Thumbless Guitar Playing

As some of you may know I cut my thumb off with a table saw 5 years ago. It got reattached but it has made playing the guitar impossible as I can't get enough leverage on the neck to hold the strings on the frets down sufficiently. If any of you ever heard me play a guitar you might consider this a sign of there being a divine being in action within our current universe.

Regardless to the will of the universe, I went looking for a solution to my problem and discovered the Yamaha EZ-AG - a guitar synthesizer which was actually designed to teach people how to play the guitar. It's about the size of a small-body guitar. The frets have push buttons and the right-hand strings are about 6 inches long. There is a built in synthesizer which plays through a speaker situated under the string portion.

Its the illegitimate offspring from a drunken night between a Guitar Hero controller and a Midi Synthesizer.

I can hear my guitar playing friends like Paul Dyson and Dave Harvey throwing up on their keyboards as they read this.

Again, irregardless of the nausea it may induce, I purchased one at an aggressive price off ebay, and I have to say I'm delighted! I can actually play this thing and it doesn't sound half bad.

Its a little weird to play initially as the strings have a huge amount of movement and seem very loose - and of course there is no feedback between the plucking on the right hand and your fingers on the fret. Also, to 'still' the strings you have to touch the silver plate on the bridge (whilst ensuring you're in contact with the plate on the back of the neck). This stills all the strings at once, or rather the tone generator generating the string sounds, which is a little inconvenient at times. I believe there is a different version (only US?) which is the EZ-EG (electric) which allows individual string control but it's not that important to me.

There are various demos and teaching modes on-board. The frets light up to show you where to hold and there is the ability to do strumming or chord practice separately. Quite cute and I can see why it would at least get someone started but its not like a real guitar. And the frets lighting up can be a but annoying when you're playing it normally - doesn't seem to be a way to switch it off!

The acoustic guitar voice is quite effective through the built-in speaker and I quite like the grand piano voice too (but you need to adopt a different playing style to use it effectively) but all the other tones are a bit tinny and 'fake' to me. The good news is I can use it as a Midi controller so I should be able to hook it up to my Korg X5D and use its more capable synthesis. I say should because I have failed to achieve this so far. I cannot make it work. Clearly, I am masquerading as a technologist. I've even RTFM'd after I tracked down the FMs - but to no avail. Midi IN, Midi OUT, Midi SHAKEITALLABOUT. Argh.