There's a similar story about Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi. The fact that he lost the tips of two fingers led him to develop a distinctive sound, which Black Sabbath became known for.

As someone that works primarily in Python lately and a terrible hack guitarist, I always think of the namesake behind the Django framework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Reinhardt

I won't recap, but read up on the terrible burn injury on his playing hand and how he developed a new playing style of his own to compensate.

He's regarded as one of the fastest, cleanest guitarists ever. Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoIJ4W7kXiQ

Jerry Garcia was missing half of his middle finger on his right hand, lost after a wood-chopping accident.

One of my favorite bars has a lot of cool rock memorabilia including an ink print of Jerry's truncated hand. It's fun to compare the size with your own.

SPOILER ALERT: His hands were huge!!

BUT Garcia didn't start playing guitar until after the finger incident. However, in 1986, Jerry Garcia's diabetic coma forced him to relearn some of his most basic motor skills which resulted in him needing to completely relearn and reapproach how to play guitar.

I am a big fan of The Dead.

All true! I submit to your expansive knowledge!

Similarly, Paul Wittgenstein (brother Ludwig) was pretty damn amazing as well. The piano concertos for left hand, written for him, are some of the most interesting works in 20th century piano music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wittgenstein

> I wonder how we could teach ourselves these lessons (without injury, of course).

There's a wide-ranging and productive history of people expanding their creative capacity through self-imposed constraints.

http://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Constraints-The-Psychology-...

upvoted simply for working Def Leppard into the conversation. :)

Ask anyone who knows anything bout music - Rick Allen is a not a great drummer.

John Bonham, Dave Lombardo, Bill Ward, Peart, even Dave Grohl is better than Rick Allen.

Rick Allen is a great person for continuing with his drumming career with one (1) arm. Nobody's claiming he's a "great drummer" and your insensitivity doesn't contribute much here. The comment section is not a record store.

Many people have stronger voices than Page, but the point still stands that it's how you approach your adversity that counts.

In all fairness to Mel Gibson above "Several of the beats on that album became legendary" would seem to imply he was a great drummer. I agree it's rather odd to take issue with what was an unusual analogy to begin with but it was hardly an outlandish response/comment.

Mel Gibson? I don't get that but his response was fair and considered and correct. The OP trolled a highly subjective argument about who's the best drummer which completely missed the point of the original comment and the entire story.

"braveheart" is part of his handle

You've mentioned a lot of my favorites, it's a shame your comment is rooted in negativity and therefore not upvote-worthy.

How can you forget to include Alex Van Halen and Ginger Baker?

What about Quest Love mothafuckah!

Up-votes at first then down-votes. I guess people don't like Quest Love?

Ah well, HN giveth and HN taketh away...

My debilitating chronic illness has certainly changed the way I make decisions and value things, for the better I believe.