Cape Cod Acoustics
  • Home
  • Your Lessons
  • Performance services offered
  • About Gene
  • Contact
  • Guitars, Ukes & Accessories
  • Acoustic Guitar Blog
  • Tips for guitarists
  • Guitar Gallery
  • More...

The March of Time

1/20/2016

1 Comment

 
 
In my previous post I talked about the challenges of teaching younger students and things they have to overcome to succeed on the guitar. Today I want to address some of the issues older players deal with. I count myself in that group so this is not just observational!
 
As with most things physical in nature, playing the guitar doesn’t get any easier as we get older. It is very frustrating to have the will and understanding of what we want to do musically but our fingers just won’t respond to commands to the extent needed. I see this on almost a daily basis with some of my students and although sometimes we can laugh it off, occasionally a student will get very frustrated and even angry or depressed. I do my very best to offer both encouragement and every tip I can think of to mitigate those feelings.
 
Specifically, the biggest frustration seems to be with lack of clarity of sound. With men that often comes from having wide fingers that almost inevitably touch adjacent strings on their fretting hand and dampen the sound. Anyone who’s lucky enough to have fairly narrow fingers (as I do) has a better time of it but that doesn’t mean there’s no hope for a guy with “fat fingers.” Correct technique is absolutely vital, i.e., dropping the wrist, keeping the tip of the thumb parallel to the second (middle) finger, arching the fingers and using the tips only, unless you’re playing a barre chord with your first finger of course. Many men want to use their hand strength in a way that is more appropriate for holding a baseball bat or an axe. But it all comes from the downward pressure of the fingertips, not the upward pressure of the inside of the hand. That is a tough one for men understand and conquer, especially older men in my experience.
 
Women often display anther issue, which is overall strength, or a lack of. Without getting into a whole cultural argument of why this is, most women do not have the experience of pressing down as hard as they can with their finger tips as a man might whose every day job requires similar action. So while often times women have a better immediate understanding of the importance of arching the fingers and using tips only – they just can’t do it. In the beginning, anyway. It may take longer for a woman to build up this unfamiliar strength than a man and it doesn’t get any easier as our years advance. Plus – for all of us – it hurts!
 
Flexibility has to enter the equation. This is why many older women go to yoga classes (are you listening, guys?!) but unfortunately there aren’t too many yoga classes that focus on our hands, or none that I know about anyway. A few of my students have benefited from exercising their hands with a small, soft ball that can be squeezed and released. Some guitar shops and online retailers sell ones that are specifically designed for guitarists. I can’t testify to their effectiveness but I often recommend the purchase of a “Pinky” ball, which is a small, semi-soft foam ball used in kid’s sports. A tennis ball is sometimes mentioned but those things don’t have the proper amount of “give” and are probably not as effective as the others I mentioned. The beauty of this type of hand exercise for both strength and flexibility is that is inexpensive and can be done almost subconsciously as we watch TV. Try it!
 
But there is no denying some of the realities of aging. One of them may be arthritis. That is what finally ended my dad’s drumming (although he was able to play the guitar almost until the end of his life) and I am just beginning to notice hints of it in a couple of my fingers. This is scary, for sure. Fortunately, as I understand it, there are ever more effective medications available for arthritis. That is encouraging. For my part, a couple ibuprofens usually do the trick. Time will tell if that is the case in the years to come.
 
Another that I deal with and many others do too is Renaud’s Disease. The cause is definitive: exposure to cold. Renaud’s is not just simple numbness that disappears in a couple minutes. One or usually more of my fingers get totally numb for up to a half hour if I’m careless about exposure to air or water that is less than 40F degrees. I’ve tried all the well known remedies including shaking out my hands, doing a “windmill” rotation with my arms to increase the blood flow etc. but the only things that work for sure are making certain I avoid exposure and I’ve also begun using the small throw-away chemical hand warmers on a daily basis, keeping them in my pockets for immediate use as needed. But wait – there is another solution. Move to Florida. Or the Caribbean. OK, I’m working on that!
 
As I said in the beginning, these are things I see on almost daily basis. But I firmly believe that the march of time does NOT have to result in putting the guitar away. Look at jazz great Bucky Pizzarelli – he just turned 90 years of age and can still swing with the best of ‘em. I guess there needs to be some level of acceptance of what we are and where we can go. For my part, and this is no brag, it’s a fact, I’m playing better now than I ever have. Or maybe it’s just more satisfying.
 
Peace & good music,
Gene

1 Comment
dj mononoke
2/2/2016 06:23:47 am

I'm really glad I've came across this informative post, this really helped me out quite a bit, by answering all my questions properly, hopefully the site will grow bigger and more popular as ever it was. Keep up the good work and I'm sure I'll visit you up someday soon for more great articles. You may find great articles and music production tools at: http://www.lucidsamples.com by the way!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Gene Bourque

    Archives

    June 2022
    May 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed