March 2001: It all began while I was working on the Manuel de Falla Seven Spanish songs for voice and guitar for a concert, a very challenging set of pieces that require a fast, strong arpeggio. I noticed something was seriously wrong – a significant decline in my abilities. I just couldn’t play a “pia” arpeggio at speed or evenly.
The problem probably became noticeable to me at least three months earlier. At that time I had a regular weekly three-hour gig at a wine bar and was really enjoying it. I found I had reached a kind of plateau in my playing where I was able to learn pieces more quickly and because I had a weekly venue I was able to get them up to performance level fairly rapidly. That year was the most fun playing and performing I’d ever had. And then I started to notice a slight change – small inconsistancies and irregularities in my playing. Mistakes. Missed strings. I decided to quit the wine bar gig, but kept other less regular engagements (parties, weddings, etc). I thought perhaps the type of practicing I had been doing had become non-productive. I was burning through a lot of new music and getting away from slow technical practice. So I returned to the slow practice of everything, especially the tremolo, which before had been one of my most shining techniques and now had become uneven. In fact, I couldn’t maintain it at all. In all my playing I was missing strings because once a finger played it stayed curled under, after which I worked hard to force it back into its basic position. After noticing and trying to solve the problems of inaccuracy and lack of control, I started to lose speed, as well.
Not aware of any improvement I cut out practice of all music except those pieces which I had intended for a CD planned almost a year before (if only I had made that CD six months earlier — but that sounds too much like the big one that got away!) I focused on scales, arpeggios and tremolo, convinced that if I could conquer those, everything else would fall into place. I was making every mistake in the book to insure that my technique would continue to decline rapidly.
I know now that the main problem with my hand lies with the ‘m’ finger, but at that stage I was trying so hard to enforce a good position that the whole hand cramped up: the thumb under, the ring and middle finger curling towards the palm, forcing the index and pinky to stick out further. A complete and unholy mess!
This is when I started my own crazy experimental therapies. I still had no idea what was going on with my right hand and I was beyond frustrated. However, I didn’t realize the consequences of continued repetition. As a professional musician one becomes so well-trained that giving up or slowing down when there are problems is unthinkable. The tendency is to hunker down and work harder. After all, that’s what has yielded results before.
In the next post, I’ll discuss my invented experiments to try to improve technique (if nothing else, you’ll see at least I was not lacking in creativity!), and finally discovering that I had Focal Dystonia.
September 19th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Please continue with your experience with dystonia.
I am afraid I have it. Needless to say I am devasted and panicking. I am looking for more info about it & how to get through it. Maybe I am a hypochondriac, but my hands are sore and i-m are curling. My arpeggio has gone from even to nil. I usually ignored it and played through it.However I have decided to put down the guitar for a while. If I can recuperate MY LESSON from this: Balanced practice with No more 8 hrs daily sessions.
Please do go on.
November 24th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Sorry for the long delay. I do have a couple posts ready to put up within the week. I’m sure you have discovered much since you wrote the feedback, but I will say if you do have FD, cut out all tremelo and arpeggio practice for now. They will only exasperate the problem. There’s the slow fix and the quick fix. I will let you know what has helped me so far.
February 11th, 2011 at 8:05 am
[...] posts talking about Focal Dystonia, more importantly her battle with it. Kate wrote a great article about what happened to her technique and her struggles with experimentation of correcting [...]
February 12th, 2011 at 12:38 am
Thanks for the very kind mention, Nick! Unfortunately, I have not cured my focal dystonia, but I have had some small successes which I will discuss thoroughly. I will post my next article within in the week. By the way, your website is terrific!
June 12th, 2011 at 1:18 am
Hi Kate,
I have had focal dystonia for 11 years and still struggle with it. I gave up playing the guitar for 10 years due to my disability. The problem I have is in my right hand index finger and curls in as you mention. I have just started to play the guitar again and the problem is still there however, not as bad. I have discovered that being more aware of the tension in my body has been invaluable, even to the point that sometimes my finger functions the way it use to. This has given me great hope. In saying that I have good days and not so good. I stop practising whenever I feel any tension and practice very very slowly often infront of a mirror. I was diagnosed in the early stages as having carpal tunnel, which proved to be unfounded. Deep down I knew it wasn’t carpal tunnel but I was desparate. My practice these days consists of looking closely at my fingers and trying to understand how my whole body feels when that tension in my index finger comes over me. I stop immediately….sometimes when I close my eyes and focus on how my body feels my finger will function normally. It very encouraging. I will let you know how I get on. Alexander Technique and other forms of relaxation and applying correct body posture has helped.
July 25th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
Hi Sam,
Thank you for your thoughtful message. The detail with which you discuss relieving tension, practicing slowly, and listening carefully to your body is invaluable. In fact, it’s that kind of patient practice I hope to return to. Carpal tunnel seems to be the first diagnosis everyone receives. Now that focal dystonia is beginning to be better understood, discussed, and studied, I’m sure we’ll find it’s much more prevalent than previously thought. I do hope you’ll let me know how your playing evolves and what does or doesn’t work for you.
September 9th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Great to read other folks experiences. I am afraid i have it and am almost 100% convinced. Like someone mentioned i have the same problem with the index finger, when i play and try to utilise it at speed the finger and forearm seem to cramp and everything go’s to hell. I’ve noticed i’ve had this for about 12 years but didn’t understand what it was until recently. I too was diagnosed with carpal tunnel and they even did the operation, no good it made no difference to the functioning of my hand. I’ve had to accept i have it, the problem and question for years and years was what “it” was? i described it to people but no one understood. Practically my whole life has been and is guitar, i play fingerstyle blues, folk and the like on acoustic and electric. I work around the issue by substituting middle for index though i can use the index for some things. I find if i play at a very slow tempo it seems to go ok but as soon as i speed it up the curling finger sets in and ruins me! The one thing that depresses me most is when i see a great player playing a tune and i would like to learn the song but i have to go through finger contortions to make it work. Normally if my fingers were all working properly it would just be a matter of sitting with the guitar and practicing but with this condition no amount of practice will make it work, that’s what’s so frustrating. I’ve been trying to work with the metronome at a painfully slow tempo to see if that will help but really feel kinda lost about it all. Only thing i do know is i won’t give up, ever, though i can understand those musicians that do. To struggle to play passages that you could previously play in your sleep is horrible. I just hope somehow, somewhere, there’s a medical breakthrough that could help us. It’s such an uncommon condition that it’s probably never been properly funded financially because so few people seem to suffer from it.
Gary