The first guitar I ever touched with serious intent was an 1898 George Washburn parlor guitar that my girlfriend's grandmother had given her. It was strung with light-gauge steel strings and the fingerboard was about 1-7/8"at the nut. She showed me a few chords (G, C, D7, and a few others). My hands are fairly big and other than the usual beginner's fumbling around, I didn't have any problem with it. I bought a cheap, plywood guitar and the fingerboard width was about the same. But a few years later I got a Martin 00-18 (steel-string, mid-size body) and the fingerboard width, about 1-11/16", seemed kind of cramped to me. But I made do. After all, it was a Martin!

A few years later, I started taking classic guitar lessons and traded the 00-18 in on a Martin 00-28-G nylon-string classic with a full 2" fingerboard. At first it was like playing rubber bands strung along a wide plank, but after a few days it felt good. Roomy, comfortable, reaches were easy enough, and I no longer had to worry about dampening strings that I didn't want to dampen because the strings were so close together. I've played classics ever since.

As a teacher (classic and folk), I had one student, a woman, who was very small, maybe 4'10", and her hands were so small that she actually had dimples in her knuckles like a baby's. And she walked in lugging a full-size classic guitar. The amazing thing was that she was able to make all the reaches on that 2" neck. I figured that she's never be able to play the fingering for the first position G chord that I usually use:   3rd finger on the low G, 2nd finger on the B (5th string, 2nd fret) and pinky on the high G (1st string, 3rd fret), so I showed her an alternate fingering, using the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd fingers. But she spotted the fingering that I generally use in the technique book we were using, and damned if she didn't learn it! It was a stretch for her, but she got to where she could use it, no problem. So when someone whose hands are larger than hers were tells me that a classic fingerboard is too wide and they can't make the reaches, I tend to snort a bit.

On the other hand (pun fully intended), I have a student right now, a fairly tall woman with normal size hands. She had a cheap steel-string guitar with a fairly narrow fingerboard, and she had real difficulty avoiding dampening adjacent strings. She got a classic on my recommendation, and this alleviated the dampening problem, but a G7 seems to be an uncomfortable stretch for her. And even C is not real easy for her. There doesn't seem to be anything unusual about her hands that I can see, and her general hand position on the guitar is good, so. . . .

Most mysterious. . . .

Clarification of stock misconception about left-hand classic guitar technique:   There is no prohibition about using the left thumb to reach around to play bass notes. Classic guitar music simply does not call for it. If someone were to compose a piece of music where it is necessary, then classic guitarists would do it.

In classic technique, as a general rule, the thumb should be kept behind the neck, at about midline, and more-or-less opposite the second finger. This facilitates the freedom of the fingers and makes reaches easier. It should be opposite the second finger especially when doing bar chords, so you can get a "shear" effect, rolling the first (barring) finger slightly on its side. Nobody likes bar chords very much, but they're easier on a nylon-string classic guitar than on a steel-string guitar because even light-gauge steel strings exert more than twice as much tension as nylon strings.

As far as song accompaniments are concerned, like most singers of folk songs, I work out my own. Depending on the song, I do just about everything from simple "Burl Ives Basic" to classic or lute-style accompaniments on some older songs and ballads, with a bit of alternating-bass picking thrown in. I've never encountered a situation where it was necessary to use my left thumb in order to get the kind of bass lines I want, and I don't think anyone could complain that there is anything especially lacking in my accompaniments. But I've seen Mississippi John Hurt and Lightnin' Hopkins up close at Berkeley Folk Festivals in the 60s, where I also attended a workshop conducted by Doc Watson, and they do use there left thumbs quite freely whenever necessary.

If the music calls for it, go ahead and do it. There is nothing in classic guitar technique that says, "Thou shalt not!"

Don Firth