HAND INJURIES that end your playing..................

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

Just learned of another SGF-person that has suffered catastrophic injuries to his hand thereby terminating his ability to play his beloved steel guitar.

Aside from Bobbe Seymour, are there any more of you that have experienced a similar fate? How did it happen and any hope for recovery?

Roy McKinney · From: Ontario, OR

I got my right hand caught in a garden tractor flywheel. Cut tendons and nerves in all 4 fingers. Ended my guitar playing back in about 1966 or so. Some 30+ years later, I have been trying to pick it back up, but when your 78 years old your fingers, feet, knees just wont do what your head thinks it should remember.

Steve English · From: Baja, Arizona

Yep.... I've worked around it over the years.

Also have had 4 surgeries (2 ea. hand) for "trigger finger" in the last 5 years.

Getting old is not helping matters Laughing

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Always remember you're unique..... Just like everyone else

Greg Wisecup · From: Troy, Ohio

Crushed my bar hand index finger the Saturday before last. I have some nerve damage. Don't know how much yet. After I get the stitches out this Thursday and have a little more freedom of movement; I'll see what it can do. I can still move the bar up and down the neck and can play; but it's a little hard picking it up.
Pictures on request! Whoa!

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Douglas Schuch · From: Valencia, Philippines

Ray, how about a hand injury that led to steel guitar? I played 6-string when I was a teen. Had stopped in my early twenties, but playing volleyball I broke my left index finger and it never healed properly.

I can play great bar-chords, but can not play a standard C or D chord. I thought about taking up 6-string again a number of times, but always shied away because I did not want to have to work around the bad finger (I know - greater men have done so...that's why they are greater!). I always loved the sound of steel, even though I had no idea how it was played.

So, a year ago I took the plunge and bought a pedal steel. It has been enough years (and enough physical labor over the years) for some early-onset arthritis to bother me occasionally, but the finger gives no problem controlling the bar. What can I say?

If I got some new miracle surgery that restored my finger tomorrow, I would not bother with a 6-string. Who wants to be part of the crowd? Steel gives us all cache for playing an instrument that few even know the name for!

Just thought I would brighten up an otherwise dark thread.

Doug
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Harry Teachman · From: South Dartmouth,Massachusetts, USA

When I was playing steady back in the 80's and early 90's, I injured my right hand severely on two occasions. Got it caught in a production machine at work, required quite a few stitches, a few months off, then back to playing.
the second time was pretty nasty, got it caught in the cooling fan of a helicopter engine, was going to be flown out on Medflight, but, the surgeon finally showed up at the hospital. A lot of re-contruction and therapy that time.

Good times, good times............ Confused

Jim Lindsey (Louisiana) · From: Greenwell Springs, Louisiana (deceased)

I have severe radial and ulnar nerve damage in my right arm/hand. I was stupid enough to fall off the roof of my house some years ago and cracked my pelvis in half, messed up the last four vertebrae in my back and ended up with nerve damage in both arms. The left is almost back to normal, but the right is another question.

Doctors and neurologists asked me what I did for a living and I said I was a pedal steel guitarist; they said, "Not anymore". I couldn't accept that answer and told them "Just watch me!"

I finally started back into steel again in Sep 2009 and have been struggling to "rehab" my right hand ever since. I'm playing again, but with great difficulty. As I play I have to consciously send a "mental command" to my right hand when it comes to picking (it no longer just automatically does what I want it to). So, between having to do that and often face a lot of severe pain while operating my pedals and left knee levers, to say the least it's difficult at best for me when I play.

Strangely, despite the pain in my left hip and leg as well as the horrible sensations and difficulties with my right hand, each time I play I thoroughly enjoy it when I'm at my steel! Smile

My hand is slowly getting back in shape and usually medium tempo songs to ballads give me no issue; my fast and chicken picking, however, is still a thing of the past. There's just no dexterity for it yet, but I'm working on getting that all back in time.

I have my "good days" and "bad days" with the nerve damage. On the good days I can almost sound like my old self again; on the bad days I can tell after about ten minutes of trying to play that I might as well get up from my steel because it's just not going to happen.

Edited to add: While I can't say that my playing is ended as a result of my injury (I'm playing again despite the doctors' prognosis and predictions that I'd never be able to do it), it has ended my career as an active musician because the days when the nerve damage acts up badly are unpredictable; the few bands that I've tried playing with since I began to rehab my hand have found that one night I'll be playing fine, the next night the nerve damage may be acting up bad enough that I can't play the simplest things. Thus, I'm finding it quite impossible to get a gig as most bands understandably want musicians who can play every night ... not only part time.

This has all been strong lesson for me, though. Back before my injury I always took my steel playing for granted thinking it would always be there. Since the injury, I've found a completely new appreciation for simply being able to do some playing and, regardless of how far I go in my recovery, I'll always profoundly appreciate steel in a way that I've never appreciated it before.
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Andrew Roblin · From: Various places

I give my empathy and respect to you, Django brothers Jim, Harry, Douglas, Greg, Steve, Ray's friend and Bobbe.

Andrew Roblin
International Sho-Bud Brotherhood & Sisterhood
Janitor, Member #79

Bill L. Wilson · From: Oklahoma, USA

Having carpel tunnel, in both hands was a real problem until I retired from painting. My hands don't bother me if I stay away from sugar, salt, and greasy food. My hands will go numb if I eat that stuff. So my injury is not career ending, just uncomfortable. I did run into a fellow steeler in the Little Walter amp room, at the Texas Steel Guitar Show in March 2012, he was such an inspiration to me, he had lost three of his fingers on his bar hand, but had a special velcro strapped bar on the one finger he had left. He told me, he was glad to have one finger left so he could play his beloved steel guitar. That brother will never know how much his attitude, his playing skill, and his love of the instrument blessed me that day!

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

Thankfully that is not my situation. (See my thread in the our extended family section.) I am having a lot of difficulty doing other things, but I can still play.

God must be looking out for me.
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David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Mention of the velcro strap makes me think I should re-point out the steel bars that Stew has listed on Ebay -
http://www.ebay.com/itm/160880599941?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

If I understand right, he has hand problems himself - no catastrophe, just wear and tear from working as a machinist, so he won't be making any more of these. I bought one for posterity, but they are way too heavy for my daily use - somewhere north of 10 oz, "normal" for most PSG players. And he supplies a couple of little elastic straps, but you might end up refining that part of it for yourself - it's the slot that counts. I have done a bit of business with him previously, he cut up a piece of brass pipe I had into slide-sized lengths, as I found hacksawing it to be too evil with my back & arm problems... just don't get old, that's all. Just don't.

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