A musicians fight to play music.

This Saturday April 19 marks the official return of Nao Vang, a guitarist who was one of the creators of Cerro Negro and also was the leader of the wildly popular flamenco fusion group Zambra. Nao was also the lead guitarist/composer for the most successful hmong group ever, Paradise. Paradise had a following big enough to sell out large concert venues in Fresno and Wisconsin, where hmong communites thrive the most Among many attributes Nao is the youngest guitarist ever to win Juan Serrano's Flamenco Guitar Competition at the age of 12. During his formative years as a young musician, he played what every young guitarist played Metallica, Slayer, Pantera.. etc etc. But a few things set Nao apart from others, his interest in Classical and Flamenco coupled with a monster technique and a drive to practice the same amount of hours most of us spent on our video games. This was most apparent during his time at Roosevelt School of The Arts when Nao would distance himself from other musicians intensely study classical routines that would help develop him into the future musician he became.

I first met Nao around 1999 when he asked me to be apart of Zambra. I remember being ecstatic because alot of my friends saw there shows. Though I was completely not ready for being a violinist in a band, he somehow put up with me. I learned alot with Zambra and has probably been the most influential music experience I've had so far. Nao Watching Nao play on the guitar is like watching a great painter work, his fingers move with such fluidity, speed, and accuracy its almost as if he's connected with the instrument. I remember well people would be in awe of his playing. Be it Electric Guitar or Acoustic Guitar I've yet to see too many with the same amoutng mastery and control he had on his instrument.

During the year of 2004 Nao started to have dull pains in his hand and wrist. At the time, we didn't think too much of it. I mean, Nao was the kind of guy who practiced 4 or 5 hours every day after he got back from work. We figured he just needed to take a break or slow down. My debut at Tower Theater "no boundaries" was the concert was the beginning of a high point of my career, but also marked the start of a low point for Nao. I remember success of the night being a catch-22. I could hear a few erratic notes coming from Nao during the night, not something I'm used to. That was the last time I've worked with Nao in three years.
. Nao had no idea what was going on.

He was a kickboxer and often would hit and kick a punching bag, we knew he had snapped tendon in his wrist soon after the concert. So the plan was a surgery would put Nao out of comission for a few months, and we'd be back on track again. Well months flew by, surgery after surgery passed and with little to no results, Nao could still not move his hand. Sometime later, little movement came and progress was being seen.

From here, Nao and I had lost touch at this point. Though it puzzled me. I could understand, here I am developing as a young musician playing gigs here and there. Nao can't play a note. When music is as essential as water to a person, ataking it away means taking away meaning. I don't think he wanted to see or hear us play because it hurt to much that he couldn't be up there and reminded him of what he couldn't do. Every once in a while I would call him to see how things were going, and to make sure he knew whenever he was ready there was a spot open for him. In 2006, Nao finally was treated by a specialist in San Francisco who gave a name to what he was going through. Focal Dystonia, a neurological disease. By this time, Nao was right in the middle of this condition The only way I can descibeFocal Dystonia is to think of when you have a power surge in your house.The wires are burnt out. Thats what happens to your nerves, they cannot transmit to your fingers the signals that your brain is sending. Your fingers move and twist in opposite ways of what your trying to do. It's ugly and its happened to quite a number of famous musicians. Funny thing is, hardly anyone knows about this and there's not much on the internet about this condition. So Nao and his doctors went though all of this thinking that surgery was the answer.

Recovery is a slow and long process, you have to relearn evey individual movement in your hand and fingers. So for Nao he basically lost nerve memory of a 15 year career of playing guitar, I know this was deeply depressing for him. Nao tried to seperate himself from music selling his guitars, pedals, amps..everything related to playing. But a individuals passion doesn't die so easily and Nao has slowly but surely redevloped his technique movement by movement. Its a miracle he's done this only in about a year. The famous pianist Glenn Gould spent 30 years trying to to get his technique back. Nao still has a long way to go, but through the struggle he's learned something. That when your greatest accomplishments are stripped of you, you really find out who you are. Nao chose to fight.

- Patrick Contreras

Nao is playing with us this Saturday at Palomino's at 9pm.