What if they cut your fingers off?

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

then you will never need to put that glove you have on your head on your hand

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"What if they cut your fingers off?'

There's an armless guy on youtube that plays guitar with his feet. He's not a shredder but he manages to make music.

You could play slide guitar with prosthetic hands. Even just the old-fashioned hooks. Glue a pick on one and use the other for slide.

For tuning you could get one of the Gibson Robot guitars. (Tronical, the company that makes that tuning system for Gibson, also makes retrofit versions that can be installed on Fenders and other brands.)

Obviously you couldn't play guitar the same way as you do now. (At least yet -- eventually they'll perfect robotic prosthetic hands and neural interfaces.) But you could still make music.

One night when Les Paul was driving home from a gig, he wrecked his car and shattered his right arm. The doctors were going to amputate it, but one of them recognized him. So they decided to try something radical for the time -- they rebuilt his elbow using metal plates and screws. After that his elbow and forearm were in fixed positions -- he couldn't bend his right arm. (They set the joint at an angle so his hand would be in about the right place to play guitar.) After a long recovery he had to completely relearn how to play.

He went on to become an even better player and to even greater success. He said he felt blessed: "Most people only get to learn how to play once, I had the joy of learning twice."

Django Reinhardt was a monster jazz shredder in his youth. But then his fretting hand was almost destroyed in a fire. His ring finger and pinky were unusable, curled tightly into his palm. His other fingers were scarred and stiff. He was in chronic pain.

But he relearned to play. Jazz chords, blindingly fast single note runs -- stuff that's hard for people with four working fingers. And despite his physical pain, his music was full of joy and sparkle.

Before Sabbath, Tony Iommi was working a day job in a factory. He got his fretting hand stuck in a machine and it tore off the tips of his middle and ring fingers, all the way to the joint. He made a couple of thimble-like extensions that fit over the raw painful stumps, then glued leather on the tips of the extensions so they'd be able to grip the guitar strings. And then relearned how to play. It was/is a constant struggle for him -- the extensions flop around and they hurt his stumps. (That why he invented the downtuned metal sound -- even light strings hurt too much so he downtuned for the reduced tension.)

If music is your life, your heart and soul, you can overcome just about any physical hardship.

Short answer; they already are. I played one of the strat type they came out with, ubelievable. I liked it better than any strat Ive owned. But; EXPENSIVE for a strat like, bolt on neck guitar.
I believe it was a 305, 3 single coils, alder body, maple neck. Those are a couple years old, there are newer ones that are even more Strat like.

Which brand is better depends on the beholder. I'd like to think PRS took the best of both worlds from Gibson and Fender. They created a unique instrument that is not like a strat or les paul. Its just different. If I had a choice I'd own both, but I don't so I have my 96 Tex-Mex Strat and my Heritage H140.

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


facebook.com/313DBC

Leo got it perfectly right with the Strat, everything else is just variations on a theme. Different body shapes don't make a guitar better, it's just a means of selling more instruments. Try the PRS and if you like it then buy it. if you just want humbuckers, buy a dual humbucker Strat.

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"Life is like eating jalapenos. What you do today may burn your arse tomorrow"

I've seen him. But he was born unarmed, for lack of better term.

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

I've heard these stories. All are amazing. I also had to learn to play with only 2 fingers because I badly broke my left hand and can't keep the same rhythm with my left. I don't feel very limited, I just play what I can.

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

Love the guitar, but I don't like Cradle Of Filth. Nothing against them, it's just the genre.. I can't get past. Death metal, Doom.. lol Maybe when I was younger. I had a friend who was into Cradle Of Filth and Deicide many years ago- and he was a metaler too

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I like this song they do. its rather catchy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2SH0zO_Mpk

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lol

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I am quite pleased with the advice given the OP. I was looking for an opening to insert my two cents having owned and played both and stayed with my Fenders. But no. Thus, on a side note, I offer the question as to whether or not Buxom knows of Johnny Wad and what might have happened to his career had HE been disarmed.

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"Another day in paradise!"

I'm not into the whole "scary" thing and just the whole death metal genre in general.
But I must confess, the Bat inlays are probably The coolest inlays I have ever seen! They look very classy and elegant but are also creative and unique. (I'm also a huge fan of Batman!)

but is there like a big difference

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Liandra "guitargurl"Smith