Focal Dystonia

[jmaulz]

Here's the link to Liona Boyd's experience with FD:
http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/liona-boyd/158

[benessa]

I don't think you can label any one technique as causing focal dystonia. It's almost always a combination of several factors, which in any other player could have no adverse effects. There's also possibly a genetic connection. For me, I believe it was excessive practice of tremolo technique, but not everyone who practices tremolo to extreme acquires focal dystonia. Certainly other elements were involved. I did learn chunking from Italian teachers, but their other students didn't get focal dystonia. I did use extensors, playing flamenco, but other flamenco players who practice tremolo don't get focal dystonia.

Intense relaxation is a part of a possible cure, but anyone who saw me play before would never had said I had a tense or stressed technique. As any advanced player learns, playing an instrument requires a relaxed tension or a directed relaxation, and most players cultivate this without any problem. One issue with focal dystonia is that it comes to you without warning. There's no pain or nodes involved as with tendonitis, so you don't know what is happening, detrimentally, until it is too late.

[lagartija]

One issue with focal dystonia is that it comes to you without warning. There's no pain or nodes involved as with tendonitis, so you don't know what is happening, detrimentally, until it is too late.

That's pretty scary. So there is no way to know if you have a brain with (what I think Solomon described as) "excessive plasticity" that will start to fuzz the brain map of your hand.
I see your point about it not being just one thing, and that others may use the same training technique without harm.

It reminds me of the problem some people have with carpel tunnel, in that some slight bend in their wrist while playing will cause a problem, but others born with greater clearance for the nerve, will not have problems no matter what they do. Maybe some day, they will have a test for this type of plasticity and at least one might have a chance of taking greater care if the danger were known. At the moment, it is the scary thing hiding in the musician's dark closet.

[benessa]

One issue with focal dystonia is that it comes to you without warning. There's no pain or nodes involved as with tendonitis, so you don't know what is happening, detrimentally, until it is too late.

That's pretty scary. So there is no way to know if you have a brain with (what I think Solomon described as) "excessive plasticity" that will start to fuzz the brain map of your hand.
I see your point about it not being just one thing, and that others may use the same training technique without harm.

It reminds me of the problem some people have with carpel tunnel, in that some slight bend in their wrist while playing will cause a problem, but others born with greater clearance for the nerve, will not have problems no matter what they do. Maybe some day, they will have a test for this type of plasticity and at least one might have a chance of taking greater care if the danger were known. At the moment, it is the scary thing hiding in the musician's dark closet.

That was nicely put. The funny thing is that, unlike tendonitis or carpel tunnel, focal dystonia is not really an injury. The brain is trying to help the hand by changing what it sees as excessive repetitive movement towards more efficient movement as a unit. And we're all so ungrateful for this magical transformation of our nerve signals. There's no helping some people.

[Blondie]

I don't think you can label any one technique as causing focal dystonia. It's almost always a combination of several factors, which in any other player could have no adverse effects.

I agree that there are risk factors but I would say that certain techniques, or rather practicing certain techniques in a certain way, are themselves risk factors. It is interesting to see the problems that rock/metal guitarists get with FD in their fingering hand, for example, almost unheard of in classical players because we do not use the specific techniques they use and have an altogether more independent and more relaxed left hand. With CG players it is virtually always the right hand that is affected and where the highest load is put on the sensory motor system.

Whether the same combination of risk factors would trigger FD across different players remains to be seen, it would be virtually impossible to control all the variables to test this.

[benessa]

It is interesting to see the problems that rock/metal guitarists get with FD in their fingering hand, for example, almost unheard of in classical players because we do not use the specific techniques they use and have an altogether more independent and more relaxed left hand. With CG players it is virtually always the right hand that is affected and where the highest load is put on the sensory motor system.

This little tidbit of information about rock guitarists getting FD in their LH is new to me and very interesting. And of course, now that it's been pointed out, it does seem obvious.

And you're correct that there are certain techniques which are more likely than others to cause FD, e.g. tremolo and arpeggio.

[Blondie]

Yes when players visited the FD forum with FD in the left hand I used to ask them if they practiced a lot of Holdsworth/Satriani/Van Halen left hand big stretch legatos, it was surprising how often it came up. Well actually not that surprising to me, I used to play rock guitar and it makes perfect sense - hand held rigidly with a wide stretch, all notes played rapidly in sequence with fingers fixed in position. You have to practice it a lot to get it right and have to put tension into the fingers to get the notes to snap out cleanly.