Friends and I were joking a bit about this after going out to a club over the weekend and observing that the guitarist, like a lot of the really good guitarists I've seen lately, appeared to have fingers about four feet long. He was playing a hollow-body electric that would have been the equivalent of me hanging a cello around my neck--it was huge. He was also playing four frets side-by-side (horizontally) at a time--I'd have to separate the bones in my hand to do that, and even if I could reach I would be at the wrong angle to have any grip strength.

Now, obviously there's no substitute for practice and hard work, but we got to wondering to what extent anyone thought anatomy had affected their ability to play a given instrument (my fellow musical ladies have already lamented the unfortunate meeting of guitar with underwire brassiere. Not good). I've had a Hell of a time learning to play the guitar and I thought I just had crappy reflexes until somebody recently pointed out to me that I never had a problem with piano or Appalachian dulcimer. I've got stubby, crooked, fingers but long thumbs, which are very helpful on piano and dulcimer but sort of irrelevent on guitar.

I also cannot play the guitar sitting down. I can't get it into the right position unless I'm standing with it on a strap. The F-30, which is smaller, is definitely easier to hold than the full-size Alvarez, but I'm a bit surprised that I even think it's an issue. I'm 5'7"--I'm not small.

I suppose some of it might be style-dependent, too. My normal playing style is pick-and-strum (pick melody, strum in between; a bit of Carter scratch but with a flat-pick instead of a thumb). I'm not fast but I'm accurate as long as the reach isn't too far. Most of the women I know do chords or do that early Ani frantic-strumming thing, but I know there are plenty of women whose guitar styles are more sophisticated.

It doesn't really matter since I'm going to keep trying to play the thing even if I suck at it for the rest of my life. Thoughts?