In the past, I have looked at my hands and wondered why I ever bothered trying to record music with them. 

Through a bare few decades of existence featuring diabetic neuropathy, multitudes of physical traumas, and a medical realisation that I have brittle bones, it contextualises so many errors. The times I’d believe my misplaying, shooting pains, or hand cramps were caused by a lack of focus, muscle memory, or dehydration all come across as delightfully useless naivety in hindsight

I was never quite the finesse musician I aimed to be, despite playing several instruments in my childhood and teen years. Around 16, a severe and specific wrist break destroyed part of my left hand, which impacted my ability to reliably use my little finger a lot. My ring finger was impacted too, but comparatively kindly.

During the rehabilitation process, I happened to notice that I couldn’t feel my left hand consistently. About a year and a half later, the numbness would be worsened by another trauma which is tougher to detail, which happened to include a different form of rehabilitation. Nerve damage and physical trauma is a tough cocktail. 

In short, before I was an adult, I couldn’t feel my left hand, and it was not in fully working order.

Still, I played my instruments. From cello, guitars, piano (badly), to drums. 

Now, the cello is a beautiful instrument, but I noticed how my disability enforced playing style didn’t allow the cello to sound worthwhile in any form. The lack of reliable use of one of my fingers, and the slight slipping of one other, meant the imperfections would override the decent playing. Unlike clunky or scattered guitar playing, it couldn’t be written off as a style. And so, the cello was left by the wayside.

As I got a few years older, the numbness of my left hand was interrupted by a bizarre collection of pains riding up my arm. These could indicate cramping, locking of fingers, the ever feared temporary “clawing” of the entire hand, tremors, or the lost pain I couldn’t feel in that particular extremity. Was it worth panicking over? No. It was the reality of the situation, and you must adjust to such situations.

Unfortunately, the reality impacted how I played every single remaining instrument in a rather intense manner. Notes dropped more often; fingers moving a quarter of a second late; lesser ability to firmly anchor a finger to support the bending of notes; clipping the edge of drum heads, and much more. 

Yet I would stick with my playing style on many singles, EPs, albums. Rough, cool, punk, weird. Full of mistakes? Yes. But those mistakes were wonderful. They would regularly form into something far beyond the mistakes.

For every year that passed, the mistakes became more defined and consistent, as did the nerve damage and my lessening physical capabilities. Yet I fought them. Perhaps I was wrong to.

In late 2019 I was unable to play bass consistently. I lacked the power to hold down strings long enough for longer sustained notes. How could I not hold an A note? Well, play an open A. What about an E flat? Well…tune the bass down half a step and play it open as well. Everything became a trick of tuning and capo placements. Life contains many a cheap capo – the shortcuts that are replacements for lessening & lacking skills, which we must come to terms with. Then we choose a capo or something else.

My production answer to this distinct bass playing flaw was to record and fix the recording via the magic of MIDI recording. What does that entail? Dropping in my struggling live recordings and making them somewhat perfect. It sounded great. It continues to sound great.

Of course, the impact on playing guitar, piano, and drums still remained. I’m lucky my left hand isn’t lodged in my vocal chords. So, extra mixing and production time would be spent trying to fix those recordings. Piano? Easy, play something and edit/program it to a better form during production. Drums? Harder, slicing and dragging parts around. But there are plenty of great drum plug-ins that act similar to the MIDI bass and piano programming elements.

Guitars, though. I have a little bit of the ego running through my blood which will not allow itself to program or edit my rhythm or lead guitar recordings in such a major way. It is akin to detaching the soul from perspective, apparently. So the mistakes remain on almost every song, regularly sounding wonderful.

In the last year, that ego has played dreadfully on my discontent. The discontent at health, my likely relatively-short lifespan, and the ongoing displeasure that I’ve had to rely on fixes and shortcuts. Most likely a glass of the olde self hatred, clearly yet to be swallowed. What this resulted in was the desire to create a fully finished piece with more than one “live” instrument.

I picked up my dusty, budget Ibanez bass. I found a composition that was incredibly simple. I looked for the demo of said composition. I recorded the bass and guitars. Here is the finished song.

I committed to recording Triple Edged Blades with the bass and guitar tracks being actively reflective of my diminished abilities at that point in time. Distilled gothic mourning built on the smirking surprise that I’m still around. I am proud.

Naturally, recording the parts took an age. That is the curse of physical limitations. Did you know that muscle memory becomes something of a lost dance when you can’t feel a part of your body? The guitar parts would have been recordable within a few hours for starter musicians. For me? Days. Prepping and re-prepping with intense hand and arm stretches, temporarily tying fingers together when they would lock up (don’t do this! It’s dangerous), and focusing endlessly until sections were complete was draining and actively painful. 

Having regular tremors and consistent shaking of extremities due to recording isn’t something I’d recommend to anyone, alas, life is pain. The pain was self-inflicted through wanting to fulfil what I believed to be a need.

Now, I may stick with trying to record bass in future songs if the desire remains. I hope it does not, for this is all about coming to terms with what I am capable of. 

The self loathing and desire for what once was is rarely worthwhile, yet it creeps in. The nostalgia and the loss – bound, tightening. The desperate claustrophobia consuming us as time passes by. Do we fight or indulge? Is the understanding for it only apparent during the indulgence? Will the good work become lost if we never consider indulgence? Many questions expand into further paths. There is far too little time to follow them all.