Shredder's Disease

[dasein]

Maybe the Yngwie wannabes practicing arpeggios 12 hours a day should heed this warning...

www.guitarplayer.com/article/liona-boyd/158

Here's a list of other people who've had it:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_dystonia#Notable_cases

Interestingly, it seems to be mostly classical musicians. Maybe the rigors of improvisational music, which require a certain degree of novelty and fluidity, make it less likely that its practitioners grind their neurons into dust?

[Infinite Ego]

how about the tubist who had it in his lip? geez

[mirth]

Interesting, never knew about this. I suppose it makes sense. Don't think I've ever been able to stick with one style long enough to have such repetition.

You would think that the lips of a horn player or our picking hands would be more likely to.have the.repetitiveness happen.

[chromedinette]

Demonaz, the original guitarist in the black metal band, Immortal had to give up playing due to injuries related to practicing/playing too much(or in an unhealthy way).

[Infinite Ego]

Wouldn't a prerequisite of black metal be unhealthy practice?

[aliensporebomb]

Scott Jones (he was on Harmony Central) had Focal Dystonia and was a high technique player (had massive fusion chops) and basically took up playing bass to make money in cover bands.

Somehow it screwed up his guitar playing - he was really reduced in functionality though could still compose and do music with keyboards, drum machines and samplers.

It took a while of laying off massive guitar practice before he could play guitar again.

I hear he's back to almost 100% guitar technique again - somehow the FD receded or stopped happening after a while - maybe just stopping for a while let his systems heal enough to play again.

Then, locally Billy McLaughlin a player (a famous worldwide guy who I remember seeing in the skyways of Minneapolis playing gigs all of the time) who did the "two handed tapping acoustic guitar thing ala Michael Hedges" got it and had to completely relearn guitar... LEFT HANDED.

His right handed technique never came back.

It's never happened to me even though I do some fancy stuff but I use every damned trick in the book to do what I do and somehow I've never had an issue with FD.

When I first got into bass guitar I did go thru a phase where I realized my sense of relative pitch was a lot better in the guitar range and when I took time to play bass, that range got better too. I was scared I might get FD but....I was lucky maybe. I did used to practice obsessively.

I'm guessing that because instead of obsessively practicing like I did when I was a teenager, I do short, intense focused practice on specific areas I want to improve and then lay off.

And there are weeks where I might pick up the guitar for five minutes. I'm inconsistent.

I've found there's a certain amount of improvement and if you keep banging your head against the wall that day you're just asking for problems. I'm pushing 50 anyway and I need to take care of what I have.

It's almost like guys who have overuse injuries in sports. Music is no different.

Year after year I've gone to lighter and lighter strings and a more controlled touch I guess. Lower action too.

But just watch, I'll have to switch to keyboards or drums full time if I get slammed with that crap.