Topic: Sausage fingers
Greetings, I,m the ultimate with arthritic sausage fingers.
Played acoustic and twelve string when I was young and innocent (as if!)
Recently tried a suprano uke and loved it, added a tenor to my collection and loved it.
My latest addition was to convert an 8 string mandolin to an 8 string uke. Wow. New bridge, nut and strings, tuned to C , what a sound. And with my sausages I can even play it. Imagine holding down the D chord on and 8 string with two fingers. Believe me it works even with fast chord changes.
So, don,t be disheartened, we ukers are never defeated.
By the way, my name comes from my wife,s exclamation when I started out, (as in- what the chuffin ell is that noise) poor soul. I,m slowly educating her.
I'm dealing with large hands that are also arthritic, so I hear you loud and clear about finding "work-a-rounds" which still allow you to play. Almost anything can be accommodated with a bit of imagination / innovation. I moved to a wider-necked acoustic a couple of years ago (my Cordoba) and that has helped immensely. A classical guitar is also good when the hands are hurting, as it has a wide neck, and nylon strings require less force to fret than metal ones do.