Trying to play again: Quiet Now by Denny Zeitlin

mhs · #1 03-28-2010, 03:06 PM

Hello again,

The song is "Quiet Again" by Denny Zeitlin.

Edit: Link to Quiet Now

A beautiful thing I heard in my car recently and just tried on guitar today (as you can hear..).

Post-OP status: I'm in fairly bad shape, with perhaps 20-30% of my former mobility and 2nd and 3rd left-hand fingers are numb. I was one of ~3500-5000 patients that had a severe reaction (will last ~6-XX months) to local anesteshia(lidocaine) which "burned" the nerves which seem to be growing back, but haven't yet made it to the fingertips. The glove without fingertips I'm wearing in the video is a 'compression/edema glove', which isn't very restrictive but helps keep fluids from creeping back into my fingers. Another month of it for me I think.

The great news is that I'm expected by my PT's and doctor to make a full recovery.

I've, until now, not played guitar for a total of 5 months or so, so this is my attempted re-entrance while undergoing much physical therapy and also considering this playing as PT as well.

I couldn't remember after 5 months the magic combination of herbs and spices that allow me to produce a jitter free video, so I'll just put up some WMM scrimshaw stuff here and forget mixing and fancy things. This should go into my "trigger finger 2&3" playlist just as part of the "record".

No amplification, just acoustic via the archtop and the lousy quickcam built-in microphone.

Thanks for listening and any comments.

hashi

PS: I've got a Zi8 question in the Record section of the forums. I don't see anyone online there, so thought I'd mention it here since there have been so many Kodak Zi8 posts in here.

mhs · #2 03-28-2010, 04:57 PM

Silly. I forgot the link. Updated original post.

shawlie · #3 03-30-2010, 09:28 AM

Thanks for posting this and for the news. It's pretty sad reading, and can only imagine how frustrating it is for you to go through it (certainly with your talent and experience, doesn't seem fair).

Still, it's incredible you can play at all like this with such little movement in the fingers and the fact that they're numb... And very happy to hear it will all be better. Really hope it's soon for you - and hope you keep posting music as you get better.

rmyAddison · #4 03-30-2010, 09:59 AM

Hashi,

My brother had a mild stroke 3 years ago, he doesn't have enough feel in his right hand to play "like he used to" and he gave up...we fight over it as I think it would be good PT but it's his life.

You are a very talented pro level musician, I know how frustrating this must be for you but playing again probably is wonderful PT and hopefully will expedite your full recovery. At 30% you're still better than a lot of folks..........

All the best my friend!

mhs · #5 03-30-2010, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shawlie

Thanks for posting this and for the news. It's pretty sad reading, and can only imagine how frustrating it is for you to go through it (certainly with your talent and experience, doesn't seem fair).

Still, it's incredible you can play at all like this with such little movement in the fingers and the fact that they're numb... And very happy to hear it will all be better. Really hope it's soon for you - and hope you keep posting music as you get better.

Hi Shawlie,

Things seem bad probably worse than they are, but the outlook is so good that I just keep that in mind. Another couple months of PT and I'm guessing things will be quite a lot better. The feeling could 'kick in' anytime since I've now got feeling "up the fingers to within 1/2" of the tips.

I never can forget that in the realm of things that I'm just small peanuts and each time I'm at PT, there are people missing limbs, just fresh in from horrible accidents, so I've got nothing to complain of.

Thanks much.

mhs · #6 03-30-2010, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rmyAddison

Hashi,

My brother had a mild stroke 3 years ago, he doesn't have enough feel in his right hand to play "like he used to" and he gave up...we fight over it as I think it would be good PT but it's his life.

You are a very talented pro level musician, I know how frustrating this must be for you but playing again probably is wonderful PT and hopefully will expedite your full recovery. At 30% you're still better than a lot of folks..........

All the best my friend!

I can't even imagine stroke recovery, and I have no illusions about my little problems. They aren't much of anything except to me and as you said somewhere before, life without playing is somewhat unimaginable.

I hope your brother does start to play again. I have a lot of respect for players like Pat Martino & Oscar Peterson that had cerebral incidents, lost the use of either one or more limbs, some brain function and more, and had to relearn everything. (well, Oscar is dead now but he played concerts on one hand on piano in Canada for years afterward).

There's a lot of inspiration around.

Thanks -- PH