Viking Power
April 22nd, 2009, 05:56 PM
Hello Illustrious Fretternati,
I picked up the guitar again a few months ago and am struggling. I'm wondering, is it normal beginner struggling, or is it due to my disabled left index finger?
As a teenager, I broke my index finger badly in a fist fight. A Dr. set it with metal pins, but it just never held in order to heal properly. It now has limited range of motion in bending as well as straightening. It can be quite frustrating! Here are some photos:
http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp283/jason_hegel/IMG_0104.jpg
TOP VIEW
http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp283/jason_hegel/IMG_0105.jpg
PRESSED AGAINST DESK TO STRAIGHTEN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp283/jason_hegel/IMG_0106.jpg
BENT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
So, basically, the finger has a ton of scar tissue built up around the middle joint.
Where I'm running into trouble (I think) is in positioning my fret hand to "jump to" chords as opposed to holding the chord finger by finger. I kind of use the fret board to stabilize/hold the finger in place at least to some extent. This is making chord transitions very difficult (again is this just normal beginner struggling?).
The idea of going lefty does not appeal to me all that much since it seems like it would be quite uncomfortable and a bit like taking 2 steps back in my limited ability on the axe.
I do know that Django and others managed to play despite their disabilities. Maybe I just need to keep working at it and not go lefty....I don't know.
Thoughts? Ideas?
I picked up the guitar again a few months ago and am struggling. I'm wondering, is it normal beginner struggling, or is it due to my disabled left index finger?
As a teenager, I broke my index finger badly in a fist fight. A Dr. set it with metal pins, but it just never held in order to heal properly. It now has limited range of motion in bending as well as straightening. It can be quite frustrating! Here are some photos:
http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp283/jason_hegel/IMG_0104.jpg
TOP VIEW
http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp283/jason_hegel/IMG_0105.jpg
PRESSED AGAINST DESK TO STRAIGHTEN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/pp283/jason_hegel/IMG_0106.jpg
BENT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
So, basically, the finger has a ton of scar tissue built up around the middle joint.
Where I'm running into trouble (I think) is in positioning my fret hand to "jump to" chords as opposed to holding the chord finger by finger. I kind of use the fret board to stabilize/hold the finger in place at least to some extent. This is making chord transitions very difficult (again is this just normal beginner struggling?).
The idea of going lefty does not appeal to me all that much since it seems like it would be quite uncomfortable and a bit like taking 2 steps back in my limited ability on the axe.
I do know that Django and others managed to play despite their disabilities. Maybe I just need to keep working at it and not go lefty....I don't know.
Thoughts? Ideas?