ... 20bunnymen

cheers.

Rick

from the bands you've said, i'd say get a jaguar. your 24.75" scale epiphone is roughly inbetween the scale of a jag and a jazzmaster. i don't think the jag scale is a big step down from a gibson scale. just a quarter of an inch. the whole scale measures from bridge to nut, if you didn't know

Elias78

Hey Andrew...I'm a small asian dude with small (or daintly) hands as you've described...and I'm lefty too! 😆 ...and I play a Jaguar. Maybe it's subliminal but I do find it more comfortable due to its shortscale...as compared to...say a strat or a gibson. The neck profile is definitely a tad easier on my hands than my Am Std strat. Same goes for the fret spacing. I haven't had the chance to try out a Jazzmaster yet but I'd suggest the Jaguar as well, since I'm really happy with it.

OT: Here's a live performance of my band's song (using a jag) which coincidentally, has a little bit of 'arabic' flavour in it...it's in mandarin though 😆 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7g0FnpRLaA)

andrew00

Excellent, good to know I'm not the only one with little hands heh. Being a leftie is a pain, going to shops and only finding one or two guitars you could actually play, let alone feeling like a div getting them to get them down from the walls for a few minutes play. I think the Jag neck is good for me because it's not so thick and chunky, there's nothing worse than getting cramp playing barre chords.

BanditGuitarist1

being a leftie doesnt suck my favorite guitarist of all time was a leftie! JIMI HENDRIX! even he used a Jaguar when he was with the Isley Brotheres I belive,only his jag was upside down! I wish I was a leftie sometimes so I could be in my right mind 😆 bad joke there ha.

paul_

it doesn't matter. my hands are really, really small and girly. played a jag-stang and jaguar originally, but since then i've pretty much just got on with whatever. my two main guitars have pretty thick necks now, and they're both easier to play than the jag in spite of this.

echelon

i have the smallest hands of any guy ive ever met. yes im not kidding, my hands are freakishly small.

Personally i find neck profile more important than scale length i.e. the thickness of the neck is more of a factor than how far the frets are apart.

the most comfortable guitar ive ever played is my 22" scale Fender Duo Sonic 90's reissue...however, its a sh*t guitar and the scale makes it sound crappy, so im selling it.

Second best is my jag-stang - insanely thing neck and short scale..to be honest the jag-stang has the most comfortable neck EVER! however, i dont find it a great guitar.

my main guitar is still my Yamaha RGX 321 - full scale (25.5"), but MAN does it have a thin neck, and it's as playable as hell. beautiful guitar all round. Plkus the longer scale makes a huge different - the strings just *feel* more responsive and accurate.

im still dying to get a jaguar HH tho....will happen one day..even if i have to sell my jag-stang ☹

oh yeh, here's some videos of me playing guitar (mostly badly)

http://www.youtube.com/attentionaddicts

andrew00

How would you say the thickness of the Jaguar neck is for the small hands then? I can't say it affected me either way when I played it.

echelon

andrew00 said: How would you say the thickness of the Jaguar neck is for the small hands then? I can't say it affected me either way when I played it.

i havent played a jaguar - i do, however, own a Jagmaster which supposedly is pretty similar but with flatter fretboard.

To me the jagmaster feels chunkier, alot chunkier, but good. The chunkines smeans i have to wear my guitar slightly higher than my jag-stang, buit it feels more stable and the higher radius makes it waay easier to play.

Ultimately of course it's all down to personal preference.

i REALLY want my jaguar HH now, argh!

Dunxy

I own 24",24.75" and 25.5" scale guitars and i to have hella small hands.When i first started out i found the short scale a lot more comfortable all around,but after time my opinion changed slightly, with more experiance and hand strength the longer scale guitars are barely noticable.I find the short scale guitars a bit better and faster for rythm playing,i just cant do certain chords on the 25.5 scale guitars,however i do find the 25.5 scale guitar better for playing leads and doing bends etc, as it is a bit less cramped. I do like the Gibson 24.75 scale, it does offer the best of both worlds.

If you predomanatly play lead or rythm you may want to choose your scale length based on that, but if you do a bit of everything, just get whatever feels best to you.

I have played Jag's and Jazzmaster's, and I wouldnt say i preffered one over the other because of the scale, i think i just like the JM pick-ups more, both necks are very nice and very easy playing IMO.

Elias78

Didn't realise so many people having small hands 😆 Anyway, that aside, I agree the neck profile has more influence on the comfort level compared to the scale of the guitar...that being said, I think both the Jazzmaster and Jag has the same C-shape neck profile if I'm not wrong.

andrew00

Ah I see. My biggest problem has always been an inability to really get my hands round the neck without cramping up or not being able to press hard enough. Then again I've only had one guitar so I don't know if it's just me or the guitar.

Rick

if you do get a jag, you could have trouble with cramp in your hand. because you would usually use thicker strings. and have the action slightly higher than a gibbo. and you have to use more strength in your hand

lamp

andrew00 said: Ah I see. My biggest problem has always been an inability to really get my hands round the neck without cramping up or not being able to press hard enough. Then again I've only had one guitar so I don't know if it's just me or the guitar.

Maybe you just need to practice more?

I'm not being fecicious, just thought that the problem might be you needing stronger hand muscles.

When I broke my arm and couldn't play it took a while to build the muscles back up again - I don't know how long you've been playing, so might not be that at all.

Johno

I'm a leftie but due to the limited amount of leftie guitars not to mention the price hike I decided to learn to play right handed. It feels natuarl to me now.

echelon

Johno said: I'm a leftie but due to the limited amount of leftie guitars not to mention the price hike I decided to learn to play right handed. It feels natuarl to me now.

i always thought that made more sense anyway - i mean, surely the hand with more dexterity should be the one on the fretboard??

i just cant understand why us right-handers play with our left hand?!!

Mad-Mike

I dunno about the small hand's thing, because for me it's almost totally opposite.........

I'm a right handed, stocky built, tall guy with huge hands, my pinky and thumb when stretched out can almost literally cover the whole waist of a Fender Jaguar. One of the first things I really liked about the offsets including the Jag-Stang and Jazzmaster from the start was the comfort of the neck and body. I pick up a Strat, I'll usually try it out 10 minutes and get tired of the generic feel, my first time on a Jazzmaster at the age of 13, I played that thing for almost 2-3 hours. Played the 63' Jaguar that sold me on that model for almost an hour and a half. And my Jag-Stang I played for every time I came into the store for at least 30 minutes before putting it on layaway, i literally had tunnel vision over that one, did not see any other guitar in the store.

andrew00

Interesting. So two groups of people, one group with tiny hands and one with massive hands both think the Jag/Jazz is the right model for them.

I play quite a lot so I do have the strength in my hands and all that, although these days I play a lot more lead parts so my hands are 'built' for lead parts I guess, or rather not for traditional barre chords at least.

Malik

My fingers are long and thin, and to me there's no problem at all with the short scale neck, it's perfect. We're only talking an inch or two off the total length, the difference in fret size is millimetres, it's not like you'll find yourself not able to fret notes, but overall there's a lot greater sense of comfort and you have more control with the dynamics. You really feel like you have control over the guitar, it's just smaller in your hands and you can do what you want with it.

Rick

Malik said: My fingers are long and thin

but are they as long and thin as wille koshinen's?