Help with guitar routine.

[Cadgirl]

@Bill_S , sorry to hear you are having surgery. I can only guess what you will be able to do. I think taking the Slide Guitar could be beneficial. If you could hold the guitar on your lap? What do you think. Has your doctor giving you ideas of what you absolutely can’t do? Tony does have a Slide guitar 101 course. Even the Fretboard Wizard could be doable. It’s a lot of studying and you might be able to use the slide guitar approach in helping you with strings. Hope I was some help.

[Bill_S]

Surgery was done on my right shoulder which is my strumming arm. Thanks for the suggestions but the doc said no guitar for the first two weeks and then we can revisit the subject of playing the guitar. Guess I’ll just watch the daily challenges and go through them in my head. Thanks again.

[Carol-3M-Stillhand]

@Bill_S, Hoping your surgery goes well and you recover quickly!!

You didn’t say which shoulder, your fretting arm or your picking arm? For simplicity sake, I am assuming you play right handed as well…

Either way, it will likely be a few days before you are up to playing… And of course whatever restrictions the doctors/physical therapists place on you, is the gold standard. I would definately tell your physical therapist that you want to get back to playing guitar as they can direct your exercises accordingly to some extent.

Meantime, I would try out different guitars. Smaller travel or parlor sizes (or even a uke at first) will likely be more comfortable to play. Placing the lower bout on your left knee and angling the neck up (more like classical) will help out your strumming shoulder, but this might aggrevate your fretting shoulder. Also depending on which shoulder, you could use this time to try out some open tunings to rest your fretting hand/arm and still allow some beautiful right hand arpeggio practicing.

And… don’t forget you can use this time to brush up on your music theory. I’d also agree 100% with @Cadgirl and say that yes, it’s a perfect time to take/review the Fretboard Wizard course if you haven’t already.

Best wishes tomorrow Bill!! Let us know how you’re doing 🙂

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by  Carol-3M-Stillhand.

[Loraine]

Hi @Bill_S Hope the surgery is a success. I’m not sure what the recuperation is like for that type of surgery. I agree that you could do Fretboard Wizard and other theory. Depending on which shoulder will definitely affect ability and what you can practice.

[punder]

@Bill_S I second the theory idea. Also, you might work on learning the fretboard. I’ve found it helps to search out and practice all the BCDs and EFGs, eventually it helps you find your way around more easily no matter what other method you use.

Good luck with the shoulder, I was looking at that for a while too.