Not so much a medical condition but a body function in my hands that makes it impossible to play leads the way that most people teach.
Basically, whenever I press my left hand first finger down on a fret, my pinky automatically points straight out.
There's absolutely nothing I can do to stop it and it's been a major contributor in slowing down my scale speeds over years.
I've had teachers and experienced players show me that to play speed scales...keep all your fingers as close to the fretboard as you can.
But my little finger has a mind of it's own. I press my first finger down on a fret and my little finger shoots straight out.
So I guess to make a long story short.... I realized a long time ago that I wasn't going to be able to play super fast lead runs because of this so I had to devise an alternative way of doing it.
So I totally concentrated on tapping. In fact I made it my main area of study.
Any time I saw a guy doing super fast runs with is little finger kept close to the fingerboard...I'd relearn the same run using my right hand to fill in any missing notes.
At first it was difficult...but after so many years it actually turned into an advantage because I could now not only play the same runs, but expand on then by doing multiple tapping with my right hand.
I guess the point of my story here is that even if your have a disability, just by substituting an alternative way of doing things, you might not only be able to play what you want.... but you could very well come up with a new way of playing that nobody else can do (think of Jeff Healey :)
