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Your big hands are not some imaginary pair of generic big hands. Like any other new guitar purchaser, you're going to have to go try some guitars and find one (or more) that feels right to you. There is no one true answer here. Get out there and put your hands on some guitars. Don't limit yourself to what you think you want or what someone else has told ...

Advantages of big hands - potentially your reach, although this depends on whether your fingers are long, or just big. And for guitars with wide necks big hands can help. Disadvantages of big hands - you might find it tricky to play certain chords high up the neck if you can't get your fingers into a small space. Realistically though, I have seen people ...

Josef Hofmann is a good bet. He had such small hands that he actually had pianos custom-made with smaller keys. I can't find any direct references to his compositions being easy to play with small hands, but I doubt he would compose something he couldn't play. Another aspect to look at is players with small hands, and what they have played. Harriet Cohen ...

I had a classical guitar teacher give me an exercise for this, because I was experiencing tendonitis in my whole left hand. The problem is that over the years I had gradually developed a habit of squeezing down much too hard in fretting notes. Her exercise was this: Grab a chord that uses all four left-hand fingers and fret it like you normally would. Now, ...

I found an answer to my question here: Our voices tend to sound lower when we first wake up for three reasons. First, fluids collect in the tissues of the throat while we sleep. It’s the same temporary phenomenon that makes our eyes look puffy when we first wake up. Second, mucous builds up overnight from lack of use. And third, our vocal chords dry out ...

Nowadays I always get a close shave before playing the tuba in a gig. I started doing this when I realized that after longer breaks from playing I had trouble getting a distinct attack and tone when I had facial hair around the lips. I also had trouble playing pedal-notes. I then experienced getting a close shave as "gaining" one or two weeks of practice, ...

As far as I know, the experts say this all has to do with psychology, sensory perception and cognition, and not physiology. This is a question about the intersection of psychology and music, and even the discipline known as "music therapy". There has been a lot of research done on this sort of thing in recent years and a lot of books published on it, but ...

Calloused or not, you're putting a lot of pressure on a very small area of your skin. this will cause some tissue damage (minor, of course), which your body will then send more blood to in order to repair. This slight swelling can sometimes put pressure on the very sensitive nerves in your fingertips. It's nothing to be terribly worried about. It is a sign ...

Something my teacher regularly had me do with difficult sections was to play it all stacatto. Slow it down and focus on perfect timing while you do this, then gradually increase the tempo. Don't increase it further than you can play while still keeping the timing perfect. Do this every practice session until your speed is relatively close to the speed you ...

Well, the tiny hairlike structures in your cochlea transmit impulses through the vestibocochlear cranial nerve to your cerebral cortex, then some stuff happens that we don't fully understand yet, but you experience it as sound and link it emotionally to similar experiences in your past. The only real exception I can think of is if the music you are listening ...

On violin, it helps to practice entire passages in swing (dotted followed by half value) and reverse swing (half value followed by dotted). This lets you practice playing every other note in quick succession as well as in isolation. I think the same practice technique should work for piano too. To play quickly doesn't mean to play each note quickly so much ...

I have played trombone with varying degrees of facial hair. I just trimmed the area around my lips so that I could sort of tuck the mouthpiece under my moustache in order to contact only skin for a seal. It was fairly easy, and with care to let the upper hairs grow long and hang over that area, unnoticeable. There was no real difference in my playing when I ...

I can't speak definitively on this since I haven't had a full beard and mustache before, but I've always made a point to keep what facial hair I do have out of the way of my mouthpiece placement. Not knowing the full magnitude of your facial hair, it's hard to make specific suggestions, but I wouldn't want a lot of hair cushioning the mouthpiece against my ...

It would be very useful to see a singing teacher who will help you with your entire posture and body use as well as specific techniques for the obvious areas. Many singers also take lessons in the Alexander Technique, which I did for several years. This technique helps the old, bad habits just fall away and you learn to fall into a neutral, balanced position ...

The idea is really more that you shouldn't be tensing your neck muscles when singing high notes or depressing the larynx when singing low notes. It's going to move in either case, so that's why we watch it as an indicator of bad technique. So, when singing high notes, instead of focusing so much on the larynx, try to become aware of the muscles in your ...

I'm a Jazz pianist, and also have rather small hands. If you're playing Jazz, your hand-size doesn't really matter when you're choosing a song to learn, as your hand-size will only affect your interpretation of a given song. For instance, when I'm playing bebop, I wish I could play tall shell-voicings in the left hand like Bud Powell; since I usually can't ...

There's a slight change in exhausted air. When throat is cold, somewhat colder exhausted air becomes densier and that may be a subject of a slight pitch change. There is another question if this change can be audible. If it is, I think it would be momentary- cold / hot throat quickly changes its temperature to natural body's temperature level.

The radius and profile of the neck, and width of the fingerboard can make a big difference in the feel for different sized hands. I have long hands - my palm and fingers are long, so I favor a wider fingerboard and a thinner profile neck. Ray Benson, the lead guitarist for Asleep At The Wheel, has big hands, and Guitar Player Magazine interviewed him years ...

If your shoulder (or anything else) hurts after playing sessions, your playing is ergonomically poor. Keep your posture erect, keep your arms relaxed and loose at your sides, and don't raise your elbows. Make sure your seat is at the correct height. Watch out for tension while you are playing and work on allowing your body to release it. To improve scales ...

My personal opinion: In my 35 years of experience in singing, what I have observed is that every individual is unique. Some quite small people sing with a huge voice, and some quite large people have small voices. On average, perhaps, there might be a correlation between the mass of the person and the size of the voice, but I think this is largely ...

The actual mechanics of the act of singing in a falsetto voice should be understood for starters. This article delves into the specifics: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsetto A reputable voice teacher would the wisest choice to develop a falsetto voice while minimizing strain or damage to the vocal chords. To better understand vocal chord structure ...

I'm unsure what to make of the pain you're describing. I've encountered a similar problem attempting to play a piece with a similar technical challenge, but I never felt pain in the wrist joint; rather, the muscles in my forearm were very fatigued. I assume that's what you were describing. That fire is lactic acid building up in your forearm muscles, which ...

In consideration of your question, I came across extensive blogs on vocal pedagogy by Ian Howell, a professional countertenor and educator in Boston. Since I'm not familiar with his work, I cannot tell you whether his writings are authoritative or not, but he has written extensively on the physiology of the countertenor voice and what is being done with the ...

From the finger-picking perspective: I have been playing for decades and only recently come to realize that a wide neck is right for my large hands. I was just working on the intro to The Boxer, and yes, ability to reach is significant. But what really helps me with the wider neck is left-fingers fretting without bumping the adjacent strings. I unstrung 6 ...

I haven't found any trustworthy resources about the effect of hot and cold weather on the voice, so I can't comment on that. Humidity of the environment CAN affect the voice, for example the air conditioning in hotels or on airplanes can dry you out significantly, making singing uncomfortable and especially affecting tone (which may be what you mean by ...

I cannot refer to any scientific research. However I've heard tiny (short and thin) women sing with a strong powerful loud voice with a full rich timbre that would amaze most people, and I'm sure there are large people with really weak voices. So if there is a correlation between body frame size or body weight and singing voice power the correlation ...

On average, taller people have lower voices because of longer throat and vocal chords, just like taller people have larger hands on average. When people get fatter or thinner, it often causes changes in their voice tone and may make a slight difference in range. The same thing is true of aerobic conditioning. Of course, vocal practice will likely make more ...

Please someone correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that countertenors or, "singing" countertenor is not actually a type of vocal technique, but rather a classification of vocal range. Much in the same way that one may be classified as a Soprano or Baritone, Countertenor is another voice classification. This term is also used sometimes interchangeably ...