Rebuilding right index finger

[jeffrice]

Hi all,

I'm a bass player who cut off 1/2 of his right index fingertip 30 years ago. As a right-handed player, this has obviously affected my playing style: though I kept the nailbed on the index finger, I lost half the meat underneath, and the finger is a good 1/2" shorter.

So, although it's still a bit sensitive, I can still play with my right index finger -- with the finger being so much shorter I've had to adjust the angle of my hand -- but my main problem has been that the *tone* of strings played with the index finger sounds like I'm playing with a pick. As someone who grew up worshiping Jaco, you can imagine this has been a problem. (Disclaimer: I'm no Jaco.) In essence I had to build up my ring finger strength over the years, and sometimes bring in my right thumb as well. But I generally speaking play with my middle and ring fingers, unless I'm playing really loud music where tonal subtleties don't matter, or a brighter tone is okay. But again the problem is that the tone between index and middle finger is so different, so that alternating between index and middle is like alternating between a pick and normal fingertips.

You might say, hey, that's cool, that gives you your own sound, Django Reinhardt did that with 2 fingers, etc. etc. And I can dig that, and I've had to live with it for 30 years, but sometimes I just want to be a normal bass player.

So my question is really: what can I do to build up my right finger tip so that it doesn't sound like a pick? Here crazy glue won't help, because that creates a hard callous on the skin that will sound even more pick-like. The difference between my problem and every other "I shanked my fingertip in a lawnmower, how can I play guitar again?" situation is that this is the main plucking finger on my right hand, not digits on the fretting hand, which most online forums deal with.

Possibilities I've seen include: a leather thimble, liquid skin/liquid bandage, various homemade possibilities involving rubber or latex gloves filled with epoxy/crazy glue etc., and the Galaxy FT-1 prosthetic finger tip. And I suppose going to a prosthetic specialist, though I'm sure my insurance wouldn't cover it.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated!

[subexpression]

Yeah, that's quite a gash.
Although, your finger length doesn't look like a problem to me.

One question: You said your right index finger is the one which was injured. Why is the photo showing your left index finger?

My index finger is considerably shorter than what you show in your photo...and I never had any injury:



To compensate for the shortness, I have to arch my middle and ring fingers so all four fingers meet together on the string "inline." I don't necessarily adjust my hand angle...just the finger arching:



I'm sure the tone variance between your index & middle finger is frustrating. Is it the skin, or just a lack of finger pad? I don't want to be indelicate, but is it because your finger has less meat on it or is it just callous skin?

You may want to check into getting fitted for a durable prosthesis. With today's technology, I'm sure you can find something good.

You could also try to isolate and dial out the offending frequencies with a good EQ. You can play a note with your index finger, then your middle finger and compare both in a spectrum analyzer...isolate the frequency variance and try to dial it out.

[unclejane]

I believe Geddy Lee has the same problem, he injured one of his right hand digits a long time ago (tho his might be the middle finger) and says he gets an uneven sound sometimes (you can hear it on Grace Under Pressure in several places on some of the songs, there's a definite uneveness to some of the notes).

I have a chopped off pinky on my fretting hand, BTW, which I've learned to use normally. I know this isn't your particular issue, but it goes to show we can still play normally with a chewed up finger here and there....

I like the idea of curling the fingers to put the tips in line. This is easy to do with the floating thumb technique which I adopted last year. Tho I'm not injured on the right hand, this still helped me get a more even plucking sound out of my two pluckers. The sharper angle is what seems to do it....

LS

[bThumper38]

why not use you thumb instead

[stiles72]

I took a serious gash to my right hand index finger a few years ago and it was bandaged up bad enough I couldn't use it. I did my shows without really thinking about how I was going to pluck, and found myself just naturally using my middle finger and ring finger together as one. Kind of looked like how Gene Simmons holds a pick or does the devil horns- with the index finger and pinky extended. (Not the greatest example, just what came to mind). Doubling up the fingers also gave it a bit warmer tone - almost like using your thumb to pluck.