How bad are your hands?

Stange question? But really useful for us to have a measure of it. In fact, musicians often have a very good idea of how bad their hands are. Because they are acutely aware of the ‘metrics’ of their performance. Reaching a 9th or 10th on the piano, or long/streched chords on the guitar. Fast passages no longer possible. Lack of sensation. Reduced power/volume.

All of these things lead to reduced practice or reduced confidence, or a need to cancel performances in the worst cases.

In fact, I have been using a modification of a scale first developed in Paris by Raoul Tubiana. My version of it runs like this:

Musician with problem with their hands, comes to see me:

Level 5: Can still practice and perform as much as they would like

Level 4: Compromising in practice, but still performing and nobody else has noticed yet.

Level 3: Cancelling some performances, or other people notice reduced quality of performance

Level 2: Not performing at all

Level 1: Minimal practice

Level 0: Can’t play at all

So, of course this has a huge impact on decision making: if a musician has lots of gigs booked, and can’t afford any time off, (level 4 or 5) then we can’t do an operation. Even a steroid injection might cause pain for a few days, so we have to be careful. At the other end (0 to 2), we have plenty of time for a longer treatment pathway to help get things better, and progress back up the scale.