Finger Issues

So, it's now been three months since I injured my left ring finger in a cycling accident. Getting proper medical attention in the midst of COVID-19 has been a challenge, but to date I've had one in-person doctor's appointment, an x-ray, an ultrasound and several phone appointments with my doctor. Diagnosis is progressing even if treatment isn't.

I still don't have an exact diagnosis—the ultrasound revealed some swelling and inflammation of the tendon, and that's it—but we know what it isn't: there's no fracture, dislocation or break. The next step is an appointment with a plastic surgeon to discuss whether or not I should have surgery, and it may take a good while to schedule said appointment.

Medical considerations aside, how is my finger? Well, it's bent and swollen, but it looks worse than it feels. There's no pain, and I can type as if nothing happened. (This is very good indeed, because I type for a living.) I've found no discernible impact on any of my daily activities but one, and it's a big one: playing my stringed instruments. Again, there's no pain. The problem is limited mobility. Certain chords, like F#m and any minor barre chord in that position right up the neck, are impossible to play; others, I can play but it takes several seconds to change to and from them. Sort of a "This finger goes here, and that one goes there, and then this one goes over here" approach. Yes, Gsus4, I'm talking 'bout you.

Fortunately, I can still record music and am doing so as we speak. I'm not the greatest guitarist to begin with, so I often stitch parts together on different tracks then bounce them to create a composite whole. The damaged finger only means there's more stitching than usual. I recently pieced together a pretty hot solo that sounds like a fluent guitarist who really knows what he's doing. It's all done with mirrors, and even more so than before. But that's okay. What matters is that the final product sounds good. I've yet to encounter anything I cannot play if I break it down into sufficiently small bits.

It's performing I'm increasingly concerned about. As it stands, I can't play several songs in my repertoire, including some of my own. At least not without the "Hey, folks, wait for five seconds till I can find the next chord" thing. Capos and alternate fingerings may yet offer viable workarounds, but still, it's disheartening. On the bright side, I suppose this is as good a time as any to be unable to perform, as most venues remain shuttered.

Anyway, until I chat with the surgeon I'm not sure what I'll do. Whatever this is, it doesn't seem to be improving on its own. But surgery brings its own concerns, not the least of which is how long I'll have to be the incredible one-handed typist.

Double Your Pleasure

Not that I know the first thing about painting, but I imagine recording is its sonic equivalent: one can create texture by layering. In music, layering is accomplished by, for example, blending voices or instruments which play complementary lines to the main theme, or by doubling existing parts, thereby emphasizing or reinforcing them. It's the latter I'll touch on in today's post.

Doubling lead vocals adds that little bit of "oomph" you want for arguably the most important track on any given song. Listen carefully to almost any Beatles recording and you'll see what I mean. The process is straightforward: you sing it once, then overdub yourself singing it again. It's not always easy to mimic your own phrasing, but with practice I've gotten better at it.

I usually double my rhythm guitars, which for this album are predominantly acoustic. Since I find it harder to replicate a guitar track, I often cheat by taking the original, copying and pasting into a new track, then time-shifting the second track forward just a touch. The time-shift has two functions: it obviates phasing problems and allows you to create a nice stereo image by panning the original hard left and the double hard right. This kind of double is more a photocopy than a redo.

A more textural approach—and one that isn't always possible—is to record a second track playing the same chords in different inversions. For me anyway, this requires the deft use of a capo. The song I'm working on now, "This Magnificent Dare," is in Bb. So, for the original rhythm track I used Capo 3, enabling me to play easy-strum G, C and D chords in the verse. (I like easy chords. They're eminently playable and they sound great.) For the double I wanted something different, and after a couple of failed experiments I settled on Capo 8. A little high up the neck, but I managed because lo and behold, here I could strum another set of easy chords: D, G and A.

Though capoing appears to create different chords, it doesn't. All these are simply inversions of the same chord. So, at Capo 3, when I play what looks like a G it's really a Bb. Similarly, playing what looks like a D at Capo 8 is also a Bb, albeit a third inversion of it. The actual chords I'm playing in this verse are Bb, Eb and F, but because of the capo at no time do I play them in first position. And this is no accident: not only are they harder to play there, but being barre chords they lack that open-string resonance made possible by the capo.

Now, the E-minor I was hitting in the bridge in Capo 3 had become a B-minor at Capo 8, which I found pretty much unplayable. But not to fret, if you'll pardon the pun, since up at Capo 10 I could play it as an A-minor, a much easier formation. So, I left a space in the part where that chord was and punched it in on a separate track.

The result is quite lovely and rich, especially when paired with the dulcimer that serves as the song's main rhythm.