Steve Vai has hand surgery

30 years in the Trades ive noticed stiffness in my hands and a couple knuckle issues.
Arthritis is real. I have worse issues than my hands.
Still playing my .011 to .056 Nickels.
 
He did an interview with that dude from Music Is Win that was posted on YouTube yesterday and mentioned he also had shoulder surgery. He was in really good spirits about it at all and said when he couldn’t use his picking hand, he wrote a song just using his left hand, thus proving that Vai could play most people under the table with one hand tied behind his back, if need be.

That dude is so full of positivity that there’s probably fuckin’ angels floating down that and so some weird angel healing shit to him every night.
 
Apparently he won't reveal what chord he was attempting to play. That says a lot. He obviously had his eye on some chord seldom used and trying to create some muscle memory for it. It is probably something so twisty as to inflame the joints badly because you aren't supposed to press strings hard most of the time.
 
O.K. - I’m gonna try to do this in a way that does not roll out the ‘Flame’ red carpet. I am as big a Vai fan as anyone. I was mesmerized by his performance in Crossroads and then proceeded to literally wear out my copies of Eat ‘Em and Skyscraper. I lived with his Whitesnake album in the deck for about a year. I loved the fact that from Carvin X-100Bs to now famous Jose heads, to Bogners to Signature amps, he always managed to sound just like ‘Vai.’ Killer player in every regard - massive contributions to the state of the art of electric guitar playing.

But.... ‘I held a chord for 20 minutes while I meditated on it...’ ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I remember a very early magazine interview with Vai where he claimed to practice for something like 20 hours out of every day and one of the things he would do was ‘put his guitar on the floor and just walk around it in circles for an hour like a sensitive cat.’ (I paraphrase, but I swear to God I did not make that up)

It’s like he’s always had this huge fascination / fixation on weird super-human spiritual hype. It’s almost as if ‘I was blessed to go to Berkeley School of Music and I busted my ass to get as good as I could possibly be’ somehow wasn’t a ‘spiritual’ enough explanation for his musical ability. It’s as if ‘here I am in my late 50’s / early 60’s and I have played seriously every day of my life for over 40 years and my joints and connective tissues are finally starting to wear out’ is just to ‘normal’ an explanation for him. So he has to be the guy who - with the 40+ years of playing music - feels the need to ‘hold a chord for 20 minutes while meditating on it...’

Love ya Vai - always have, always will. But too much of that Yogi Tea and Incense will eventually go straight to your head.
 
^ Yeah I was surprised when I read that. There are a few chords that hurt my hand and I try to hold them for as short a time as possible to avoid injury. They are always Eric Johnson chords with the thumb wrapped over. 20 minutes and you'd need the jaws of life to remove the guitar from my hand.
 
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I wouldn't reveal the chord if I was Via either. It would create a lot of BS where people would try the chord, not get hurt, and start talking crap, etc.

And let's not kid ourselves, it would also become known as the "Vai" chord from then on, which would be kinda lame.
 
O.K. - I’m gonna try to do this in a way that does not roll out the ‘Flame’ red carpet. I am as big a Vai fan as anyone. I was mesmerized by his performance in Crossroads and then proceeded to literally wear out my copies of Eat ‘Em and Skyscraper. I lived with his Whitesnake album in the deck for about a year. I loved the fact that from Carvin X-100Bs to now famous Jose heads, to Bogners to Signature amps, he always managed to sound just like ‘Vai.’ Killer player in every regard - massive contributions to the state of the art of electric guitar playing.

But.... ‘I held a chord for 20 minutes while I meditated on it...’ ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

I remember a very early magazine interview with Vai where he claimed to practice for something like 20 hours out of every day and one of the things he would do was ‘put his guitar on the floor and just walk around it in circles for an hour like a sensitive cat.’ (I paraphrase, but I swear to God I did not make that up)

It’s like he’s always had this huge fascination / fixation on weird super-human spiritual hype. It’s almost as if ‘I was blessed to go to Berkeley School of Music and I busted my ass to get as good as I could possibly be’ somehow wasn’t a ‘spiritual’ enough explanation for his musical ability. It’s as if ‘here I am in my late 50’s / early 60’s and I have played seriously every day of my life for over 40 years and my joints and connective tissues are finally starting to wear out’ is just to ‘normal’ an explanation for him. So he has to be the guy who - with the 40+ years of playing music - feels the need to ‘hold a chord for 20 minutes while meditating on it...’

Love ya Vai - always have, always will. But too much of that Yogi Tea and Incense will eventually go straight to your head.
Yea - I know what you mean. I remember reading an old article right after passion and warfare came out that he once starved himself for 3 days so he could get the right feel for a certain solo. WTF man? That just reminds me of the old story where a young Dustin Hoffman had stayed awake for 2 days to be in the right state of mind for his role in Marathon Man. When Hoffman told Lawrence Olivier about this, Olivier just laughed and said, "Did you ever just try acting?" Don't get me wrong - I think Vai is one of the best ever, but...c'mon! LOL
 
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Steve Vai is a phenomenal player but for some reason I didn't fanboi out on him like I did with Tony Macalpine, Yngwie, Jason Becker, etc. When he plays, it blows my mind watching his fingers. So much precision, etc.
 
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