Kendall is NOT finished !!

Subject: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 07:53 PM

Well folks, I started playing guitar 65 years ago, and I stopped today. Age and arthritis in every joint makes playing guitar and Mandola too painful. It is with a heavy heart that I now offer my Taylor 810 and my octave mandolin for sale.
The Taylor is a 1982, one of the best guitars I have ever played. Dave Mallett played it and remarked, "That is one kick ass guitar." Asking $600.00 firm
The mandola, like new, $200.00.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 08:02 PM

Aw, dammit! I hate it when this happens, Kendall. I'm starting to have Arty Ritis come visiting as well.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 08:13 PM

It's been a problem for years, and now it seems to be speeding up.
First, my voice, then my hearing, now my arthritis. What next? DANDRUFF?

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 08:17 PM

That's a bummer. I do see that there appears to be fresh progress on maybe curing arthritis, so maybe keep the instruments just in case.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Bert
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 08:20 PM

Try a hurdy gurdy.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 08:20 PM

Well I had to stop playing the harmonica in public last year due to advancing deafness. But don't be too downhearted. The decision to stop was hard, but I actually found it to be a blessed relief in the end because I'd struggled on unhappily for a long time before facing up to the reality. I'm quite happy tootling away at home and having a good barney with anyone who'll take me on, and I've just listened to a late Beethoven quartet.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 08:21 PM

Oh no, not dandruff!

Have you thought of switching your instruments to slide? That's what I tell myself I'll do.

I'm with RB- if you don't actually need the money, keep the instruments just in case.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 08:27 PM

I need the room more than the money. My house is so small, the front door and the back door both use the same hinges.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Janie
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 09:05 PM

Only you can decide what you can live with or live without. But no stringed instrument at all? If slide guitar is not your thing what about a guitar with easier action on which you can still play some rhythm guitar? Might not be your thing - just sayin'.

Whether you decide to quit playing guitar or not, you are not finished, my Darlin'. You are still KENDALL!!!!!! until your last breath. Certainly to me, and I feel pretty certain more people than you are willing to believe feel the same. The music is how we got to know you. Not why we love you.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 09:35 PM

(I'm picturing your house.) What Janie said.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: maeve
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 09:40 PM

Jigs, Kendall. Don't scare me like that!

As one who is your friend for a wicked long time and has been in your charming house, I suggest you think about this decision for a while... let it turn over in your mind for a few weeks at least, with or without the added delights of dandruff.

Also, what Janie said.

Maeve

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 09:48 PM

Awq, Skipper, I think you gotta keep a guitar to hand for your good days! I just got my Taylor out of respect for your affection for that instrument. Don't be selling it off! Ya can't tell--the arthritis thing may be temporary.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Bugsy
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 09:53 PM

Before you give up completely mate, have you tried some open tunings? Open D for instance? it's a lot easier on the fingers than standard tuning.

Just a thought.

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 10:08 PM

The pain is in my wrists. I've tried an open G, but they all need some wrist movement. I will still have my old J-45 Gibson, 1954 that Mallett gets when I snuff it.
I sure do appreciate your interest folks. Didn't mean to mislead you, Maeve, I should have added...as a guitar picker.
I gave away my 100 year old fiddle a couple of years ago. The position 0f my left wrist was torture.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 10:13 PM

You played your guitar and other instruments a long longer than my father did. Due to arthritis he stopped playing guitar altogether in his late 60s and sang unaccompanied or with another player after that. It is sad, but I think it was also kind of liberating.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: maeve
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 10:45 PM

Kendall's guitar playing is important to him. His beautiful singing is now only in our hearts and on his recordings. He and Jacqui have made a good team with Jacqui singing and Kendall doing recitations and guitar accompaniment. It's a mighty hard thing to face, giving up guitar in those circumstances.

Kendall, just mull it over, please? You may find other ways to use the guitar that don't require you to play like you once did. You may find a physical therapist can help those wrists.

Do as you must- just give yourself time to think it through.

Maeve

Subject: RE: Kendall is not finished
From: maeve
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 10:47 PM

Just had to change that subject even for only one post. :D

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 01 Dec 15 - 11:02 PM

A smaller-bodied, narrower necked guitar, perhaps? What a wicked pissah, cap'n.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 01:19 AM

Play slide with yer toes, maybe?

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 03:03 AM

So sorry to hear that Kendal.
I am privileged to have heard you play in your prime.
keith.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 06:56 AM

I daresay that giving up the instrument is difficult for any performer. It was equally important to my father. But he wasn't finished sharing music simply because he couldn't play the guitar.

Subject: RE: Kendall is not finished
From: maeve
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 07:28 AM

Still thinking...
Kendall-who-is-NOT-finished,and others facing such a painful decision-

One big reason people with arthritis are encouraged to continue playing an instrument, knitting, crocheting, carving, kneading bread dough...anything that allows you to use your hands and wrists is that such activities tend to help maintain and improve both mobility and strength, thereby reducing overall pain.

You might want to look into:
*Use of heat and arnica gel to increase mobility before/after playing
*Warm-up exercises aimed specifically at the arthritis
*Strengthening and stretching exercises
*Wearing elastic "sleeves"/fingerless gloves made to hold body heat around the painful wrist/hand areas.
*Work with someone (like Ron Pinkham at Woodsound) to find
      technique changes for better use of your available mobility
*Appropriate wrist braces, usually used at night
*Trying different instruments and different techniques
      (smaller, lower action, electric, mountain dulcimer,
      open tuning simple less stressful chords, etc.)
*Working with an arthritis specialist who also understands
      the needs of musicians.

If leaving guitar playing behind is your preferred choice, fair enough- yet do please find other ways to strengthen and use your hands and wrists.

Just one of many who care,
Maeve

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 07:59 AM

time for writing songs, maybe you need a collaborator for the music but it keeps you in the loop.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Continuity Jones
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 08:03 AM

I have osteoarthritis and at the moment am successfully keeping it at bay with Glucosamine, Omega 3 and Cider Vinegar. It means I can carry on playing guitar plus other added bonuses - turning keys, doing up buttons....

I'm sure you'd've tried these, but they work for me, very noticeably.

Cider Vinegar sounds absurd, but Google it.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 09:04 AM

Jacqui has a smaller guitar that Nick Apollonio built for her. It is much more friendly than the Gibson or the Taylor. I find that using a capo at the 4th or 5th fret helps to ease the wrist pain.

I now have sharp burning pain in the muscles of my wrists. Is there no end?

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Airymouse
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 09:17 AM

I've got to admit that my observations are along the lines of if life gives you lemons make limoncello. But I heard you sing and tell stories at the FSGW Getaway and my impression is that part of the charm of your singing and storytelling is that you are unfinished. Your audience understands that there is more to come. I know I will return to the getaway with that expectation. There is an uncomfortable truth about traditional music: much of it was sung unaccompanied. I've heard Hortie Barker accompany himself on the piano, but I don't think he ever did this in public. Rick Ward plays the fretless banjo but he sings "Jobal Hunter" unaccompanied. Cecil Sharp heard only one singer in the Southern Appalachians sing with a musical instrument, a woman in Charlottesville VA. (And Sharp connived at the location. He must have known that Charlottesville is in the Piedmont.) What's more there is a tradition of embedding songs in a story and I think you are well suited to give that a try. So I'm hoping that next fall I will hear stories from you in which there are songs.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 09:34 AM

I am sorry to hear that Kendall. I have arthritis on the fingers of my left hand and find playing painful at times. I often have a tennis ball in that hand and always flex my fingers with it when I am out walking or sitting reading, it doesn't cure it , but it help with flexibility.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 09:43 AM

Finished? Never! Lots of good advice on this thread. A dear friend of mine lamented that he couldn't contribute to folk music when it became too painful to play his guitar. I suggested he sing unaccompanied, which he did. He now runs one of the best folk sessions in these parts. And he picked up a guitar the other day!

Fat lady, what fat lady?

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 09:50 AM

My Uncle Gene was addicted to his pipe. He'd smoke it everywhere, even during his work as a night soil excavation engineer, or maybe especially then. During sleep. While drinking beer (he used a straw for the beer). Duck hunting. Everywhere.

And then, one day, he heard a saxophone being played and fell in love with that deep, sexy sax sound.

Using all of his savings he rushed out and bought himself a custom-made saxophone. Tempered steel, just like my Uncle, and covered with a covering of gilt a quarter of an inch thick that was made from gold bars he'd found on an abandoned train back in Wyoming (that was his story). A reed crafted from the finest, thinnest hornbeam. Mutes (a gift from his mother) of the best cork from Portugal.

But my Uncle still wanted his pipe. He tried everything, but after a day and a half of constant sax he knew that while he loved his sax his love for his pipe (and certain visits by the local police) told him that he couldn't have both. And so, with great sadness and after no little drain on his gold supply, he put sax out of his life.

Oh, it was still there, mounted like a moosehead on the wall. Oft he would look at it and sigh and dream of the Life Left Behind, of his now-quashed dream of being a one-man band with his pipe and his sax, rich and famous.

But as he told me in later years, waving your pipe and bag around while having sax in public is not the best path for a young man to pursue if he wants to stay out of jail.

I don't remember what point I was going to make, but it's a good story and oh! so true. I can even show you the type of sax he used to have.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 10:04 AM

Oh, Kendall, what a difficult decision!

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: SINSULL
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 12:14 PM

I will buy it, Captain. It will be in my sun room whenever you are ready to play it again. Frankly, it would break my heart to see it leave Maine. Cash in hand this weekend.
SINS

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: GUEST,Paul Clarke
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 12:17 PM

One form of arthritis (don't know which type, I'm afraid) is an infection and can be eased by eating black cherries, which contain a natural anti-biotic. 7 a day, best fresh, or frozen (hard to get, but maybe easier now stores offer wider selections). I gather tinned ones are over-processed so don't do the business. Long shot, but worth a try.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 12:22 PM

Kendall, did it hurt to type the OP?

If not, try mountain dulcimer - a very easy instrument to play. I like to put mine on a table and play it, since a lap absorbs so much sound. If the dulcimer is set up right, there should be almost no pressure in the fingers, and you keep your wrists level (like a good pianist) so you don't flex your wrists and ask for carpal tunnel problems.

You may not wish to play it with your act, but for solace at home - why not?

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: SINSULL
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 01:04 PM

Or...if room is the issue, I have a spare bedroom always locked against the kitties at your disposal.
Night splints have been my salvation. Sour cherry juice and turmuric. Glucosamine Condroiten (sp?) did nothing for me.

You have had a lot of loss in your life recently. Don't discount depression related aches and pains. Would a Hummer improve your outlook? I'm buying...

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 01:16 PM

Oh, and on that mountain dulcimer - use a thumbpick, not a triangular pick. The thumbpick is easier on the hands.

Wait till you get over the sadness of losing the guitar and give it a try. It can't hurt to try.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 02:11 PM

Sinsull, there are two kinds of "Hummers". which one do you mean? LOL

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 02:29 PM

Seriously, you folks are priceless. your concern and support have really boosted my mood.
As far as singing goes, that is out of the question. Without vocal cords it is impossible.
I don't know if I have ever admitted this here but the fact is, I have never thought of myself as a singer, or a guitarist. I've always thought of myself as a story teller and humorist. Neither of those require a singing voice or pain free hands.
That being said, what the hell am I weeping about? I'm a published author, (two books,the new one is selling like pardons in a prison) a Grammy award nominee, (Thanks to Dan Schatz). I've spread Maine humor all over the USA and even to Scotland and England. I'm famous among those who know me.:-)and most of the people I know like me.

Losing my singing voice is the most cruel cut of all, but, with the help of great friends I survived it. I will beat this too 'cause I'm tougher than tripe, and a Taurus to boot.
Iron is tempered by fire and mankind by adversity.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 05:09 PM

There's always the kazoo (I'll get me coat)
RtS

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: wysiwyg
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 05:24 PM

Kendall, I'd a whole lot rather hear that you're hanging it up! On the wall. As the house guitar.

~Susan

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: GUEST,Olddude
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 06:34 PM

Oh no you don't my old friend, we will not let you. Do you want us picketing outside your house.
Dan

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 07:59 PM

In response to a large number of friends protests, I am going to remove the guitar from the auction, at least for the time being. I acted in haste out of despair. To consider selling a guitar that is insured for $1500 so cheap is just crazy..

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 08:01 PM

There's always a way...

The 2015 reissue of the legendary vintage Danelectro Convertible 'acoustic' guitar.

Very slim and comfortable light gauge strung fingerboard/neck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO3eUj5Ixls

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 08:22 PM

Thanks for the tip. for me to pick up an electric guitar after all these years of avoiding them; you can't imaging the static I would get from folkie friends.
It would be like giving me Viagra ; like putting a new flag pole on a condemned building.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: kendall
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 08:24 PM

Looks like my sense of humor is coming back. "Humor is the opiate of the melancholic." (Me)

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 08:34 PM

Honest it's an acoustic - Mr Danelectro salesman says so...

The original models were purely thinline acoustics; the pickup was an aftersales optional extra...

and anyhow.. electricity didn't do Dylan any harm...

50 years of plugging in and he's a dapper sprightly mischievous old enigma...

If that's down to amplification or viagra.. well it's nice to know there's a choice is available as I approach my 60s... 😜

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 08:45 PM

"It would be like giving me Viagra ; like putting a new flag pole on a condemned building."

Jaysus but I'd never heard that one. I'll keep it from the missus if you don't mind... :-)

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 09:15 PM

Kendall, I'll buy that guitar OR the banjo...IF and only if they stay at your place. Playing trumpet (God's Only Instrument) I really don't need either of them (we already have one guitar around here and Ye Olde Familye Banjo is at my brother's place).

Give me a firm price and the check will be in the mail right away -- or I'll arrange a cash transfer if you don't trust my check (some don't).

When they've collected too much dust for you to tolerate you can drop them off with Sinsull.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Dec 15 - 11:32 PM

Just in case, a few years ago I found a remedy that takes away the pain from my wrists and knees. I don't usually like medicine and I never advertise panaceas but just in case you want to give it a try, Kendall, I use 'Premium Pain Spray'. When pain won't let me relax enough to sleep I get out of bed and spray the knee or the wrist - or both - and within four or five minutes most of the pain is gone.

I order them online: 3 bottles for $30.00. Apparently the only active ingredient is menthol. Oh, and as soon as the skin dries, the pungent smell is gone. I always keep it on hand.

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: maeve
Date: 03 Dec 15 - 06:02 AM

Lots of ideas and friends are here for you, Kendall, so think it all over and figure out what you need. Then please let us know how we can support your efforts in productive ways.
Maeve

Subject: RE: Kendall is finished
From: Hrothgar
Date: 03 Dec 15 - 07:28 AM

Arthritis in a Maine winter, Kendall?

Time to move to Florida.