Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster recently spoke to Bass Player Magazine. During the interview Webster discussed his battle with focal dystonia a few years ago, and the first symptoms of it he noticed. According to the Mayo Clinic, focal dystonia is a movement disorder in which your muscles contract involuntarily, causing repetitive or twisting movements in one part of your body.
“The normal fingerpicking that I would do would become very strained. It seemed as if my pointer finger would be going left instead of down. When I first noticed something was going wrong, it was very confusing and frightening. I was like, ‘What’s going on with my right hand? Why isn’t it behaving the way it’s behaved for the past 30 years?’“
“Basically, the signals from your brain are going wrong on the way down to your fingers. Imagine your legs walking. What if the signal from your brain was telling both legs to go forward at the same time? That’s not exactly what was happening with my picking fingers, but certain signals were definitely getting through and certain signals weren’t.“
Webster said he's since worked with a medical professional, and a few fellow musicians, to overcome the issue. Webster added he's playing better than ever these days, which everyone should already know if they listened to Violence Unimagined.
