What do you think is a musician biggest enemy? Do you think it’s money? Record company executives? Gas station food? Ex-girlfriends?
Although every thing I just listed is a serious threat, I don’t think it comes close to the dangers of… repetitive motions. See what I did there! You didn’t expect that, didn’t you?
Any who, let’s keep going. Overdone repetitive motion is what can shut down a promising career. There are different illnesses that correspond to different steps of that problems. I’ll go from the least severe to the most. First off, we got tendinitis. Specifically, for drummer and piano players, the famous “tennis-elbow”. That one is the first sign that you might have to question your technique, or that you’ve been at it like a mad man for too long. I have a tennis-elbow on each side and I am pretty proud of them. They’re good friends of mine, don’t you say anything negative about them. Here’s why I keep my ailments in such high regards. That’s because it hasn’t gone any more serious than that. I have had tennis-elbow for close to 20 years now, and it hasn’t bothered me in the least. Sometimes, rarely, I feel a little tension once I’m done playing, but nothing bad. Also, those tennis-elbows have forced me to rethink my playing when the first symptoms occurred and I starting working on “the Moeller Technique” which is fantastic. It got rid of all my pain. Magic!
Next up in the scale of diseases caused by repetitive motion, we’ve got the carpal tunnel syndrome. You might be familiar with this one. It has been very popular since the advent of computers and people typing 24/7 on keyboards. I tell you, it is the modern plague. Well, us Musos have been seeing doctors for this very condition before it even had a name. It is a bit more complicated to solve than a tennis-elbow and you might have to go through surgery, but you stand a chance to play again.
After that, we get nerve damage. That one is pretty bad. I don’t know exactly what it is, I am not a doctor, but I can tell you I don’t ever want to hear those words from my physician. Nerve damage sounds like the final nail in the coffin of my music career. That one, for sure, has got to be treated on the surgeon table. Ouch! Just thinking about it gives me the chill.
Finally we arrive at the ultimate: broken bones. This is no joke. We have very famous artists who play with something broken in their hands. I’m looking at you Phil Collins who, in the middle of a tour he was doing, had to go to a doctor in Australia because he had a pain that wouldn’t go away. And, once the X-Rays were done and studied the question from the physician surprised him: “When did you break them?”. Not “it”, people: “them”. Phil Collins had more than one of these little connecting bones in the wrist broken. Well, he had to cope with it since there was no way he would stop the tour. You know the saying: “The show must go on!”
Wait! Wait! I got a better one. Yes, worse than Phil Collins! Buddy Rich, Drummer extraordinaire from the swing era got a back surgery and still did a gig the day after being on the operating table. As far as crazy dedication is concern, you can’t top that! But we are not talking about repetitive motion anymore.