Never give up!

Playing music is a very personally satisfying endeavor. When a musician loses their ability to play anymore, that satisfaction goes away. There are instances where people like Django Reinhardt and Billy McLaughlin and others had to totally reinvent the way they played to keep playing. Sometimes, the player will have to try to learn other instruments, so that they can play something. This is what our own Jim Sullivan had to do.

In the late 1980’s, Jim played mostly electric guitar and 12-string acoustic. One day at work, he got the middle finger of his fretboard hand caught in a press at work. Most of the tip was severed and the bones were broken down into the hand and surgery had to be done on ligaments. It took around 3 years before he could play again. Around 10 years ago, Jim started noticing that his chord playing was getting sloppy. Over time, the damaged finger became more and more an issue and the result was his having to give up playing his lifelong instrument.

Jim had already been playing fiddle and mandolin a little at this point. Somewhere along the line, he began to consider shorter scale guitars, and eventually took a chance and purchased a 4-string tenor guitar, which he tunes GDAE like his fiddles or mandolins. Then he started playing fiddle tunes and mandolin chords on it. Quickly, this became a substitute for a standard guitar for him. He now owns fiddles, mandolins, the tenor guitar and just purchased a tenor banjo. Playing with the same tuning on everything helps with logistics, but each of those instruments are played differently and sounds different. And anything learned on one instrument is immediately transferable to the other. Jim is having a great time playing all of them, regularly plays at local old-time jams and feels like he can be called a musician once again.

The journey of playing music is a long one, which often has detours along the way. It’s all about personal challenge and satisfaction. If Jim can keep making music and finding new levels of enjoyment doing so, you can too!