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I was practising tremolo (piami) the way scott tennant teaches it (staccato). Did this about an hour or so. Then my pinky began to hurt bad, in the middlejoint. Seems kind of blue too on that spot. Now I can barely move it.
Anybody knows the cause or anybody ever had the same problem ? And should I just keep on practising ?
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: My pinky hurts bad ! Help! (in reply to koella)
man, people are dropping like flies around here!
First, terminology: When you say pinky, do you mean the chiquito or the smallest finger on the hand? pinky=chiquito. If this is what you meant, I wonder how the pinky could have been effected if it was not used in the exercise.
The first thing you said was a clue to me: you were practicing it for an hour. You should never practice one technique that long. That is a great way to get injured. You should always mix up your practice. Picado, tremolo, lh, rh, pieces, ear training. If you mix it up, there is less a chance to overuse a single part.
I think to keep practicing would be a bad idea. My advise is to give it rest and do some ear training/singing, and when you start practicing again, cease the practice of overworking a single exercise.
RE: My pinky hurts bad ! Help! (in reply to koella)
Yes I mean my pinky. And yes I wondered too why my pinky would be hurt while not being involved in any exercise. Further, I did practise it for an hour, but in parts of say 10 min. Could it be it was tensed too much (while using the a-finger)?
Let me repeat I never had a guitar-related injurie before.
RE: My pinky hurts bad ! Help! (in reply to koella)
Koella, I think everybody gets these injuries from following a course of instruction that they find unusual or strange to do, but follow it blindly anyway, because the teacher knows best. I (touch wood) have never had any guitar related strain or injury 'cos I've alway's approximated what I hear into what I feel comfortable doing. It's just strumming a few strings for Christ's sake...not winning a Martial Arts Tournament! Don't put your trust (blindly) in others... Especially if you find it unusually awkward or strainfull to do. Take what they say, evaluate it and adapt it to suit yourself.
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: My pinky hurts bad ! Help! (in reply to koella)
If you mean right hand, that is strange. Watch in the mirror and see what it is that it is doing (possibly curled up too tight, maybe extending and curling up each time very fast, maybe just stiffly sticking out) Whatever it is doing is probably the cause, and you need to stop doing it. I try to just keep the pinky curled loosely and let it move naturally with the ring finger. If it is blue, maybe you cracked or sprained it doing something else and you did not realize it. That happened to my pinky toe once.
RE: My pinky hurts bad ! Help! (in reply to koella)
It didn't feel uncomfortable, Ron. Didn't hurt my other fingers that did the tremolo! In fact it just started to feel natural. My issue is. Pinky hurting while not using it.
Btw. Been practising the other tennant ex. for many, ma-ny hours. Never had a problem. Not that I'm good at them though.
And about the martial arts thing. Yes I am fascinated by the speed in playing flamenco. Listen to Florians post. You can't start a slowblues in C on that dancers feet.
So my issue: doing piami tremolo > pinky injured ? Clear enough?
RE: My pinky hurts bad ! Help! (in reply to koella)
quote:
man, people are dropping like flies around here!
I think I may be one of those flies, but I hope I haven't dropped completely.
I also think Ricardo hit the nail on the head. You have to find the source of the tension, and remove it. Since a recent injury I've experienced, I realized several things I've been doing that could be chalked up to poor technique. One thing I did to expose these weaknesses was to practice while my injury was hurting. You have to be really careful when doing this, but I found it useful to help determine which hand position were creating the tension. I really don't know if I would recommend this technique to everyone, but I had to know.
Another part of my problem was changing the way I was holding the guitar. With my classical background, I naturally wanted to put the guitar on my left knee. This works great for my left hand, but not so great for my right, especially with rumba strumming patterns, and rumba is my favorite. So, I switched to the traditional right knee position. My right hand loves this one, but in the process of getting accustomed to this position, along with practicing a new style (flamenco), as well as new pieces (PDL-Guajiras, etc.), I think it was too much all at once. I know to take it slow, but I didn't realize that compounding all this 'newness' wasn't taking it slow.
My wrist has been feeling somewhat better with anti-inflammatories, heat pad, massage and other exercises that were recommended. I've also started taking glucosamine, but I don't think it has had enough time to work.
I wouldn't recommend practicing one technique for an hour, even if you are doing it in increments of 10 minutes. I'm envious of people who have never experienced this, but it can be a positive thing if you learn from it.
RE: My pinky hurts bad ! Help! (in reply to koella)
Sam, tried to do the tremolo to feel where the pain came from. When I totally relaxed my righthand the pain was gone. So you are right about the injury giving you the solution of the problem. Now the tremolo got more sloppy again, but I guess I have to take it from there. Looking in the mirror showed me that my pinky also was tensed when doing alzapua and am picado. Gotto work on that to.
Posts: 96
Joined: Aug. 27 2005
From: Finland (Living in Dublin)
RE: My pinky hurts bad ! Help! (in reply to koella)
I had an injury that sounds really similar. It came when i was playing basketball. I didn't get hurt during the game but the next day mi pinky was swolen from the middle joint and had turned a little blue. About a half a year before this incident, one guy tossed a basketball at me and it hit the tip of my pinky when it was straight (yes... auch...). I could not use my pinky for a long time after that... So i guess in my case the injury kind of repeated itself. The finger was probably just under some stress or something...
Anyway... I got an x-ray (after the second incident) and there were no bone fractures or anything. It just healed itself in a week or two... Today my right hand pinky twists about 15 degrees to the right from the middle joint .
Anyway... It will probably and hopefully heal in a week or two.
RE: My pinky hurts bad ! Help! (in reply to koella)
The problem with this kind of injures is that you do something and then you feel it the next day so you can't really know what you were doing wrong, I think you should do what Sam said, know what your problem is, examine yourself and get a solution from whatever you figured out you were failing, like a doctor would do to check, pay atention where, how and when your hand hurts during the exercise, then deal with a possible solution. You should get to a point where you don't feel pain playing even with your finger injured(only if it's not too much)
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