Artificial Callouses for Hopelessly Masochistic "Dad Rock" Guitar Players

[jetsam]

Anybody think that artificial callouses for hopelessly masochistic "dad rock" guitar players is a good product idea? I've been wanting to do product design at least at a hobby level for a while now, and maybe I could make a mint with this one? Not sure... they'd just be band aids basically, but come in packs of five easy to apply and remove sets. (One for each fretting-hand finger, one for the thumb, one maybe for the palm, and one more for the bar chord finger...

Prototyping is not in an advanced stage... A pack of band-aids and a cheap steel-string are all that is needed. My Baby Taylor works well, for me even without the callouses. But I remember being 13 and unable to bar an 'F' chord, and that's a unnecessary frustration for a student guitarist... We target-market the Dads, of course, because the Dads have the wallet, and no time to practice, and $3000.00 guitars gathering dust in the closet.

Who's in?

P.S. It's not all about the Benjamin's. Normal human beings can't do this without some kind of assistance:
Rev. Gary Davis playing Candyman
... or this:
Big Bill Broonzy 1957: 3 Songs

...you gotta love Big Bill's smile in the third song of last video; he's getting surprised by his own playing, and it cracks him up a little. That's something that doesn't happen until you've been playing more than a few years...

Gary Davis broke his wrist, and it got re-set in a strange position early in life. Django, too, had his hand stepped on by gangsters, and played with two fingers afterwards 'cause the other fingers of his fretting hand were weak or missing

[uRock]

Keep playing. The callouses will form.

[jetsam]

They're not for me Also, they go away after a few months of raising children

[uRock]

They're not for me Also, they go away after a few months of raising children

Been there, done that. I've been playing off and on for about 30 years.

[jetsam]

Yeah, me too. I go through fallow periods, then pick it up again, notch another two levels of "intermediate" on my belt, then get distracted by other things.

One fallow period for me was actually inspired by a thumb injury, though. Repeat after me: some angles over the top of the fretboard should not be attempted with the left thumb.

It's not entirely tongue in cheek, the "hopelessly masochistic" part of the thread title. Guitarists tend to equate pain with gain, because it only hurts a little at first and they all pick it up when they're fourteen and acting the tough guy comes naturally. Some of them really are masochistic about it; I'm sure more than a few have stopped playing as age advances and the old patterns start to ache.

[jetsam]

So, here's the pitch as a business case:
There has been a long history of using solid objects on the fretting hand to both augment the sound (as in slide guitar) and facilitate playing (as in capos). Similarly, steel picks are available for the right hand. What people don't do (as far as I'm aware,) is make use of modern materials and manufacturing to augment as opposed to replace their playing hands. Between carbon fiber and woven nylon and new adhesives, I'm sure there's a pretty good mechanical design could be created that would work well. They might even be reusable...

Now available form Guitar Center: Bionic Finger Augmentation Pads. (Five packs of 7 Pads: $4.95 Two for one special, this weekend only.)

Deluxe Version: The Six Million Dollar Hand. We can rebuild them! It'd be a more complete, almost glove like thing...

There's probably a good physical therapy argument to be made for such things, but I won't pretend to know if it would count as medicine or not. They could even be insurance funded if so, like eyeglasses and contact lenses are.

Edit: They could also conveniently go in the same aisle as guitarist's fake fingernails. Also, bandaids work... feels a little Frankenstein, but I've not played steelstring in ages 'till this morning, and they do work. They make it a bit hard to type, and they make your hand look bad, but in a good way. There's no problem with sensitivity while playing. I might actually Kickstart this thing. Need some more branding and a plan...

...I do wish it weren't so much easier to think this stuff up than to make it happen in the real world...

[Frogs Hair]

I play almost daily and I recall trying to play with a band-aid on my fret/left hand . No Thanks ! . I never heard of dad rock before and had to look it up.

[jetsam]

But you get to walk around in public like the creature from Rocky Horror and/or a chemotherapy patient, though... Who would say "no" to that?

[jetsam]

So I just scored a parlor guitar at a garage sale for $40.00. Purchase from a Dad Rock Dad, who had somehow managed managed to not pass the torch onto his 14 year old...

It's a lil' solid wood 3/4 size Hohner starter guitar, but it's a perfect size and shape for my office kicker guitar right now, AND it has a stand and a case...
Spruce top, tropical catalpa back and sides, mahogany neck, mysterious hardwood fingerboard... all the wood is solid. Strings are a lil' rusty is the only thing wrong with it.

I didn't need another guitar, but this is well timed...