Here to There and Back Again

Two years and a few months later, I am in a self-imposed rehabilitation. For one whom plays guitars, it has been a powerful journey enduring the loss of finger function. Being right handed, the left does the fingering on the fretboard. When the elemental basic index finger of that hand fails its functional ability, playing the instrument becomes near impossible. Logically speaking that is true after playing guitars and other stringed instruments for over 50 years, muscle memory is well ingrained into the activity of playing these instruments.

This finger began its decline gradually, showing up as stiffness and ever so slightly as painful. This occurred at the onset of playing only, a condition that would quickly fade through a song or two’s duration while warming up on any given day. Over a period of more than five months this condition progressively became worse. The associated pain was in the joint of the last digit as a focal point, yet it seemed to somewhat extend via the controlling tendons, well into the top of the hand. Another symptom that gradually developed was a clicking in that joint when flexing from the fully extended position. As the progression of these symptoms continued to increase, it began to ache after playing, then that too amplified over time. So it was late November of 2019, when I concluded to rest the finger for a few days, to see if it would reduce these symptoms. Letting a week pass without playing (a difficult issue with long standing desires and habitually playing daily) when playing again, the same conditions reoccurred. Initial stiffness and clicking in the, joint. This clicking had been and remained very faint. I’d have to hold my finger right next to my ear and flex it for it to be audibly noticeable. And again these symptoms receded rather quickly through playing a few songs. This time however, after ceasing play, the ache became much stronger. I concluded to rest the finger for a more extensive period, this time 3 weeks. It was Christmas day when I next played. This time the stiffness didn’t work out, yet I forced playing for 15 minutes, may be a half hour, before I concluded the situation to be intolerable. I concluded a further period of rest to be a requirement.

Resting the finger seemed impossible at this point. It truly hurt, near constantly, and engaging the finger for ordinary everyday function seemingly caused a furthering of its inflammation and severity of ache. I then tried splinting it, doing so for two weeks or more. At the end of this time the finger’s condition showed as much worse. I couldn’t bend the last joint but a few degrees, and it remained very sore. My grand passion had been removed completely, all ability to play music was fully gone. It was also winter in the north, where being outside is quite inhospitable.

By the onset of spring the pandemic had further altered life, not only was I unable to play music, quarantine conditions introduced an extended alone condition. Isolation with nothing to do, a bad, bad combination. But I thought to try playing a guitar one day, finding the same result as the previous attempt on Christmas day. I was devastated emotionally, but had to carry on in life, still without the things I know how to do and retain an ability for doing. Spine injuries previously stripped away the joyful activities I'd known in life, years before.

Watching a movie in May of 2020, the muse landed in my lap, presenting a new set of lyrics. I went to the piano, a cumbersome tool for me that was also limited by this finger issue. Now with a need to record at least a rough sketch of this new and forming song. I proceeded to do that very thing, it was difficult but possible, and I did it successfully, with the Old Cowpuncher’s Song being invented.

It was near this same time when listening to an old Muddy Waters interview that I found what he termed as the "Spanish" method of tuning a guitar, one of many open tunings that are used to facilitate playing with a slide. This seemed a novel concept. I have a very old parlor guitar, having a non-radius, flat fretboard. Thinking I should give this a try, I did. Within minutes I was playing and singing an old John Prine song, followed by yet another, and so on. Wow, over-joyed at the finding, playing music again, smiling face wide. Quickly however, I realized that this guitar was truly a poor candidate for this task. Soon there after the thought came of purchasing a dobro then tuning it with this same tuning scheme.

My march back toward playing had begun, a long journey had begun. A dobro arrived via a delivery truck one afternoon in June of 2020. Excitement found me opening the container, then the case, to view this instrument for the first time. After looking it over, and doing some further research as to properly tuning it in the recommended, normal dobro tuning, I did so. That was a standard G tuning which I had dabbled with on occasion with guitars. It was to me the same thing, a condition I preferred to avoid for guitars because of the limited flexibility toward my own musical preferences. I then tried tuning it as Muddy had done with his guitar as stated in that interview. With the dobro, this tuning worked but was less than satisfactory. The string gauge of the 6th string was inadequate to hold a D1. The string buzzed and rattled. Without a will to go out into public, or local stores, in the pandemic, and truly without a local vendor having access to custom strings like this. I then tried tuning with this same scheme one step higher finding a similar condition, and found I was unable to fulfill this previous hope. From there however, I did learn using finger picks and using my right hand with them, learning various picking patterns that I still use with guitar.

By July 2, 2020, I had pretty much concluded that there was little hope of a normal return to playing music, yet my own curiosity kept me looking at Craig’s List postings of musical instruments, when I saw what eventually altered the growing non-musical way that I was enduring at that time. There was posted a beautiful 1973 Martin D-35. Beautiful to look at in the least, and the price seemed reasonable to an extreme. On impulse, I wrote the owner, making arrangement to see it the following day, at which time I purchased the instrument. By the last week of August I got the instrument back from my luthier having some rather minor fixes performed. It was the days following having this instrument that I concluded to really learn to play with three fingers.

The injured index finger knew its place having been an integral part of playing all these years. Where it retained the ability to form the bar for bar chords, that was the limit of its functionality in playing a guitar. That last digit’s joint was by now regaining a slight percentage of its flexibility, yet retained its pain sensory nerves when engaged even a little bit. It seemed as though there was a club on my hand when attempting to play with that finger sticking out by itself, actually in the way. With these limiting conditions I began to play again, gradually, fighting it all the way. The brain knows how to position the hand for playing chords, but one way, with the index finger. It became a conscious task to remove the reflex behavior of muscle memory, filled with countless errors and countless alarming halts from excruciating pain from the automatic engagement of the index finger when attempting to play songs known well for years. So shocking it was that in mid stream of a song, the yikes sensation would be so strong as to fully wipe the memories ability to cognate where in a song the previous moment had been, causing a complete destruction of musical flow, dead stop. This reoccurring condition caused deep frustration at times, but that will to play music again would overcome. There were many occasions when these instances caused my putting the instrument down, with a sense of hopelessness sweeping over me. Yet I stayed with it, near daily, practicing, gaining, practicing, learning new ways to form chords, that I could no longer play with the same shapes used for decades. I gained enough that I found a return to recording possible. It remained that there were many limits to playing with a club finger on my hand, some of my songs were fully off limits. Still I was again playing music and somewhat back into a creative space.

The healing continued through this long period. I noticed that I could again place my finger tip on the fretboard, limited to the lower register strings only. Doing so however caused a degree of inflammation in the finger disallowing its use in that way for days. Eventually I recognized that recovery was increasing. I’d use the finger on the three lower register strings in a session, to awaken the following day with it being really stiff, and at night achy. By paying attention to these results, if I were to limit my use of the finger to use, upon occasion, maintaining minimal total use, I noticed further improvement and less ache afterward. This very slow process of very slow recovery continued through the summer of 2021 and into the fall, when I began stretching use to the higher register strings. At first just a little, then gradually increasing its use.

In December 2021, I could again use the index finger nearly the normal way. It would be stiff after and slow to react toward the many required placements demanded by play normally. I then found a reverse muscle memory issue happening. A lot of mental confusion in the brain, it would send signal to the wrong finger, having reached a degree of muscle memory in playing three fingered for more than a year. By early January I had recognized that normal play was again available. I consciously stopped playing in the three fingered way, to rebuild an old trusty method, realizing how fortunate I am that the finger, well the body can overcome. Being older means that recovery is much slower than when young, but it occurs none the less. The journey continues though. I still notice the mental confusion when playing through fast changes, playing lead phrases or simply performing quick chord changes. This journey is still continuing now. I still note some difficulties and some of those symptoms. I truly believe that I can fully recover, while paying strict attention to the symptoms, and reacting appropriately by giving it rest, and or not overdoing what my will wishes for, playing music. And the beat goes on….

Banjo Fits

From the extended continuing isolation, the music and my will to progress continues.  I use the word banjo in this title purposefully having been drawn toward its sound yet again.  I obtained a Deering Basic banjo probably in, or near 1990.  It was made in 1978, coming to me, via my former sister-in-law.  At that time I had a desire to play a banjo, but had never touched one prior.  I fooled around with the instrument for a while but could not make sense of it.  That 5th string continually disrupted what I consider the “normal” progression of musical notes raising pitch toward the bottom of the set of strings, with stringed instruments, and woodwinds for that matter, thus its case began collecting dust on the shelf.  Occasionally I would attempt, in a less than whole hearted way, only to put it back on the shelf.  In earlier life, I had also attempted to learn to finger pick guitar to experience the same kind of result.  My ignorance at that time combined with a stubborn will that disallowed the necessary time and methodology to learn finger picking stood in my way.  It is difficult to overcome what one will disallow.  This condition remained for too many years.

One of my former musician friends and myself had been jamming one evening, it must have been 2002 or near when the condition of my mindset was introduced to finger picking in a constructive way.  In our session, we were goofing with what seemed an odd but attractive chord structure that led to a collaboratively created musical composition.  We gave it a name, Nomber Juan.  This friend was finger-picking a pattern on guitar, I was simply playing my normal way, strumming and or picking out a lead progression with this tune we’d created.  Days later, I asked him to show me how to do that picking pattern.  He sent me a chart/tab showing the picking pattern with finger numbers included.  I fooled with that for some days, but again the personal resistance to take and allow enough determined time in practice got in my way, yet again.  The difference in this instance being the chart/tab was in my possession and stored within my computer system.

More years followed, same results with my ways intact and dominant.  The condition changed sometime after writing a song in 2010, Aspen Tree.  This composition as I was playing it proved very difficult, flat picking, but at the time I pushed on employing the methodology I knew.  By this time I was working with another musician in our group Tea & Eye, where I introduced the song for us to work up.  My flat-picking style continued until, as a group we took a hiatus.  During this period, I found the will to play this song by employing a finger picking style, this time I spent the necessary expenditure of time to practice the pattern methodology, learning to use opposing fingers (separate hands) independently.  This was a formidable task for this brain to overcome.  There after with a new determination I began what seems a lengthy period of learning and appreciating this long fought personal battle for finger-picking.

Another year or two passed, the banjo remained on the shelf, but I’d met and performed with another musician who plays a banjo seemingly quite well.  One day he came over for a visit and I showed him my banjo.  It wasn’t long there after, when he said, the banjo was horrible, how it is set up is awful, followed by will you allow me to take it apart and try to fix it.  I said yes, and soon there after, I was finding necessary tools to accommodate his exploration.  I was rather surprised, having never ventured into the construction of a banjo or how they are put together.  It is so straight forward, if one knows some basic techniques of stringed instrument set-up.  At that time, I had recently been doing my own research and learning of these techniques for my electric guitars.  Well within an hour or so, the banjo was apart, then reconstructed by a person knowing how.  The instrument had been taken apart, sometime before I had obtained it, but wrongly put back together.  When we had finished the setup of the banjo was vastly improved, yet not perfect, and knowingly so.  Available time constraints disallowed further adjustments.  But witnessing the process allowed my understanding to adjust it further.  Soon there after, I did just that.  It was vastly improved but again the 5th string offered the mental conundrum.

I then began to increase my desire to play this instrument.  It is a relatively good one for my needs.  Now with a basic understanding that I can overcome learning the instrument, I went to the internet to find a tutorial for learning.  This presented another display of my ignorance, having had no previous exposure other than my own stumblings, I’d not realized the differing methods of playing styles that are associated with banjos.  I began by trying the claw-hammer method.  It is pretty strange, kind of foreign to any personal expectation.  Simultaneously, I introduced myself to the three finger picking method.  I began the process of learning both methods, a little at a time, remaining unsure as to what kind of results either would offer.  I only knew for sure, how much I am attracted to the sound of a well played banjo.  I was just beginning to get some kind of feel for the instrument that made sense, that could lead to knowing it and incorporating it into my music.  It was during this time frame when my finger problem hit like a hammer stopping all of my music.

Now it is 2022, a new year and the finger is returning to function gradually and with this hope that it can/will fully recover, I renew a focus toward the banjo.  These past two years have offered more than its hardship in isolation, it also allowed a furthering of my abilities in finger-picking.  Obtaining the dobro under the conditions of those days provided the need to further utilize finger-picking.  That period furthered my abilities therein.  I wish it were effortless at this point yet effort remains a requirement.  But I have turned the corner having decided to utilize the three fingered approach/style for banjo.  It was but last week that I opened the banjo case again really, where as I started anew.  I went back to the bookmarks of banjo tutorials, stored in the computer.  I first when to the claw-hammer approach, then directly to the three fingered approach.  Previously I recall watching an old Bela Fleck demonstration video recorded long ago, although I hadn’t stored its link.  Being non-germane to the topic, over the years I have had a growing appreciation for Bela Fleck’s contribution to music, both with his unique talent and his outreaching collaborative displays of music and cooperation.  With this in mind, I had bookmarked a YouTube search, back in those days while looking for banjo tutorials.  Seeing this last week, I opened the link of a somewhat recent demonstration by Bela on his method of playing.  It was then that I realized that the three fingered method he demonstrated in this video as the style I will learn.  Since that day last week, I have been practicing this methodology daily for multiple hours.  Maybe it shall stick?

Now that the finger is coming back into use, greatly improving the possibilities and quality of recording my music, in listening to some current projects, I realized that the banjo playing there in could have a delightful result.  This is the means of my inspiration to rekindle the idea of knowing how to play the banjo.  I believe it is a good fit for some of my songs.  There in the similar story as told before comes into play, I lack compadres, willing to fill the roll.  Yet with determination, I may overcome.

And now to further the aside topic, Bela Fleck.  One evening in this past week, having reached past two hours of banjo practice, I decided to put the instrument down.  After closing its case I returned to the computer, with the YouTube video still loaded in the browser window.  Looking through the numerous listings on the right side there in, I saw another Bela Fleck thing.  It is titled Bela Fleck -Throw Down Your Heart (2008) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJt6jn0xT8A  I then clicked the link to become engrossed in a wondrous film that stunned me in wonderment.  I recommend that, if you the reader are, one whom loves music and its harmonious potentials, watch this video.  It shall make a pleasing mark on your conscious mind.