Farland and his injury

[Austin]

I think Farland damaged his hand because he wasn't doing the one finger tremolo correctly or at least safely. The way he describes it in his book creates a lot of excess tension because he plants all of the fingers on the head, if you look at people like Yamashita, I only bring up Yamashita, a classical guitarist, because he mastered the technique same as Fred Bacon. Only difference is I don't think there are any videos of Fred Bacon doing it so we can't know how he accomplished it. Yamashita accomplished it by floating the hand keeping it free of tension. Same thing with flamenco guitarists. Not sure if I'm young enough to actually accomplish mastery of the technique, but I shall try by floating the hand or only planting the pinky.

[Joel Hooks]

Fred Bacon tremolo, anchor the middle finger.

[Austin]

Gotcha! Why did Farland get injured but Bacon didn't? Do you think Farland was just doing it too much?

Joel Hooks said:

Fred Bacon tremolo, anchor the middle finger.

[Joel Hooks]

I’m not a doctor.  All parties involved are dead, so I can’t ask them.  My Ouija board is not working at the moment.

In seriousness, asking this is like “why did that guy get cancer but his friend did not” or “why did this guy have a stroke but this guy did not?”  It is not really a useful line of questioning.

[Austin]

That's true. I apologize.

Joel Hooks said:

I’m not a doctor.  All parties involved are dead, so I can’t ask them.  My Ouija board is not working at the moment.

In seriousness, asking this is like “why did that guy get cancer but his friend did not” or “why did this guy have a stroke but this guy did not?”  It is not really a useful line of questioning.

[Jody Stecher]

However I can say that doing tremolo or any other technique hard enough to be Loud Enough to be heard in a concert hall is likely to cause injury.  Some who try it are lucky. Some are not.   As for practice at home at a moderate volume I can say that if it hurts and you keep it up injury is inevitable. If it does not hurt injury is less likely.  

There are other ways a banjo can cause injury too.  When used as a club on a skull the banjo is a formidable weapon.  As a missile propelled from a catapult, it is iff-y.  Accordions are even less suited to that job as the bellows sometimes open mid-flight and pull the accordion downward allowing gravity to do the rest.

Austin said:

That's true. I apologize.

Joel Hooks said:

I’m not a doctor.  All parties involved are dead, so I can’t ask them.  My Ouija board is not working at the moment.

In seriousness, asking this is like “why did that guy get cancer but his friend did not” or “why did this guy have a stroke but this guy did not?”  It is not really a useful line of questioning.