Reply To: Musician with CIDP

March 12, 2012 at 2:34 am

Hi Cindy
I jammed today for about two hours. My drummer is just getting back on his feet as well so we took it easy (sort of). My condition is one where I wont be receiving any treatment. At present, I am told that I will have the residuals from GBS (though I say BS to that). As my hands were hardest hit, my guitar work is still mostly choppy. There’s still lots that I can play, as long as dissonance is a factor. We jammed some Soundgarden, the Clash, the Stooges and the Ramones today.

I hope your treatment gives you some relief. My friend Rory DOES have CIDP and he’s a guitar player. Sometimes he really struggles to play, but he says that after getting IVIG he’s good to play for a few weeks.

I looked up the Ovation Patriot. Very cool looking guitar! Do you have any gear to plug it in? I was thinking that with a couple of modulation pedals (like a Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, pedal) you could create some cool music by just playing some simple chords. The Edge from U2 makes good use of these and often he’s playing the simplest of chords. How about slide playing? Or perhaps you could have your guitar strung with ultra-light strings.

Myself I like the electrics. My favorite is a Yamaha SG and a Japanese Les Paul copy. Both weigh a ton! I remember coming home from the hospital and strapping on the Les Paul and almost falling forward on my face (I wasn’t worried about that, I instinctively kept the guitar safe!) If I knew I would come down with GBS I would have taken to much lighter axes, like a Charvel.

Thank you for the very kind words, you give me encouragement too! Stay groovy!