A Close Call - August 28, 2008
Last week I was all pumped up because I had a new direct-box for my studio designed specifically for recording bass guitar. (I know, I’m such a music gear geek…) I was very happy with how this thing sounded, and I went way overboard on practicing bass lines for songs, inventing new bass lines, and trying inhuman, Billy Sheehan-like fretboard acrobatics. My hand & forearm muscles got an incredible workout, maybe too much so.
I had suspended work on writing, arranging, & recording for a couple of days in order to clean my studio up. It had become a mess & was actually hindering my work. I wrote about this in the latest ClarkPlaysGuitar.com Backstage Pass newsletter, but in case you don’t receive that, here’s the gist: Too many weeks of trying to stick to nothing but recording, writing & arranging the new songs, and not picking up after myself! I often find myself so absorbed into the writing & recording process that I don’t have much awareness of my surroundings. Reference manuals get used & not put back, effect pedals get used for experimentation or recording, then aren’t put away, CD’s by other artists get pulled out as an audio reference, then pile up on the floor, and so on. Eventually it gets bad enough that I do notice it, and then I can’t focus on my work. So I declared a moratorium on tracking for a couple of days while I go into what my wife likes to call “White Tornado” mode.
So there I was, telling myself to put the bass & my new direct-box toy away, & get back to cleaning & organizing. In order to accomplish the next phase in the organizing I had to move a bookcase. Not a big one really, & not that much stuff on it. But when I reached down & pulled, it did not move. So I bent my legs some more, grabbed a little tighter, & really put some muscle into it. That’s when I heard the “pop” come from my forearm, and felt the explosion in my left hand, followed by fire running along the wrist & inside of my left forearm. The popping noise sounded kind of like when you pop your knuckles, only louder and.. um, wetter I think. Yeah, gross. Did it hurt? Oh yeah. So much so it made me weak in the knees, literally.
The next few hours are a bit of a blur. I remember there was some issue with my kids, maybe they were fighting or something, I really don’t recall. The pain was blinding. I put my hand in ice & left it there for hours. In the morning I spoke with some medical types who said to elevate it, ice it, & immobilize it. I asked if I had should come in so they could see if I tore a muscle or a tendon, they said no. How will I know what I injured, I asked, & they said if it starts to heal quickly, it’s a muscle. If not it’s a tendon. If it doesn’t start to heal at all, then surgery might be required. Yow. Visions of never playing my guitar again flashed into my head. Those kind of visions are really, really ugly. I need to play my guitar like normal people need to breathe.
But no worries! It’s been 8 days since that happened, & I am much, much better. Still sore, still not able to use the left hand for anything strenuous, but I can play again. There are limitations, but each day is a little better. In fact yesterday & today were good enough that I managed to get several pesky arrangement issues dealt with, and 2 more songs are now ready to start tracking! YES! So once again, I dodged disaster. Yeah, I had a close call, but that’s okay. I can still play guitar.
Clark


