Today I want to discuss the dilemma of being a guitar player who doesn’t have a fully functional hand. There have been many great guitarists over the years who have played incredible guitar despite having a missing finger or some sort of problem with their hands, wrists or arms. I can think of quite a few off the top of my head: Phil Keaggy, Jerry Garcia, Adrien Legg, Vinnie Moore, Terry Syrek and Django Reinhardt (whose maimed hand is pictured above).

Why am I bringing this up? Because I’ve had an injured tendon in my left ring finger for close to two months now. It is currently in a splint and it’s very hard to play like I normally would. I can’t bend with it (that’s usually my primary bending finger), many chords are nearly impossible or require an alternate fingering, the awkwardness of the splint slows my other fingers down, etc. Hopefully this is only temporary and my finger will heal well enough that I can use it like before, but it’s hard to tell at this point. In the meantime I’ve been challenged to adapt my playing as needed and figure out how to make the best of this situation.

I’ve been practicing my right hand technique a lot more (picking exercises with and without a pick), I’ve worked out substitute chord voicings that work without a 3rd finger, and I’ve also realized that sometimes not playing at all and choosing to do more listening to music may be a really good thing for me right now.