kitsunegarcia
Well-known member
I just wanted to share some tweaks that worked to help resolve my left hand pain in case anyone has something similar going on. I am still in the process of rehabbing, but the original pain has not returned thus far. This has been my best present to myself this year.
Story and facts specific to my case:
(1) Previous history of playing guitar, soprano uke, and concert uke with no pain.
(2) small hands but strong hands. I wear a child's medium glove because women's xs is too big. The widest part of my palm is 2.75 in. The distance from (wrist crease) base of my palm to tip of middle finger is 6 inches. I rock climb for exercise so hanging my body weight on just my finger tips is a normal part of working out.
(3) Pain started occuring when i got the Tiny Tenor and could never play it for longer than about 10 min before needing a break. If a song was very intense, i would last 3-5 min. The same songs never caused pain on my concert or soprano. Songs that caused the most amount of pain seemed to utilize the low G string. Songs that use only chords with the bottom 3 do not cause pain. The pain is located at base of the thumb and sometimes across the palmar diagonal. It is intense but goes away as soon as playing stops for at least 10 min. I was told that i need to play the TT some more so i can get used to tenors. Ugh. Worst advice ever.
(4) The TT was setup by experts but i still sent it to my local luthier to double check the work. The local luthier said it was set up perfectly, just as i had feared. She suggested i try a lower tension string for the low G.
I did. Pain improved by 10-15%. I had an extra worth brown low g concert sitting around...
(5) i had local teachers look at my left hand form to see if anything was wrong. One saw a slight bend in the first joint of my thumb and some over-gripping in general. I corrected the bend in the thumb by wearing a sl loose silicone ring on the left thumb joint. Anytime my thumb tried to make a bend, i could feel it touch the silicone and stop. I no longer have to wear the training silicone ring after 3-4 weeks to have a straight thumb. Unfortunately that brought me 0% pain relief. The overgripping i am still working on. It is much harder to feel a whole hand overgripping when i get nervous. I am experimenting with a light wrap at elbow but honestly i dont know...
(6) a friend of mine let me borrow their baritone uke. (I am feeling pretty discouraged at this point) Most people encourage those with fretting hand pain to go smaller in uke size. I say try that but also try bigger! Playing songs that should've caused me problems...nada. No pain.
(7) Several days of this. Bliss. Then i watched myself play from a vid capture and could see the issue. When i have played larger instruments like the guitar or the baritone uke, my thumb slides down visibly and as a compact unit when i move from chords say bunched on the 1st fret to say chords bunched on the 4th fret. It has no choice because the distance is large for my size of hands. I can't leave my thumb behind or position it lazily like i had been doing with soprano or concert. The closer spacing on the small ukes made cheating in this regard easier. And visually, the TT "looks" like a concert but the spacing is genuinely a tenor which is spaced larger. So now i have been playing the TT the way i play the baritone with no pain. To aid the thumb sliding neatly i put a bit of clear tape on the left thumb pad so it can't grip. Lots more to learn but at least it will be painless!
Story and facts specific to my case:
(1) Previous history of playing guitar, soprano uke, and concert uke with no pain.
(2) small hands but strong hands. I wear a child's medium glove because women's xs is too big. The widest part of my palm is 2.75 in. The distance from (wrist crease) base of my palm to tip of middle finger is 6 inches. I rock climb for exercise so hanging my body weight on just my finger tips is a normal part of working out.
(3) Pain started occuring when i got the Tiny Tenor and could never play it for longer than about 10 min before needing a break. If a song was very intense, i would last 3-5 min. The same songs never caused pain on my concert or soprano. Songs that caused the most amount of pain seemed to utilize the low G string. Songs that use only chords with the bottom 3 do not cause pain. The pain is located at base of the thumb and sometimes across the palmar diagonal. It is intense but goes away as soon as playing stops for at least 10 min. I was told that i need to play the TT some more so i can get used to tenors. Ugh. Worst advice ever.
(4) The TT was setup by experts but i still sent it to my local luthier to double check the work. The local luthier said it was set up perfectly, just as i had feared. She suggested i try a lower tension string for the low G.
I did. Pain improved by 10-15%. I had an extra worth brown low g concert sitting around...
(5) i had local teachers look at my left hand form to see if anything was wrong. One saw a slight bend in the first joint of my thumb and some over-gripping in general. I corrected the bend in the thumb by wearing a sl loose silicone ring on the left thumb joint. Anytime my thumb tried to make a bend, i could feel it touch the silicone and stop. I no longer have to wear the training silicone ring after 3-4 weeks to have a straight thumb. Unfortunately that brought me 0% pain relief. The overgripping i am still working on. It is much harder to feel a whole hand overgripping when i get nervous. I am experimenting with a light wrap at elbow but honestly i dont know...
(6) a friend of mine let me borrow their baritone uke. (I am feeling pretty discouraged at this point) Most people encourage those with fretting hand pain to go smaller in uke size. I say try that but also try bigger! Playing songs that should've caused me problems...nada. No pain.
(7) Several days of this. Bliss. Then i watched myself play from a vid capture and could see the issue. When i have played larger instruments like the guitar or the baritone uke, my thumb slides down visibly and as a compact unit when i move from chords say bunched on the 1st fret to say chords bunched on the 4th fret. It has no choice because the distance is large for my size of hands. I can't leave my thumb behind or position it lazily like i had been doing with soprano or concert. The closer spacing on the small ukes made cheating in this regard easier. And visually, the TT "looks" like a concert but the spacing is genuinely a tenor which is spaced larger. So now i have been playing the TT the way i play the baritone with no pain. To aid the thumb sliding neatly i put a bit of clear tape on the left thumb pad so it can't grip. Lots more to learn but at least it will be painless!
