Which hand would be easier/more difficult, to relearn with?

[cjms1997]

This thread idea came from a post in a group I'm in. Someone posted a picture of Drake Bell who I assume just had a bad hand injury and won't be able to play again. Many people in the group said that they would say "F*ck the doctors, I'll play anyway," something I would probably say too. But it made me think. I wondered, which hand would it be more difficult to teach to play guitar again? The picking hand or the fretting hand?

I personally would say my picking hand would be much more difficult to relearn. It's the reason my playing is so clean. Of course, my fretting hand has a ton of technique wrapped in it too, but I feel I could always relearn that fairly quickly. Maybe it's because I've never had an injury where I had to teach myself to do anything again.

So, post your onions and lets get this train rolling.

 

[TRaoul]

It seems to me that you acquire some sort of muscle memory by repeating the same patterns several times.
So it seems in my experience that you never lose these type of reflexes unless you quit guitar for a decade or longer. But a serious muscular or bone injury usually leads to surgery and then reeducation. During this period of time, your muscle grow weak (you usually have to stay still when something's broken).

So at the end of the recovery, your fretting hand would still have the reflexes but the muscles involved in each patterns you used to play would probably have some hard time executing them without a period of exercise. Same problem for the picking hand.

But, well, you could use this opportunity to remake some clear foundations for a clean playing : such as doing exercises to train both hands synchronisation right from the beginning (which you usually start doing when you discover the joys of speed ^^).

Anyway, if this does concern you or one of your friends, be strong, and live your dreams.

 

[cjms1997]

Thanks for the information! It isn't relevant to me, I just thought it would be fun thing to discuss.

 

[Konfyouzd]

I don't think one would be harder than the other really... They perform different tasks and I feel like the fact that they have to be coordinated in their efforts would make it seem difficult no matter which one you had to relearn since one will probably stay much closer to "on point" than the other.

Like... Think about trying to run with one leg noticeably shorter or weaker than the other.

It doesn't *really* matter which one it is, shit just isn't working...

 

[stevexc]

I suppose it would depend on the type of injury. Aside from finger/chicken picking, your picking hand is much less dependent on finger control than your fretting hand is and more dependent on wrist control, and vice versa.

If both hands were equally screwed, I'd think fretting hand would be easier to relearn - or at least, it would be easier to get by with a deficient fretting hand. Look at Django.

 

[Konfyouzd]

I'm too lazy to look this up, but I heard that the stronger hand and weaker hand tend to naturally "specialize" themselves in the way you described. For instance... Your strong hand tends to handle larger movements... Things like throwing a ball (still some finger control, but I hope you get what I mean), swinging a racquet, throwing a punch, picking, etc. And I've been told that the weaker hand tends to end up being better at smaller/finer movements like finger dexterity and what not, but that could be 100% hogwash.

 

[tedtan]

Most people seem to pick up the fretting hand before the picking hand when first learning to play, so it seems that the fretting hand would be easier to relearn after an injury.

And I've been told that the weaker hand tends to end up being better at smaller/finer movements like finger dexterity and what not, but that could be 100% hogwash.

Like writing?

 

[Konfyouzd]

Actually... Now that you've said that...

Let's tally the threads on picking technique vs fretting technique. That'll give us a decent sample of at least what we have here on SSO.

Thinking about it further, it seems that there are far more picking techniques than fretting techniques. Your fingers more or less hit the board the "same way" every time. Really the only difference in what you're doing is a hammer vs a pull. Even with alternat picking you're teachnically hammering every note, but simultaneously picking.

So you're really only hammering/pulling individual notes or barring them.

The extent to which fingering things can get complicated may have been oversimplified in that analysis too, though. Like some ppl's picking hand may naturally pick up certain complex picking patterns more quickly. But being able to pick something accurately like that means that you've also gotta finger it just as accurately or you don't get the sound you want.

Hmm...

The plot thickens...

 

[Konfyouzd]

Most people seem to pick up the fretting hand before the picking hand when first learning to play, so it seems that the fretting hand would be easier to relearn after an injury.




Like writing?

I might be looking at it wrong, but I saw writing as more of a "from the wrist" activity like picking would be although picking gets done from the elbow and shoulder for some as well...

Maybe that one is a gray area? I'm honestly not sure.

 

[tedtan]

But being able to pick something accurately like that means that you've also gotta finger it just as accurately or you don't get the sound you want.

I think if you take a "typical" player who's been playing for a couple of years, they'll be able to play a faster, cleaner legato line than a picked line precisely because their picking hand isn't quite up to the same level as their fretting hand. Give them another few years and they'll probably be more equally developed.

Regarding fretting hand technique, the most difficult thing I recall was learning chords without thinking about where each individual finger goes. That was more difficult than single note lines for me, especially switching between some of the more complicated to fret chord voicings.

 

[Konfyouzd]

That's a fair point...

I actually started playing my lines legato because I noticed that I could do that faster than I could alternate pick them. Then after doing that for years, alternate picking is MUCH harder.

 

[Forrest_H]

I'm going to lean more towards fretting hand.

When I started learning (and even now, because we all know I'm not Guthrie Govan ), I found it much easier to pick up on tremolo, alternate, and gallop picking rather than actually fretting scales and chords.

However, I'm much faster playing legato as opposed to picking each individual note...

Holy shit this is a difficult decision

 

[Sephael]

Depends on the type of injury and what to want to play. Bad enough left hand injury you could use open type tunings and just slap your wrist across any fret to have chords. And you could superglue a pick to a hook from amputated right hand and get along just fine quickly enough.

 

[OmegaSlayer]

I stopped playing for almost 10 years because of some sort of depressive state towards music, wouldn't call it depression since it's something different and more heavy than what I had and it's a serious illness.

My picking hand had much more problem to "learn back", it lost a lot of fluidity, while the fretting hand just lost a bit of strength and stretches but not the reflexes.
Anyway the fretting hand got better quicker than the picking hand.
Through 4 years of practice I developed my picking technique and synch much better, but I lost the attack, tightness and naturalness of my picking hand, though I gained more accuracy.

Basically what I think is that after a long period of hiatus you'll never play like before, which is not a bad thing per se, but something to take into account.