WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES Barre Chord discussion

AndyT
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:06 am
Status: Offline

Fri May 21, 2010 4:12 am

Anton, Iz,

I hope everyone learns from this thread. I see the Doctor tomorrow and get my hand X-ray'ed so I'll find out whats going on in there. I'll keep everyone up to date as the info comes in.


Lavallee
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 9:48 am
Status: Offline

Fri May 21, 2010 6:02 am

Good luck with this, Andy,

Marc


wrench
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 3:12 pm
Status: Offline

Fri May 21, 2010 10:14 am

Check out the left wrist. I guess it can happen to the best.



BigBear
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:02 am
Status: Offline

Fri May 21, 2010 11:58 am

AndyT wrote:
The obvious conclusion here is that the thumb should be at an angle to the barre finger. To have it face to face would place sideways pressure on the joint and tendons and could cause the same symptoms that people know as 'Trigger Finger'.

So, Now that I understand how that hand works, I should be able to figure out the best position to keep from causing any further pain. I'm going to have to move my fingers around to a position where I can get my thumb face on to the neck. Then I can apply the barre.


Comments?

With that much analysis are you sure you're not an engineer? WOW! lol!

But your logic is sound and makes perfect sense. And I think it comports with what all of us have experienced; that the thumb and index finger are not perfectly parallel to each other when playing barres and that due to the physiology of the hand must not be so.

Good thread Andy! Your cadaver images were very interesting and illustrative.

Cheers! :cheer:


d_dog
Posts: 0
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2009 12:41 pm
Status: Offline

Sat May 22, 2010 12:11 am

Good luck to you Andy, I hope there is no damage. I would add to Marc's (or Mark?) post that a higher neck position might be helpful. The other option would be to shift the whole guitar position to your right, so that the nut is closer to your body.

Do you have less pain with barre chords high up the neck? (closer to the sound hole) I find that I'll get a tiny bit of pain, or at least fatigue, when I play a lot of F, F#, Fm, Bm, anything on the first two frets, but as I move to the third fret and beyond the fatigue is way less, I think it's not so much the wrist bend X axis angle but more the wrist Y bend angle, i.e. if X is the up and down vertical plane bending, and Z is the rotation/twisting, then Y is the left right or horizontal plane bending. It's the Y bending that I think causes the pain and fatigue.
Man, and I thought Andy overthougt this! hahaha :)


wiley
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2009 7:26 am
Status: Offline

Sat May 22, 2010 12:54 am



AndyT
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:06 am
Status: Offline

Sat May 22, 2010 10:49 pm

Rick,

Don't get me started! LOL I was going to do some motion studies on peoples hands but I really don't have that kind of time. LOL

Dan,
Thanks for the vid. We should take it as a warning and make sure we do whatr is necessary to avoid problems that could stop us from playing!

Damien,
With the new position the pain is about the same all over the neck. Good point though.

Wiley,
I never thought of the shape of the neck having to do with it. Excellent point! I'll have to look into that. That could have a lot to do with it.


Well, The Doc said he thinks it is a sprain from playing in a bad position but we did some X-rays anyway just to be sure. He wants me to use heat on it before playing and ice after and see if that helps. The results from the X-rays will be in on Monday.


thereshopeyet
Posts: 130
Joined: Thu Jun 25, 2009 4:19 pm
Status: Offline

Mon May 24, 2010 1:46 pm

Thanks


AndyT
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:06 am
Status: Offline

Wed Aug 18, 2010 5:04 am

I just realized I never did the update on this. Sorry...

It was just a sprain. After using the different position I have far less pain in my hand overall. I still feel the muscle strain and building that is normal, but nothing damaging now. Thanks for everyone's concern and wishes for a speedy recovery. All better now.

I have been keeping this in mind and checking hand positions on many other players and have found that the overall position I have is correct with slight modifications for individual variations.


Post Reply Previous topicNext topic