I work as a physiotherapist at a rehabilitation hospital. I am looking to help a patient get back to playing guitar. He suffered a cervical spine injury and has no control over his fingers in both hands. He has managed to strum with his right from his movement in his elbows and wrist but can't play the chords on the left.
Does anyone have any suggestions on adaptive equipment that may help?
summary: five-string banjo, open G, barre chords, light strings
I jammed with a musician at a folk festival who had suffered a stroke and could no longer make proper chords, but he was able to use a finger to fret all the strings at once. Although formerly a guitar player, he switched to banjo tuned in open G. He strummed while fretting G barre chords up and down the neck. We were joined by other musicians and listeners and everyone enjoyed his playing and singing thoroughly. I don't think anyone even noticed that he was playing any differently than is normal.
A banjo, having a narrow neck, will be easier to barre than is a guitar. The musician may also wish to use light strings to reduce the pressure needed for a barre. You could also leave off the fifth string: four should be just fine for making good sounding chords.
Source: "Mister Mike," a musician from the greater Phoenix area. Not to be confused with the rapper by the same name.
I wanted to add this alternative invented by a music teacher in Sweden to help students with disabilities be able to play the guitar.
Depending on the way the lever is pressed (left/right/upright) three different chords can be played. These are custom fitted by the inventor himself, and my father recently got one of these fitted to one of his guitars.
It is called a klaff-guitar which might be translated as a hinged guitar. The Swedish word klaff is a bit hard to directly translate, but is used for example to describe a heart valve or the hinged part of a drop leaf table.
Links (in Swedish):
In my teens, my best friend suffered a gunshot injury at C5C6. He had virtually no finger control. But he figured out a way to play with the guitar in his lap like a slide guitar. He would barre open tunings with the side of his hand, and used his thumb, with a thumb pick, for strumming and picking. He got really good at it. Played many live shows that way.
There is a device called the “Chord Buddy” and other similar devices that are branded differently. It clips on the neck of the guitar and has 4 buttons that enable the user to play 4 different chords depending on the button being held down. This might work with a capo to a certain extent to allow songs to be played in a few different keys.
It would require your patient to be able to hold down a button with his left arm or hand while strumming with the right. Since fingers are not an option perhaps some type of small hook shaped device can be used to hold the buttons down.
I commend you on the work you do and the effort you are putting in to help this patient. I hope you and the medical team you work with are successful in treating him.
Blues musicians have played slide guitar since the birth of the genre, and it's also a major part of the sound of country music. It's also often used in rock. Playing with a slide removes any requirement to fret the strings.
It can be played with the guitar held in the normal position, or with the guitar sat in your lap facing upwards. The latter is perhaps more common for country music players, and tends to involve playing with a "tone bar" held between the fingers instead of a "bottleneck" slid over one finger. This gives some ergonomic options which may help your friend.
As an interim step, perhaps an instrument like the autoharp might help this patient get started.
The autoharp has individual keys (bars) to be pressed to create chords, while the other hand strums. In addition, it can be placed on a tabletop — as opposed to held in ones arms — if needed during the rehabilitation process.
There is also an autoharp variant called the Guitaro, which operates similarly, but is held like a guitar. This might also present an interim step between autoharp and guitar.
There is a detailed description of the autoharp on Wikipedia as well as an article about the Guitaro.
Turning everything on its head, so to speak: there are several guitarists - one born with NO arms - who play guitar using their feet. Plenty of youtubes to show that! So if the spinal injury hasn't affected legs and feet, that's another avenue to tread. Show the guy, and it might just inspire him.
Folks have mentioned using a slide on a regular guitar. There is also lap steel (or if they really take to it, pedal steel). This and other suggestions will be all about having fun playing with different open tunings.
(your patient will also want some kind of (rubber/plastic, so as not to damage) wrench or accommodation to tune the instrument)
This would require figuring out how to hold a slide with one hand, and a pick of some kind with the other (traditionally these are multiple fingernails or finger picks, but of course you could use one and experiment)
I just wanted to add that I personally know of two guitarists in the rock scene here with hand deformities/differences who have figured out their own way of playing and make amazing music. Good luck to your patient!
There are breath controllers out there used for adaptive situations. https://www.jamboxx.com/ and https://mybreathmymusic.com/en/ may point you to some resources (disclaimer, I helped out with the Jamboxx design, but have no financial interests). I don't believe either is available commercially at the moment.
There are other breath controllers that work with MIDI, so you can drive any MIDI synth you're comfortable with.
Here's something we need to know...is he going to get better, in regards to finger control? Or is this essentially permanent?
I realize the goal is to get back to playing guitar, but in his current state, maybe that shouldn't be the first goal. Strumming a guitar is 100 times easier than the fingerings; if he's having trouble strumming, then the fingerings are far off. He needs something else to do to start making those connections to his fingers again. Can he play a keyboard (i.e. piano)? Can he type on a computer keyboard? What other activities can you challenge him to achieve, that will get him back on the road to playing the guitar?
I'm no physiotherapist, and barely a guitar player; but it seems there are some intermediate steps we have to climb here. If he can barely strum, I have to assume he needs a lot of other PT/OT as well.
Keep in mind, guitar playing isn't all that easy to begin with, even if we have complete control of our fingers. If he truly isn't going to get better, then some of the alternative devices/styles/instruments mentioned in other answers may be the key.
He could play a left-handed guitar, so fretting with his right and strumming with his left.
