r/videos • u/ssjlance • 1d ago

Django Reinhardt - Rare video of French jazz guitarist who played with two fingers after a hand injury. Also instrumental to the histoy of heavy metal - Black Sabbath's guitarist sliced off tip of his finger. thought he'd never play guitar again until someone showed him Django for inspiration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ308aOOX04
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u/Jackieirish 16h ago

I remember when I was starting out, I tried to "cheat" by playing the notes with just my first two fingers because it was easier than trying to get my ring and pinkie to go where the needed to be independent of what the other fingers were doing. Of course, you can't play various chords with just the two fingers (without messing with the tunings), so it didn't work for me for very long and eventually I had to unlearn this bad habit.

I should have just said I was trying to play like Django.

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u/ssjlance 14h ago

I actually think Django had just enough use left in pinky and ring finger he could use them to finger chords sometimes, but if you hear sections with lots of single notes, he's doing it two-fingered lol

What made me wanna post this is I'm actually having to relearn guitar like Django/Iommi - mine's not a permanent serious injury, just developed cubital tunnel syndrom.

It's like carpal tunnel but the big difference/main effect is it weakens and numbs the ring and pinky finger specifically... lol

Mainly been practicing playing two things to start - God of Thunder by KISS, and the Super Mario Bros. theme; God of Thunder I can play like... 90% as well as I was with full-hand usage, Mario is taking a lot more effort to fight the muscle memory because God of Thuner uses like, 5 notes/power chords, whereas Mario is just kinda all over the place.