Re: Dammit!
I was walking down the street one day, stone-cold sober, tripped on a little gap at the edge of a sidewalk, and broke my wrist. The doctor put a steel plate in, which both limited my wrist movement (not so much that anyone else would notice) and made my pinky so weak that I had to work for months at even bending it. I had to re-learn to play my fiddle. I hadn't started mandolin then, but, when I play now, the plate greatly affects my left-hand position, especially on barring and on playing chords stretching five or six frets. On top of that, with arthritis in my right hand, I use a thumb pick rather than the usual one. No mandolin teacher would point me out as a model of good form. I do daily exercises, trying to give my left-hand fingers a little more stretch and to make my pinky more flexible, tasks of not weeks but years. Like Pheffernan (post 4), I think of Django when I'm discouraged, and also of Cedell Davies, the Mississippi blues guitarist and singer, with polio-crippled hands, who learned both to strum with one hand, and to use a table knife with the other, not just to slide but to press individual notes on the high string. My problems seem minor by comparison, but then I'm no Cedell, let alone Django. Hope you're better soon. Even a paper cut can limit playing and cause considerable pain for a few days.
Last edited by Ranald; Jul-13-2020 at 10:29am.
Reason: spelling error
Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
"I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.
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