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in december last year I had surgery on my right hand and then badly broke my left wrist resulting in a large metal plate, 16 bolts and a lot of nerve damage. I was told for months I will never play again because I couldn't get my fingers on the fretboard. I started slowly bending and stretching the wrist while it was still soft and broken and now 12 months later I can play well enough to start playing for classes again. it's incredibly painful to play but it hurts when I don't play as well so I am just going for it.
Its strange to be teaching my hand to work again, I am back to practicing beginner stuff but I make progress every day
RE: after 12 months healing I can st... (in reply to marduk)
thanks, accompanying dance classes is basically my social life so im glad to be back at it. I have a lot more limitations than before but im using it as an opportunity to work on the things i missed with my early technique before
Posts: 15725
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: after 12 months healing I can st... (in reply to marduk)
My buddy went through it too, he is a pro player and broke all the fingers of the left hand. He had to adapt some new chord voicings and sometimes deliberately plays in certain keys with capo, but it sounds cool. Now he is doing great. Think of it as a reset. Many historians feel if Django hadn’t burned and fused his finger in the fire, he would have always been a mediocre guitarist.
RE: after 12 months healing I can st... (in reply to marduk)
Marduk,
You’ve had a terrible time of it. David Serva my old friend and teacher broke both his wrists and continued playing. He was riding his bike down a hill and got out of control, as I remember it was Spring 2000. He had a metal bar with screws going into his arm and the bone holding it all together. It took about 6 months to get healed enough to begin to play. Oddly enough we met in a Sevilla because his wife was working on an academic grant to do genealogy work on Gitana family connections- he had a lot of time to sit and think and I asked him to give me guitar lessons even though his wrist was still not in playing condition. I told him he could still analyze and talk and that was good enough.
We started lessons a few days later. He said put the cejilla on the forth fret and he showed me some very elementary solea falsetas to begin with. I asked him about Diego del Gastor’s brother, known as El Mellizo, that got David off showing me a hand full of his falsetas. After lesson four or five, ten days later or so of some painful playing David called me and said he’d had a breakthrough. He was very excited and said “I got my sound back.” He was worried he’d never be able to get his touch back.
Eventually he managed to rebuild his technique, but there were some things he couldn’t do the same, for example the falsetas in his Alegrias. He rearranged and reworked them until he was happy. He said it made him rethink everything in terms of more economical playing.
We used to go out to bars and he’d play for singers, amateurs and professionals. After he’d play awhile I’d go buy us beers and get ice from the bartender so he could bring down the swelling in his wrist. But watching him retrain himself to play was interesting, it’s in your head, not your hand. Your attitude and your brain can coax a lot out of your hands. I know you can do it, step by step. You can get it back, because it in your beautiful brain.
Posts: 3497
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: after 12 months healing I can st... (in reply to marduk)
Marduk, you are an example of grit and focus triumphing over adversity. Keep up the good work, and you will be playing at a level you never imagined before the accident. The world would be a better place if more people demonstrated your grit and tenacity.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: after 12 months healing I can st... (in reply to marduk)
This is Pat Martino’s story:
“Martino had been performing since the early 1960s until an aneurysm in 1980 left him with amnesia and no recollection or knowledge of his career or how to play the very instrument that made him successful.”
RE: after 12 months healing I can st... (in reply to marduk)
Marduk could use a word of encouragement and support here and on his Facebook account. He continues to persevere through difficult circumstances with his hand injuries.
RE: after 12 months healing I can st... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
Marduk could use a word of encouragement and support here and on his Facebook account. He continues to persevere through difficult circumstances with his hand injuries.
What's happening? Has he posted on facebook? I don't really do facebook... maybe he could duplicate posts here and keep us updated?
Things were looking positive in January, have they taken a turn for the worse? Or is progress just painfully slow?
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