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GMC Forum _ CHILL OUT _ Finger Pains!

Posted by: Ajmurrell Dec 20 2008, 09:14 PM

Oh dear, well I've been playing a lot recently and improving a good amount too but I think my bad vibrato technique has caught up with me and in quite a bad way.

I noticed the pain a couple of days ago, but yesterday it really did materialise in a more serious way.

I've always had the usual vibrato techniques for the ring, middle and pinky fingers but used a unorthodox method with my index.

Essentially I started learning to add vibrato with the index with an up and down motion,instead of the usual side ways method for index vibrato and I can only think that my recent efforts to improve my vibrato using this method have damaged my muscle or joints or something.

If you imagine your finger coming down on to the fret board at 90 degree's, and then wiggling the finger back and forth, this is how I've always achieved (bad!) vibrato with that finger.

I'm planning on just leaving the finger to rest and not playing for a few days and hoping it just dies away, and then starting the long process of getting used to a different vibrato technique, which I guess is good in the long term.

Just annoying as I wanted to upload my progress on Emirs lesson for this week, and do some more work on my intermediate mentor challenge video. If it doesn't get any better I might have to pull out of the competition

Edit: Just to add what the pain is like... It only seems to hurt when I mimic fretting movement when the finger is in a claw like position... So I don't think its a joint issue although the pain itself is in the muscle running down the side of my finger.

Posted by: sigma7 Dec 20 2008, 09:15 PM

that is not good...but dont worry, just take a day break and it will go away...just some slight irritation

Posted by: Matich Dec 20 2008, 11:49 PM

give it a couple of days so it recuperates better.. always remember to stretch before playing..it's not BS, it helps prevent those kinda injuries...i started doing stretches when my fingers and my whole hand started burning after 2 min of playing...that sucked sooo bad. just leave it to rest, and then start with slow warm up exercises and gradually move ur way up to more difficult exercises. later

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Dec 21 2008, 12:12 AM

You seemed to overused the index finger with the circular motion. Just take a rest a few days, I'm sure it will be OK, and avoid these kind of marathon vibrato exercises in the future. Take it easy mate.