Guitar Article Written by “Friend Of Mike Walsh”

Steve Vai's Guitar Injuries And How To Hold The Guitar

 By: Ryan Duke

The very first thing I go over with most prospective students is how they hold the guitar. If we aren’t positioning the guitar in the most optimized and efficient manner for our bodies then we will be putting forth extra effort just to play the basics. This compounds over time. Extra effort day in and day out year after year will add up a lot. It would be better to take all that work and have it redirected towards faster progress or just enjoying life more.

This doesn’t mean you can’t get results playing inefficiently. Many greats play with less than optimal posture and guitar positioning, but it comes at a cost. Given enough time that cost is a lot. Not only in effort, time, but also pain and financially. This is the dark side of compounding. Over time negative effects get worse.

Steve Vai is one of the greatest, most creative, and most influential guitarists ever to exist and he recently put out a video where he had to have shoulder surgery due to playing the guitar wrong for 45 years. In addition when he was younger he had a few discs removed from his back and one from his neck! This was also a result of guitar playing. Wow!

I was happy to see he is now playing on what is called classical position. This is also similar to playing with a guitar strap and standing up.

He also discusses carpal tunnel syndrome which I had in both hands when I was 18 due to a job I had at the time. But it effected my guitar playing so much I couldn’t do as much. It took me along time before I learned to adjust my guitar position which helped not only my back and should but it also helped out my carpal tunnel syndrome as well. There were other factors involved in repairing the carpal tunnel syndrome. Specifically relearning and reprogramming all my guitar playing muscle memory.

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If you have played for a while, adapting to this new position of holding the guitar, it will feel very foreign at first. It might even feel more difficult to play for a time. I get it. I played that way too for 17 years before I changed. I’ve also had many students who’ve played for 30-40 years and then switched with almost instant increase in ability and decrease in problems in their guitar playing. It is honestly astounding to me how we played that way for so long.

Back in the 90’s when I first started playing it was cool to wear the guitar really low like Metallica, Slash, or Nirvana. Everybody was doing it and we weren’t focused on efficiency and making things easier. I’m very glad to see that “looking cool” by holding the guitar super low isn’t something people are concerned about anymore.

About The Author: Ryan Duke is a professional musician, songwriter, and owner of Supertonic Guitar providing guitar lessons Franklin.