So this is just my own personal anecdote about the issue of aches/pains at the risk of over-sharing: I take a LOT of long breaks between instruments out of frustration over my inability to play well, write new songs, etc...and then eventually time passes and I forget how bad I suck and pick it up again (I know, save it for therapy). Anyway, it doesn't matter what instrument it is, there's always a great deal of discomfort/borderline pain when I start back up: If it's guitar or bass, it's my hands, wrist, shoulder, back. If it's drums, it's usually my wrist or maybe my neck. This has gotten progressively worse as I have gotten older as one might expect.

But I find if I stick with it, it works itself out usually in a few days if I play a little bit, take a break when it starts to cramp or feel bad and then go back to it later. I mean it's all muscles and joints, right? Need to rebuild that stuff like it were a callous or whatever. Maybe stretching certain things would help but I'm ignorant of what is useful for specific motions/actions.

I'm not saying "ignore this and it will go away" and absolutely not saying "play through the pain" or "toughen up" For me I've found it'll does go away eventually, so it might be temporary and something you can work through/work around. I look at it like how much it used to hurt when I first started bending my hands into chord shapes and stuff (and I was young then). It only makes sense that it might take your body some time to get used to somewhat unnatural movements and positions. If it doesn't, then may want to consult your physician.

Seeing way older folks do crazy stuff like run marathons at 100 years old and guys taking up skateboarding at 80 gives me a lot of hope about aging - especially when I'm not starting from scratch. It just takes a little longer to get back into fighting form.

Apologies, this is really long, but I'm just gonna post this all here in the event it might be helpful to anyone. TL;DR=sit up straight and strech.

VaticanShotglass wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 10:32 pm (and have become more strict about keyboard ergonomics)

Good! That's important, mouse too, especially if you spend any amount of time doing anything on a computer. Which is everyone, right? I've used keyboard/mouse wrist pads forever, and it amazes me that most people don't.

Wrists being a little clicky probably isn't a big deal....I think most problems musicians have with their hands aren't really hand/wrist problems at all, they're actually more like elbow/shoulder/back/neck/all of the above issues that manifest in the hands.

One stretch that I do randomly, just all the time, watching tv or whatever, is just hold your hands out in front of you and rotate them around in circles, both directions. You may hear some clicking/popping in your wrists, if so it will probably decrease as you stretch.

The first thing this lady demonstrates, I do this all the time too, just trying to massage some of the crap out of your hands:



the rest of the stretches she shows are good too. Don't be too put off by the super dorky opening jam on that vid, she has a bunch of helpful vids on her channel and is generally pretty agreeable.

This guy has some good finger/wrist stretches:



That first yoga pose he does at the end, I do the opposite, starting flat on the floor and pushing the upper body up (the 'cobra pose' in yoga terms). Great for your lower back.

OK so here's Dr Jo again, this vid is really good, all these stretches are great:



holding them for 20-30 seconds is important!

The thing to remember is that if you're hunched over (which almost everyone is to some extent, who sits up perfectly straight at their desk all day? No one), that's making your pectoral muscles tight, which in turn will make your shoulder muscles tight, which will then make your arm muscles tight and well you can see the problem. So that next to last stretch she shows there is really good. Another one is to stand in a door frame with your forearms against either side of the frame and lean into it. Breathe deep, go a little further in with every exhale (that's good breathing/stretching practice in general).

The wall angel is another really great stretch for your shoulders:



That one's serious business. Looks easy, but it took me awhile to work up to 20 reps. I reach up farther than he does in the video, I raise my arms all the way up.

My massage therapist says "soft stretch before you play, hard stretch afterwards". "hard" meaning really lean into them. I only stretch a little bit before playing, but I make sure my hands are warm, and start out playing easy stuff, just strumming some nice open chords or easy single note runs. When I'm doing more challenging stuff, I break it up....I love strumming fast downstroke chords, it's one of my favorite things, but no matter how good you are, at some point your forearm says 'no more'. I stop BEFORE that point and do something else, something less demanding on those particular muscles. Likewise if I'm doing something challenging for the left hand, I'll follow that with something simple, give the muscles a break.

Obviously if I'm just picking up a guitar for 2 minutes I don't do any stretching or anything. But I usually play for an hour or two every night, and I do a whole sequence of these stretches afterward. Look at it like maintenance, if you keep your muscles loose, they keep working day after day, and blood flows easily through them. If you don't, it's like water in leaf-clogged gutters: it'll still flow, but much slower and less efficiently.

If you're 19, probably none of this stuff matters much, you're indestructible. If all you ever do on a guitar is gently strum G and D chords, you don't need to worry about any of this.

But I'm pretty sure most of us here aren't puppies any more (I'm 52), and we're all probably playing some sort of music that's fairly energetic, it requires a degree of athleticism. Athletes stretch!

A year ago I would've read this post and been like "whatever man, i never stretch and i'm still rippin', behold my awesome shredding". I was wrong. I'm not 19 any more. I really messed my shit up. I jokingly asked my massage therapist if I was her worst client, expecting her to say "oh no, you should see the carpenter's back" or something. Nope. Without missing a beat she said "OMG yes. By a mile!" She referred to my upper back/shoulders as "a disaster".

Don't be a dumbass like me!

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 2:57 pm Apologies, this is really long, but I'm just gonna post this all here in the event it might be helpful to anyone. TL;DR=sit up straight and strech.
...

Thank you for this. Yeah, I'm getting old. My shoulders are shitty, but that is not from guitar. I almost always play guitar sitting on a stool. Used to just sit on the floor, but the ol' les paul would make my leg fall asleep.

I've been seriously thinking about a more ergonomic guitar. Maybe part together a tele with body contours. That or succumb to one of the J Mascis squiers. Likely neither.

I was just playing the J Mascis Jazzmaster, and that is a really nice guitar for 500 bucks. Played great, the neck/fretboard both felt wonderful, really smooth. I would've bought it but the neck was just a little too chunky for my wee hands. I played an offset tele as well, and that was also really nice, I'm a total sucker for the JM body with the tele pickups/controls, love that look. I ended up getting a toronado, was on sale for a stupid price, couldn't resist. But all 3 were really solid, well made guitars.

I love my tele but I can't play it any more cause of the lack of body contours, I'm ordering a contoured body from Warmoth this week. I'll make a little end table or something out of the old body.

I also have one of these:

https://charvel.com/gear/shape/so-cal/s ... 2966551568

Which is what made me realize how uncomfortable my real tele was. That guy is super comfy to play, really light, feels like it's barely there. That roasted maple neck feels like butter.

Man i'm like the complete opposite hahaha. I'm a total sucker for a tele with the standard tele shit, hate contours and cuts. Gimme all the dang teles.

I will happily sell you the old body if you want it!

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 11:21 am I was just playing the J Mascis Jazzmaster, and that is a really nice guitar for 500 bucks. Played great, the neck/fretboard both felt wonderful, really smooth. I would've bought it but the neck was just a little too chunky for my wee hands. I played an offset tele as well, and that was also really nice, I'm a total sucker for the JM body with the tele pickups/controls, love that look. I ended up getting a toronado, was on sale for a stupid price, couldn't resist. But all 3 were really solid, well made guitars.

Cool. Never played those toronados. Seem like cool guitars. I remember playing the Mascis JM years back and really liking the neck contour but wishing it had more traditional pickups (which can be fixed). And that was years ago when bigger necks were my thing. These days I want to explore alternatives, maybe. I've always liked Jaguars for just how comfortable they are. One of my long time buds has a nice jag. Along with Mustangs I love playing with the short scale necks. But I really like the sound of the JM pickups. But I find the combination of visual beauty and ergonomics very compelling on Jags and Mustangs. Stock sound, not so much (though obviously not bad).

I've been really wanting to do a tele partscaster for years. Med bills keep popping up whenever I start to get serious about it. Kinda even want to try painting it myself while I have access to some good workspace.

This is all because I love the sound of a telecaster, but ergonomic and aesthetic preferences means I'll never find the right combo off the shelf. First off, I really don't like maple fret boards, but that is somehow the unit pusher preference. I like a lot of colors, but I don't really want that Springsteen looking deal. But DIY, I'd go Inca silver/mint guard.

Ergonomically, I'd go with the body contours. I love my Les Paul, but it can be hell on my forearm, and if I buy a guitar I plan to keep the damned thing. Just trying to keep my arm healthy, as all that has been a concern these days. Relatedly, I really need to test out some neck profiles and see what works for me these days. I'm definitely looking to move down from the Les Paul. If I did go custom, I might just go ahead and get a conversion neck. I really like the Les Paul neck, but I'd like to try it slightly smaller and with a modern fender radius. For most, switching scale lengths is no biggie, but if I'm going to be playing more that 15 minutes, some chord work gets tiresome (small hands and all).

I know, not much of a tele at that point, but my goal isn't to nail some traditional sound. I just want something that is comfortable in the Fender template with some nice single coils after 15 years playing humbuckers in Gibson style guitars. Bonkers as it may be, I'd love to have a Bigsby-like on it (one of the hardest guitars to walk away from was a used Japanese 60s custom with a Bigsby). I like the long, deep sustain stuff that teles and Les Pauls get or I'd be sold on some offset thing. Obviously reeks of too much daydreaming, but I'm not going to drop real cash anytime soon. And if I only really have room or whatever for two guitars, I tend to favor something flexible over buying and modifying two lower price guitars to cover the same ground.

I have a player Jaguar as well, and that's also a really nice guitar, stock bridge excepted. The super short (24") scale is fun, and ridiculously easy to play, but for me, I'm so used to 25.5" I could never roll with this as my main guitar, it's just too different and feels too small even to my little hands. But obvs ymmv. This one has neck single coil, bridge humbucker, but I think there's some squiers you can get that have the JM style pickups.

FWIW the toronado is gibson-scale, 24.75". I honestly don't notice a huge difference between that and fender scale, but it's a little easier to play.

One nice thing about the J Mascis JM is it has a tune-o-matic style bridge instead of the junk JM bridge, so you could at least play the thing without having to immediately shell out for a Mastery bridge.

Inca silver/mint would look hot! That'd look good with tortoise or black too, really. I was thinking Inca silver for my tele body, decided on Artic White instead. Which probably sounds boring, but I have a chrome pickguard/hw on my tele now, I think it's gonna look killer on a white white body.

Warmoth had an unbelievably nice tele body in stock a week ago, beautiful flame maple top with a black/brown/yellow burst, it really looked amazing and I was seriously tempted. But I dunno, a tele is such a gloriously proletarian thing it seems weird to have a super fancy one.

^Rad. I do feel like the gibson scale is a nice compromise for me. I can still tune down to C standard if the mood strikes me.

Dr Tony Balls wrote: Man i'm like the complete opposite hahaha. I'm a total sucker for a tele with the standard tele shit, hate contours and cuts. Gimme all the dang teles.

I get the point on style. I even agree. But I like comfort and not fatiguing my nerves.


Actual Gear Opinion Question:
I found the parts to my old highschool Squier Strat recently. I sold all the nice parts a good long time ago, but now I have everything except the pickups. I don't want to drop much money at all.

Only want neck and bridge. Want something that sounds different than usual. Single coils, something weird, I dunno. Was thinking about GFS lipstick tubes. They don't seem to be a good repro of the old ones, but what the hell. Maybe the humbucker model and add a switch for single coil mode. I'll make a pickguard. The body has an H/S/H route. I'd use this mostly for experimental stuff.

Any odd ball cheapo pickups you like? Not trying to get like "great sounding P-90s on a budget." Probably going to use it for noise/experimental. That or just a cheap fat single coil sound. Has anyone played those GFS Dream 90s that have the magnetic pole pieces?

I have a set of Dream 90s in a LP style Yamaha. I think they sound great. Suspiciously great, even. I've had the set in several guitars over the years.

I struck up a pleasant conversation with a guy who needed a soldering iron when I worked at RadioShack. Told me about this great cheapo parts site where he buys all his pickups. He brought in a set of Dream 90s and gave them to me.

I recommend, especially if you plan on making some unhinged racket.

I also had a surf 90 at some point. FM... somebody (Edit: Eldopa!!) has that in a lap steel now.