shoulder pain?

[Bill_Brown]

Good to hear from you my good friend @oldprofessor ! I experienced the issue with shoulder pain when playing with dreadnought style guitars for extended periods. I’ve read about other TAC members with similar issues, and they played dreadnought style guitars too. One fellow TAC’er who was from Alaska (I can’t remember his name…Don??) and went as far as having rotator cuff surgery and he still continued playing a dreadnought – you probably know him from the VOM’s. Anyways, I should talk about my own experience with shoulder pain and not other people.

Whenever I play with a dreadnought style guitar for any extended period of time, I get shoulder pain. When I stumbled onto my “thinner bodied” Martin 000-15, the shoulder pain went away. I’m not saying “get a Martin 000 series guitar”, but I am saying that thinner bodied model guitars are worth looking into. IMHO, the thinner bodied guitars are much more comfortable to play when compared to the “dread”. And, it’s been my experience that I get no shoulder pain when I play my 000-15, but I do get shoulder ache when I play one of my dread style guitars.

Hope you’re doing well my friend, take care. Until the next time!

[Skyman911]

A smaller body guitar may solve your issues. There are many fine small body guitars out there. I have a Dred, but mostly play my 000 and 00 sized guitars due to this. They just don’t sound like the Dred though.

[petelanger]

I have a super cheap thin bodied guitar and I love it! Carbon fiber soundboard and the rest is mahogany. Donner G1 Rising, Everything’s only about 9 or 10% smaller but it makes a huge difference

[jorgemac]

Bill B has it nailed.

I have a hand made beautiful Canadian Proulx Dread that has some of the best tone of any of my guitars. I pick it up once or twice a year for a few days and marvel at the tone, then go back to my smaller bodied instruments that also have great tone. The Martin 000’s fit me perfectly, sound good and are easy to pick. I am Currently picking a Martin SC-28, a size down from Martin dread 28, it is closer to a concert sized guitar with vert sweet action and a Baggs pickup, love the tone. I am a great fan of the concert sized Larrivee’s, Taylors and my special Yairi’s which beat all of my other guitars for playability and sweet sounds.

Acoustic Bagg’s Pickups make all of my guitars sound BIG, so I don’t need to strain my shoulder to enjoy playing as loud an I want.

If you have a decent Dread you might be able to get a decent deal on a smaller bodied guitar.

[oldprofessor]

thanks folks, i appreciate all the thoughtful comments!

i am going to look into getting a thinner bodied guitar, im just worried about sacrificing the beautiful sound. but less pain is …. well, less pain, so we will just see how it goes.

cheers and happy pickin’ and strummin’

[jorgemac]

The smaller bodied guitars are generally thinner bodied than the Dreads. Most of my 000′ and concert sized guitars are 4 to 4 1/4″ just like the larger bodies. Just measured my Martin SC-28 and it is 4″. Of course they make guitars with the Shoulder rests angled on the bass side rear bout that does also release some of the strain on the shoulder.

[jumpinjeff]

In order to alleviate my shoulder pain I learned to engage my pectoralis minor to stablize my rotator cuff and pull my shoulder forward and then once forward squeeze it toward my body. This position has stablized my arm and does not pull on my rotorcuff any more eliminating shoulder pain all together…….One surgery later. Had I only known.