About Gentle Octaves
I am Fergus P. O'Connor, a manual osteopath, psychology graduate, and guitarist. For nearly 20 years I have worked with pain, movement restriction, rehabilitation, and the nervous system.
Gentle Octaves exists because musicians are often given two unhelpful choices: ignore the pain or stop playing. There is usually more worth understanding between those two extremes.
The approach
Playing discomfort is rarely explained by one tight muscle, one imperfect joint, or one “bad” posture. Gentle Octaves looks at the relationship between movement, setup, load, recovery, confidence, and the demands of the music itself.
The aim is not to promise a cure. It is to give adult guitarists clearer questions, practical changes to test, and a more sustainable way to build playing capacity.
A practical first step
Check your setup, warm-up, hand tension, and warning signs in one short resource.
