Discovering Work Arounds
 

I posted this story in another thread but thought the topic deserved its own thread here under Play and Write.

I performed last night at one of the West Coast Songwriters events and the guy who won for best performance happens to play with his fretting hand palm down over the top of the fret board rather than palm up and under. Good guitar player and he played an original song in standard tuning (He also makes good use of altered tunings.) I chatted with him at the break and it turns out that he suffered an arm injury and cannot rotate his arm to put his palm up so he had to adapt to playing in a different way.

I share this because there are many posts here on the forum about how many of us have had to adapt our playing styles due to injuries or arthritis or even genetics (some hands are just not built to comfortably wrap a thumb over the fret board). I found the performance last night really inspirational and a good reminder not to give up. Even though you may have to do it differently, you can find ways to keep playing and enjoying having guitar music in your life.

It is another thing that I love about this forum - people can get support for overcoming barriers and creating work arounds!

Best,
Jayne

I whine all the time about my short fingers, but when I see a guy with no arms playing a guitar better than I do, I obviously know that physical shortcomings can be overcome.

Thanks for the perspective - valuable indeed. Hopefully it gets a lot of views!

There's a photo of Charley Patton with his hand over the fret board...

Rick Allen is the drummer for Def Leppard. After their breakout Pyromania album he was in a car crash that severed his arm.

He adapted to two feet and one arm , instead of two arms and one foot.

Their next album was a gigantic success. He is an amazing drummer. Oh, yeah by the way, he only has one arm.

Django was missing finger(tips) as I understand.

Lot's of inspirational stories out there.

We just have to remind ourselves of them.

Yes. And sometimes far too much thought and effort is displayed on this forum on how to do things the right way.
The correct way.
I always thought that we were playing.
After several fruitless years I realized that my hands were never going to perform full barre chords.
I adapted by learning many other moveable shapes along with fills and runs.
I have old injuries, arthritis and Dupuytren's Contracture in both hands.
Non-playing and non-perfectionists never notice. :)

Good post.

Eight months ago my left hand was partially crushed and I lost the use of my thumb. It was no longer opposable. It just kind of hung out at an open-hand angle and completely useless. I was given a cast for it but at my first opportunity I cut it off and began my own *therapy to get it back. The bones were still soft so I took it easy. Anyway, it improved and I can now just reach and apply pressure to my little fingertip. I'm fully confident it will be back to it's old self soon.

While on the mend I learned to fret without the thumb. That took some concentration and learning a new way to hold the guitar. I had to use my right forearm to put resistance on the top to counter the pulling moment on the neck with my fretting hand fingers. This whole exercise was actually critical to thumb therapy as the thumb naturally wanted to be involved. And, it gave a new meaning to accuracy with regard to chord changes. Anyway, my street-minded therapy paid off - use it or lose it - and I can now manage much of the skills set I had before the injury.

*Qualifier: I've broken many bones in my allotted time and some of them were suffered in situations and locations where medical help was not available. Local villagers provided that and imparted their calm and savoir faire to such things as easily sorted out and remedied.