Hand Size

[mongo2]

6'/1.82m tall

Right hand - 8.5"/21.6cm
Left Hand - 8.75"/22.2cm

 

[Kipp Harrington]

I read a lot of people complain about having small hands on these forums. I am interested to know what it looks like out there. I think I have pretty average hands at about 22.1cm tip of thumb to tip of pinky finger. That's about 8.75 inch for you nonmetric folks.

There existed some big hands in music. Bach could open his hand 26cm or 10.25 inches. Rachmaninoff could span more than an octave on piano with over 30cm of finger span (12 inches).

So how wide do your fingers stretch? If you are right at the cutoff, I would pick the smaller of the two groupings. For example if your fingers are 26.0000 cm wide, pick 24-26 cm.

Also, I will point out my wife is around 10cm shorter than me and our finger span is the same even thought my palm part of my hand is bigger.

Thumb to pinky 17cm
Index to pinky 11.8cm

Yes... tiny hands and short fingers... but I manage ok for the most part. A little bit of work doing octaves.

 

[iTzPrime]

Thumb to pinky spread is 16,2 cm. I am 1,75m tall so go figure.

Thumb to pinky 17cm
Index to pinky 11.8cm

Yes... tiny hands and short fingers... but I manage ok for the most part. A little bit of work doing octaves.

Most of it is technique anyway. Wooten has hands that are just a bit bigger than mine, but is in another league in terms of playing

 

[bearhart74]

proof that hand size does not matter...

 

[Cycleops]

Small hands crew checking in... my fingers are like cans of tuna.

That should come in handy when tuna ing your bass.

 

[ole Jason]

Good technique > big hands

 

[Robscott]

Small hands crew checking in... my fingers are like cans of tuna.

What, hard to open?

 

[micguy]

27.3 cm for my left (fretting) hand thumb to pinky. 26.5 cm for my right. I was told the first day I had a violin lesson (at age 8) that I had big hands, and should play bass. Or at least cello. Took me 12 years to get around to agreeing with that.

I have a hard time playing a Jazz bass - the strings are too close together near the nut. As a result, my "Jazz" basses have P width necks. My 5'ers are a similar challenge, though I'm getting better at it.

On the plus side, some things you're "not supposed to do" (like using your thumb on the lowest string) I can do, without putting my hand in an un-ergonomic position or collapsing my wrist.

But.....even I don't play one finger per fret down low on the fretboard.

 

[Backdrop]

21.5 cm

 

[foolforthecity]

It’s not my hand size that bothers me

 

[dr doofie]

I measured just over 20cm. If that's small, it's news to me. I always felt normal and play 34" and 35" scale basses. What about length of fingers? I use all on my fingers -- index to pinky stretch is 15.5cm -- maybe that's more relevant?

Someone please check my forehead, maybe I'm not ok.

My hand can’t quite reach

 

[dr doofie]

Mass exodus of middle aged men running to find they're tape measures...

Alternatively: Are we all explaining to our wives why we need to borrow a tape measure for an online forum?

 

[pcake]

7 inches (17.78 cm) from tip of thumb to tip of little finger.
4.7 inches (11.938 cm) from index finger to little finger. i used to have more stretch but arthritis has shrunk that a bit.

i'm 5' 3", btw, and have played many long scale basses.

 

[TerribleTim68]

For a bass player I think from the index finger to the pinky may be a better measurement. The thumb really doesn't come in to play for fretting a note. At least not for me...

My feeling is a lot of people think their hands are small because it is hard to play, but they are probably just normal.

Yeah, so I agree with @oldrocker here. My thumb isn't doing any fretting. So for me -
Thumb to pinky I can stretch 19cm.
Pointer to pinky I can stretch 14cm.
Either way, small hands yo. So I voted "less that 17cm" because really that thumb ain't helping me fret, it's just holding the neck.

 

[Cave Puppy]

You know what they say ...

 

[StatesideRambler]

I’m only 5’ 9”. So I tell everyone I’m 69”

And I’m ugly.

Twelve years ago the tall people club held their periodic gathering (convention?) in Portland OR and one guy reported standing five feet twenty eight.

 

[Weberman]

Approx. 241 mm. That's C, to E, on a piano.

Pinky-to-index is about 174.

My fingers actually seem a little short, relative to my palm. If I had normal fingers, I'd have a better span, although it probably wouldn't make a difference in my bass playing. It might help with Shawn Lane-style augmented runs on guitar, but so would stretching my relatively-tight hands. I don't really like Rachmaninoff, so I don't have to worry about giant chords on the piano.

 

[Leonid Nidis]

I got small hands(in the 17-19).I stopped thinking about it after I saw a girl with much smaller hands and shorter fingers play the hell out of a fat and wide neck p bass and later on of a an upright with mile high action.

 

[Nev375]

25 cm thumb to pinky.
19 cm index to pinky.

Is that good?



Me with a joke: Hey, regarding all this talk about tiny hands...
TB Mods with Rule#3:
Me with a joke: Nevermind

 

[notJaco]

Never mind the hand size...How far can you spit?