I decided to change the URL of my blog to http://pantomimehorseblog.blogspot.com. I changed the word "music" to "blog" because with all the blog ideas I have in my head, my blog will be less and less about music in the very near future. I'll still have music related posts, especially once I get back into recording and writing music, but all my ideas right now are decidedly non-musical.
So to anyone who linked to my blog, please update the address. And to my feed subscribers, everything should stay the same.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The great DeQuervain's scale length experiment, conclusion: When pain is a good thing.
When I first announced my DeQuervain's scale length experiment, I thought I'd be conducting a series of experiments over a few weeks. But, as usually happens with me, things didn't turn out exactly as I had planned.
I did what I said I was going to do and put down the Fenders and picked up the Les Paul for a few days. Late last week, I was sitting on the floor in my computer/guitar room strumming chords while my wife was going through her online school orientation when I thought, "I'm already strumming chords, I may as well strum barre chords." So I started abusing barre chords and, sure enough, my DeQuervain's pain came back.
So what does this prove? Well, it proves that scale length don't mean shit. This is good and bad. It's good because it means I can keep playing my beloved Fenders without wondering if I'm causing major damage. It's bad because it means I have to really work at my wrists to try to mitigate my condition as best as I can.
I try to look at the positives, though, and in celebration of the results of this experiment, I picked up my Strat - still my favorite guitar despite the sheer awesomeness of my Telecaster - and had one of the best BS sessions I've had in a while. Sure, it was only 20 minutes worth of improvisation while my wife ran on the treadmill, but it felt good. I missed my Strat and I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't play it anymore.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some wrist stretches to do.
I did what I said I was going to do and put down the Fenders and picked up the Les Paul for a few days. Late last week, I was sitting on the floor in my computer/guitar room strumming chords while my wife was going through her online school orientation when I thought, "I'm already strumming chords, I may as well strum barre chords." So I started abusing barre chords and, sure enough, my DeQuervain's pain came back.
So what does this prove? Well, it proves that scale length don't mean shit. This is good and bad. It's good because it means I can keep playing my beloved Fenders without wondering if I'm causing major damage. It's bad because it means I have to really work at my wrists to try to mitigate my condition as best as I can.
I try to look at the positives, though, and in celebration of the results of this experiment, I picked up my Strat - still my favorite guitar despite the sheer awesomeness of my Telecaster - and had one of the best BS sessions I've had in a while. Sure, it was only 20 minutes worth of improvisation while my wife ran on the treadmill, but it felt good. I missed my Strat and I don't know what I would've done if I couldn't play it anymore.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some wrist stretches to do.
Monday, June 7, 2010
The great DeQuervain's scale length experiment, part one
I have DeQuervain's tenosynovitis. I've had it most of my life. You can read the details here if you like. It sucks. It really gets in the way of my guitar playing. So you could understand how not noticing it would be something I notice.
For the last week or so I've been playing my Les Paul Special (I tend to rotate my guitars based on nothing in particular). One day, I made a casual observation - I haven't experienced any DeQuervain's symptoms. This intrigued me, so I did some research on DeQuervain's and scale length and found that some people have decreased their symptoms by playing guitars with a shorter scale. This concerned me, as only one of my four guitars has a shorter scale.
For those who may not know, scale length is the length of the string from the nut to the bridge (or more accurately, the length from the nut to the 12th fret doubled, because strings intonate at slightly different lengths). Also, Fender and Fender-derived guitars use a 25.5" scale length, while Gibson and Gibson-derived guitars use a 24.75" scale length. Of course, there are exceptions, but I'm talking about the standard Strat/Tele/Les Paul guitars that dominate the guitar landscape.
For part one of my experiment, I chose my new, amazing Fender Telecaster HH. For two days, I played and practiced as I normally would in order to get my hands used to the guitar. Then, on day three (which happened to be yesterday) I induced the DeQuervain's. Since it happens mostly when I play a lot of barre chords, I did just that, including playing the evil chord progression from "Distant Early Warning" that gave me so many problems when I was in high school. Sure enough, after only about 10 minutes of this, the pain came on strong. It was really bad this time. I spent the rest of the evening massaging and stretching my wrist and hand and it still hurt a little in the morning.
Part two starts today. I put away my Tele and took out the Les Paul again. I'll play as usual for the next two days and then try to induce a reaction on the third day. I actually hope it hurts just as bad. That would mean that the problem is my wrist and it doesn't matter what guitar I play. Otherwise, I don't know what to do. Like I said, I have four guitars and only one with a 24.75" scale. I'd have to make some tough decisions if it turns out that I can't play them anymore.
For sake of argument, I'm going to have a part three, where I conduct the same experiment using my Strat. It still has the same 25.5" scale as the Tele, but it has lighter strings on it, so maybe that will make a difference. I sincerely hope so.
For the last week or so I've been playing my Les Paul Special (I tend to rotate my guitars based on nothing in particular). One day, I made a casual observation - I haven't experienced any DeQuervain's symptoms. This intrigued me, so I did some research on DeQuervain's and scale length and found that some people have decreased their symptoms by playing guitars with a shorter scale. This concerned me, as only one of my four guitars has a shorter scale.
After reading this, I decided to conduct an experiment. I would play guitars with different scale lengths for a few days and then deliberately try to induce a DeQuervain's reaction.
For those who may not know, scale length is the length of the string from the nut to the bridge (or more accurately, the length from the nut to the 12th fret doubled, because strings intonate at slightly different lengths). Also, Fender and Fender-derived guitars use a 25.5" scale length, while Gibson and Gibson-derived guitars use a 24.75" scale length. Of course, there are exceptions, but I'm talking about the standard Strat/Tele/Les Paul guitars that dominate the guitar landscape.
For part one of my experiment, I chose my new, amazing Fender Telecaster HH. For two days, I played and practiced as I normally would in order to get my hands used to the guitar. Then, on day three (which happened to be yesterday) I induced the DeQuervain's. Since it happens mostly when I play a lot of barre chords, I did just that, including playing the evil chord progression from "Distant Early Warning" that gave me so many problems when I was in high school. Sure enough, after only about 10 minutes of this, the pain came on strong. It was really bad this time. I spent the rest of the evening massaging and stretching my wrist and hand and it still hurt a little in the morning.
Part two starts today. I put away my Tele and took out the Les Paul again. I'll play as usual for the next two days and then try to induce a reaction on the third day. I actually hope it hurts just as bad. That would mean that the problem is my wrist and it doesn't matter what guitar I play. Otherwise, I don't know what to do. Like I said, I have four guitars and only one with a 24.75" scale. I'd have to make some tough decisions if it turns out that I can't play them anymore.
For sake of argument, I'm going to have a part three, where I conduct the same experiment using my Strat. It still has the same 25.5" scale as the Tele, but it has lighter strings on it, so maybe that will make a difference. I sincerely hope so.
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