Band Practice

We had our first band practice in a month tonight. Amazingly, I managed to get through most of the songs without too many disasters. Well… mostly.

I did have a difficulty though. Let’s flashback a few years.

It’s 1990 and I’m in my first year in music school. My band from high school, Tempest Fero, is still together. We were playing at a CYO dance in Tewksbury. While covering an 80’s Rainbow song my left hand started to cramp. That happened now and then, but it was never so bad as that moment. My middle and ring fingers needed to bend in order to fret an A-minor chord in the open position but they simply would not do it. They got part of the way, but I could not press the strings down onto the fretboard. It was very disconcerting. I did my best to invert some chords and play others in different positions. I was really worried about the situation. I can’t remember exactly what I did when the song ended, but I probably walked toward the back of the stage and pretended to fiddle with my amplifier. Just to give my hand a moment to rest. The next song lived in a different part of the guitar neck and I was able to get through. In fact I made it through the rest of the gig without any more problems. Over the years I have had similar pains, mostly when songs center around the second fret. There were moments on stage with Break Even where I preemptively changed positions because the pain was increasing. It could get bad, but I never froze on a song the way I did that night.

Until tonight.

The pain started in my right hand this time as I was strumming hard but after one song it was okay. Then during the second or third song the left hand flared up. It was bad from then on, but not debilitation. Then on the second to last song we played I was unable to fret an open G. My fingers shaped it, but I couldn’t press down.

Does that scare me a little?

Oh yes, it most certainly does.