Pain back of picking hand

[mb69]

Hi Everyone

I recently picked up an Ibanez portamento fretless and discovered that the best way to make it mwah is to pluck quite hard with a fairly straight finger, so my finger ends up resting on the next string. It sounds great, the problem is that after playing like this for a couple of weeks I have pain in the back of my hand and I think I have probably irritated the tendons. I just wondered if anyone has tips in terms of warm up exercises, playing position of the picking hand and/or elbow, supplements (glucosamine?) etc. Raising my elbow straightens my wrist and reduces the pressure on the back of the hand, but feels kind of weird and tense in the shoulder...!

Right now I'm resting it up and will head to the docs if it doesn't clear up - but I wanted to check if anyone has any experience/advice too.

Thanks all!

Edited June 5, 2019 by mb69

[Dan Dare]

No suggestions for the hand, apart from rest (as the doctor said to the chap who said "It hurts when I do X", don't do X). You shouldn't need to play aggressively to get that mwah sound. If you do, you need to lower the action (the mwah is actually caused by the string vibrating slightly against the board on a fretless). You will most likely need to do it at the nut, as well as or rather than at the bridge end. It's a bit of a fine judgement as to how much to file the nut and it's easy to overdo it, so take it to a good repair/setup man (or woman) if in doubt. 

[mb69]

Many thanks for the reply Dan Dare. It is a little high - and there's definitely some room for adjustment in the bridge saddles so I'll start there.

[Grangur]

To get mwahh the set up for the nut on a fretless needs to be pretty low. If you fret at the 3rd "fret" the space under the string at the 1st will be low enough to hold a piece of paper there. This isn't, of course, set in stone, and mine is a Warwick Just-a-nut, so I have the advantage of it being adjustable, rather than done with a file. But of yours is high, it's worth starting there..

Also on a fretless, to get a consistent mwahh right down the neck, it's important to have a very flat/uniform fingerboard. Undulations, no matter how slight, don't go well.