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ouch

I’m lucky — I’ve never suffered from any playing-related pain. (I mean, other than expected stuff, like spurting blood all over a guitar when you bash it a little too hard, or picking up a soldering iron by the wrong end.) But I’ve been blissfully untouched by carpal tunnel syndrome, numbness, arthritis, etc.

Until recently.

A few months ago, my left thumb joint started aching. It didn’t directly affect my playing — all those clams in my videos happened on their own! But it scared the crap out of me.

My doctor suggested it might be non-degenerative arthritis.

“Arthritis?” I squawked. “But I’m only . . . oh, yeah, probably arthritis.”

Which it may well be. But it also occurred to me that I had been indulging in a new behavior for the last year or two, and wondered whether it might be contributing to the problem. See, I’m almost as addicted to my iPad as I am to flatwound strings. I’ve embraced the post-paper lifestyle, and I use the iPad for most of my reading and much of my correspondence. I keep it on my workbench while I solder, use it as a remote in the studio, watch movies while working out, and most important, use it to read comic books in the bathtub. I usually support it with my left hand, with the modest but constant 1.44 lb. weight centered right where I was hurting. I migrated to a .68 lb. iPad Mini a few months ago. Lo and behold, the pain has receded — for now, anyway.

That's got to hurt! — That’s got to hurt!

But it makes me realize how much I take for granted the simple act of pain-free playing. Then I think of all the players who have either been derailed by playing-related pain, or who persevere despite it. And that’s not even taking into account injury-related pain. (Hello, Django!)

So has guitar playing ever become a pain for you? (No, working with singers doesn’t count.) Were you able to overcome it by modifying your technique, or through therapy? Any words of wisdom to share?

Are Your Sinister — or Dextrous?

Upside Joe — “Why is everything upside-down?”

You know the origin of the word “sinister,” don’t you? It’s the Latin word for “left,” which, according to etymologists, became associated with evil, thanks to the medieval belief that left-handed people were deceitful and probably possessed. Meanwhile, “dexterous,” which means adept with your hands or brain, is from the Latin “dexter,” meaning “right.”

What are the odds that a right-handed person came up with those ideas? 😉

Lefty guitarists have it tough. They have fewer instruments to choose from, and they usually can’t just pick up any old guitar and start jamming. When I wrote for Guitar Player, we tried hard not to be “side-ist,” and would always refer to the “picking hand” and “fretting hand” rather than the left and right when discussing technique. But still.

I have left-handedness on the brain because I upgraded a left-handed guitar for a friend. I threw caution to the wind and recorded a demo video upside-down, without restringing. It ain’t pretty — but it sure is interesting! I’ve never undergone any sort of neurological testing, even though I look like the sort of person who should have electrodes permanently attached to his skull. But after playing upside down for a few minutes, I could practically feel parts of my brain pulsating with unaccustomed energy. I held a wine glass in my right hand, and it felt wrong. Then in my left, and it still felt wrong. And man, was it tough typing! It was a weird, disorienting mental high.