-
I play mostly chord melody, usually 30-60 minutes a day, often 6 days a week. I'll play a flatop half the time. I'm left-handed, to boot.
It doesn't bother me when I play, but later and overnight I'll get some muscle stiffness/ joint ache in my hand. This is a new thing for me, so perhaps age, not overuse, is catching up with me. I'm taking today off, wondering who else has run into this.
-
09-06-2024 08:27 PM
-
Not my hands so much as my low back. I have to remember to get up and stretch when I practice. I could sit and go for two hours only to find out my feet are numb and when I straighten out my back is killing me.
Sometimes, I’ll do the super chops thing and lay on the floor and think about the tune or whatever.
-
I run into this when playing a style that is new to me or when the guitar I'm playing is not suitable for what I'm trying to do... or when I just don't play regularly enough.
All three have in common the stressing of muscles, joints, or tendons (inclusive or) that are not used to doing the things that I'm asking them to do.
- Recently, I've begun trying to learn to play real blues ala the three Kings, Joe B, T-Bone... I have to learn a completely different set of movements and a new harmonic vocabulary to play this style authentically. I really feel it in unusual places after practicing this stuff - the string bends work my fretting-hand shoulder and I'm developing monster callouses that I never needed playing jazz! Until those callouses built up, wow, were my fingers sore. I also raised the action on my Les Paul quite a bit higher than what I've used for decades, so I can get my fingers under the string for bends. I'm also experimenting with swapping in custom gauges to make certain bends easier. All of this felt weird at first, and it's still a work in progress, but it mostly feels comfortable now. It's hours later or the next day that I feel a bit of shoulder pain (left) or inside-forearm pain (right - I've changed my picking technique a bit too.) Good news is that I am not feeling much (if any) thumb pain in my picking hand... which means that the joints and muscles that my new picking approach uses have begun to strengthen up.
- Another time I felt a lot of fretting-hand wrist pain was after playing for only a half-hour on a guitar that I was considering buying. I had been playing for hours daily for years, so I had lots of strength in the fretting hand... but man, the neck on this thing was just NOT right for me. Fortunately, the pain went away in a couple of days - as did the guitar :-)
- Lately, the obligations of home maintenance, health maintenance, and just "stuff that life throws at ya" are interfering with my practice schedule enough to reduce some of my left-hand strength... an hour of chord-melody practice can cause enough muscle fatigue to make stuff I think of as no big deal a bit difficult. I gots to get on the stick with regular practice again!
Takeaways: Are any new tunes or styles working muscles that you don't normally work? Are you playing stuff on a different axe than usual? 30-60 minutes of chord melody shouldn't cause too many problems if you've been doing that and more for years... maybe you just need to keep at it daily till you build more strength.
Overall health could play a part, too ... are you drinking enough water? Taking a multivitamin? Eating good food instead of junk? Getting regular exercise? Getting enough good-quality sleep?
Just some thoughts... I hope they are helpful and that you resolve the issue.
-
starjasmine +1
If I'm working on something new, I'll experience signs of fatigue or even mild pain. THAT is the time to stop. If you push beyond the warning signs, it can lead to pain that'll take days to recover from...or worse.
One of the things that is not uncommon is the endorphins that help us to feel the joy of playing. But that can mask the signs of fatigue. By being mindful of stress, you can build up the amount of time you play before you're stressed.
I love playing. I hate downtime. I especially hate downtime due to pain I've brought about myself.
To this day, I:
Stretch before I play. This means loosening my back, shoulder stretches, upper arm, forearm, wrist, fingers.
Play with the neck raised, so I can get my fretting hand under my neck.
I use a guitar lift, so I can take the weight of my guitar off of my shoulder.
Sit in a chair where my hip is at least parallel with my knee. A low chair or sofa can pull the ulner nerve.
Sit upright. Classical players say shoulders and heart over the hips. It's good advice.
Get up regularly and stretch. Keep the circulation going.
Do you play with the head of the guitar in a low position? Neck horizontal or even lower?
How are your string gauges? Have you considered lighter strings?
When's the last time you had a good setup? Lowering your action and making sure you're not fighting the guitar-that can be a game changer.
Warm up on the guitar, if you're chord soloing, work your way down the neck rather than stretching on lower frets before your muscles are ready.
Know that barre chords and some chords that involve stretches can fatigue your hand and arm faster. Especially if you're working out a passage and repeating it. These things will tire you out and if you have the urge to push through and play on, as you get tired you'll introduce stress at a disproportionate level.
Be aware of the chords that you feel stress from. Look at them and see if a change in hand position, posture and even head position can make what you play easier.
Be aware of your breath. This seems like strange advice, but the things you play, how they are executed, dynamics and pauses follow the breath of phrasing. A horn player has a natural necessity for breath and phrasing. A guitarists also feels the cadence of the music but the body might not be working with the music. This causes stress. Breathe with the music.
A regimen of warm up exercises can be really good for your hands and your mind. What that is is up to your own playing needs.
Good luck
-
I recommend rasgueados exercise with both hands (on your lap not necesarilly on guitar) not only because it makes the fingers more nimble but it also helps cushion injuries from potential muscle inbalance. Ever since I incorporated more of the flickering/opening movement (as opposed to gripping movement) my hands feel more alive hence no more numbness or pain. Even other instrumentalists could benefit from it!
-
Starjasmine. Be sure to bend with the ring finger using the index and middle to help. You don’t do whole time bends with one finger, that’ll lead to injury.
I mean, BB King and Billy Gibbons do, but they used 08 and 07 gauge strings. Seriously. You don’t need big strings for big tone.
-
Thanks, Allen - you are right; I learned to do that (Paul Gilbert calls it the "big finger" or something like that) along with wrapping my thumb over the top of the neck to use the whole left hand to grip the neck when bending. I switch back to a more "classically correct" fretting-hand position for chording and single lines.
Originally Posted by AllanAllen
-
@starjasmine
I kind of had the Peter Green/Clapton thing down as a teenager and never gave a thought to which fingers I was using for the bends, so I just took a look: in a typical blues figure where you're bending IV>V (3rd string to 2nd), followed by VII>I (2nd string to 1st), certainly lower down the neck like in Gm blues, I have ring finger supported by middle, followed by pinky supported by ring+middle! This also works higher up the neck but could also be unsupported middle followed by ring supported by middle due to shorter fret spacing.
Play around and see what works for your particular hands but I personally would not contemplate using just one specific finger for bends as that would be limiting. Also, apart from raising the action, go down 1 or even 2 gauges.
-
My cycling friend. I find my hands do not give me any problems, but my back does. Like those mentioned in some post my feet can go a bit numb and I have to adjust. Playing chord melody does require usually a bit more focus and hand strength. One thing though I have found for whatever reason is taking day off is great. The guitar is a physical instrument and like any athletic training be do need some time out. I find take a day off completely or even 2 I come back much stronger and find my coordination is actually better. Playing alot is good but you can get sloppy and robotic about it and that is not good for the chops. Originally Posted by JGinNJ
I will also add I play mostly chord melody and find 60 minutes easy to negotiate sometimes I just get bored with it. On good days though playing 2 hours straight not a problem. The problems get in the back my sciatic nerve acting up. Old age is the winner here. If this helps when I broke my 4th and 5th metacarpals on my right hand 16 weeks ago, I had hand surgery. Pinning and they took xrays over course. The radiologist noted in my hand no evidence of degenerative joint disease in all the x-rays before and after. This problem explains the reason I can play with no aches. However, the back is another thing entirely.
-
I don't think it's my guitars or string gauge. The archtops I regularly play all have .011's or 12's, no baseball bat necks or long scales.
I think it's because I play a lot of chords, and tend to use barre chords a lot even if I don't really need to. Anyway, I felt better with a day off, skipped another today.
Fortunately I don't have back issues, and I try not to freeze in one position to play. Most of my guitars are pretty light, but I tend to play sitting down and not using a strap to keep the weight off my neck/shoulders. Heavy guitars, I'll feel that after just a couple of tunes.
-
Dude yeah. Solo guitar is the most physically demanding. I play three or four hour long quartet gigs without missing a beat. Originally Posted by JGinNJ
A set of solo guitar and I’m feeling it.
A few things I do when I’m having tension issues:
1. Pianissimo days. Just play super quiet for a day. When you play quiet, you tend to relax even in the left hand. Loud and you tend to tense up. It’s a helpful reminder to your hands to chill.
2. Playing and not fully fretting the left hand. Just touch (like a harmonic but not on top of the fret ) where you’d normally fret the note. After a while, you’ll find yourself accidentally fretting notes. Again, a nice reminder to your hands of how little they really need to work.
3. ONLY A LITTLE … try playing some simple things with your thumb off the back of the neck about a quarter inch or so. Again, just reminding your thumb that it’s there as a guide finger, not to grip super hard.
4. Play scales or do (sigh) spider drills very very very slowly, focusing on lifting the fingers only as far as they need. Maybe a half inch. We tend to flap our fingers around a lot when we’re not paying attention, that tires your hands out and makes you tense up a lot. Violinists call this flutterfingers.
Have at it.
-
For the first time for a long time I have hurting fingertips.
I played three hours non-stop at an acoustic manouche session on Wednesday night, two hours non-stop on Thursday night at a blues/Western swing/new country session after two hours of busking in my pedestrian tunnel around the corner, then seven hours of busking in Munich's pedestrian zone -- I got the official permit now to play in the city center -- on Friday afternoon, later played some of my own original songs at an open stage and went busking in the pedestrian zone for another four hours on Saturday morning.
Regarding my back I do not have any problems because I prefer to play standing and I move and dance around a lot to the groove when playing (helps me also keep time when playing alone in the streets.) Doing a lot of loud singing helps me get rid of a lot of mental and physical tension.
Seems like I literally played down the calluses on my fingertips. (I play 13 to 56 roundwounds.) No problems at all with muscles, joints and/or tendons.
Reply With Quote
2010 Montreal Premiere Mahogany Acoustic/Electric...
Today, 10:03 AM in For Sale