I have always loved music. When I was in school I sang and played upright base. I would love to go back to both, but bases are obscenely expensive and I cannot sing around those outside my inner circle for personal safety as, while being a woman and a baratone in isolation are both wonderful things, together they represent a danger in the current sociopolitical climate.
I have two narrowing criteria, however. One is that I have impaired fine motor skills from head trauma as an infant and in early childhood. I tend to score about 10 times worse than the marker scores for the 10th percentile I also have hypermobility in some, but not all of my fingers. (similar issues with mouth and tongue control, so I am hesitant of brass and most woodwinds). The second is that my wife would prefer something I could sing with as she likes my voice. Otherwise I would be drawn towards bagpipes as all of the Reed work is done with the gross movement of your arm rather than the fine movement of your mouth.
When I played bass it worked well because the strings are super spread out (I have large strong hands. They just aren't accurate.) have leniency with hand placement, so my collapsing fingers didn't matter. I used a German bow, so bowing and vibrato was all done with gross motor skills. I loved the heartfelt evocative sound so much.
I have tried guitar and base guitar, but struggle a bit with the smaller hand shapes, tighter strings, and my collapsing fingers made many chords impossible, placing a rather firm limit on what I could play.
I am fine with weird or modified instrument ideas so pitch them at me. I have considered both a mountain dulcimer made one octive down and with a wider fret board so the strings are bigger and further apart. They are often custom made for around $1k, so it wouldn't be insane to try to source. I have never played one though. I have also considered learning the hurdy gurdy as a lot of it is done with gross motor skills and the use of keys which decrease the impact of squishy fingers.
What other ideas do folks have? (note my hands are also not super fast, so I have never been successful with percussion thus far)
Submitted September 06, 2022 at 06:21PM by Wolfinder https://www.reddit.com/r/Learnmusic/comments/x7m8t9/good_instruments_for_limited_fine_motor_skills/?utm_source=ifttt
Javier Rodriguez
Tuesday, September 6, 2022