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Joined: Nov 2017
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OP
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I have been playing piano for the last week, after spending a long time without playing. The last two days, I have been experiencing mild pain in my right hand and wrist. I was confused about this since I know I have good technique on the pieces I used to play (I could play them well, and without any pain whatsoever, when I used to play), and the new pieces I'm playing should not be causing issues either (one is easy and has no technical pitfalls, the other is about my level but I have been playing very slowly as I learn the notes, so this should not be a problem). The pain seems to occur no matter what I'm playing, so I really feel like technique is not the issue here. I talked to my mum, who is a doctor, about this, and she said that my hand was probably not used to this level of activity after being inactive for so long. I have been practicing for 1-2 hours a day on most days, so it makes sense to me that the issue is probably that I have been using the hand too much. I was told to keep practicing but cut back the time I spend, and slowly build up to the desired practice session as my hand gets used to playing again. (She also examined my hand and said that I have not done any damage).
Has this happened to anybody else, when playing piano after a long time, or when practicing much more than usual?
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I suspect 1-2 hours per day is indeed too much, although it might also depends on the breaks you take, the pieces you are practising, the ‘lost’ tension free technique which might also have to be recovered. I would start simple, short periods and build up, but total rest and recovery first.
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Since you weren't playing prior to this, your muscles and tendons have lost some flexibility and tone. Going from nothing to 1-2 hours is probably too big of a jump to get right back into old pieces that you could play with having the momentum of hours/days/weeks/months before.
Take a couple of days off for the pain to stop. Then start with 15 minutes/day and see if the pain comes back at all. Do not play older pieces that were the hardest you could play at the time, but pick easier things that you can do slowly and easily - something several levels lower than where you left off at. If that is fine for a few days, then gradually increase the time. When you can play for an hour, then work your way up to harder repertoire, but this should take several weeks to get back in the swing of things.
Luckily there's a lot of great repertoire to choose from at all levels.
Lastly, you may want to check the regulation on your piano. If it's digital, it is possible the action is not up to handling some of the difficult stuff you play. I think this is probably not the problem, however, so first eliminate the possibility that you just need to gradually work your way in.
private piano/voice teacher FT
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I've often wondered about this. I frequently get wrist pain from playing the piano; but I frequently get pains in my legs after running, or in my shoulders after lifting weights. It never really occurred to me that demanding, repetitive practice of any physical activity ought to be pain-free, and yet in musicianship it's very often claimed to be a bad sign.
I suppose my concern is that pain when playing the piano might be a sign of crappy technique, whilst pain after running or lifting weights is a sign that I'm alive. I wonder if there is a way to distinguish crappy-technique pain from the honest pain of effort?
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Personally I do practice every day. Some days up to 2h at most. Every 1/2h you're supposed to take a 10m break. Right now I'm working on a movement out of a Beethoven Sonata that is 4 pages long with a lot of repetition & similar passages. Need to practice with an estimate like trying to perfect 1 page every 2 days including note accuracy & getting the right tempo. When you start to learn a new piece, the issue is that the notes is unfamiliar and there may be sections with tricky fingerings. There may be a tendency to push yourself to learn the song as much as possible which can be counterproductive. Need to run the piece through slowly a few times and then repeat only the sections with a lot of misses and never from the beginning to the end until all the misses in between are fixed. Repeating too many times can put a lot of stress on your hand muscles.
If you played a violin before, you know that 1 hand is using the bow to make the sound and the other just press the finger board for the right notes. I've been watching a few videos on YouTube from Edna Golansky of the Golansky Institute on how to relax the hands. When playing the piano, a lot of people tend to use their fingers like a hammer to generate sound. Like playing the violin, your fingers should be loose and just for choosing the right keys. The weight for pushing the keys down should be coming from your forearm and your elbow even with loud passages. 1 young man was practicing constantly until he felt so much pain in his hands that the doctor diagnosed him with Repetitive Strain Injury and recommended that he undergo surgery and time off. Meanwhile, he consulted Ms. Golansky and in 1 session, she told the young man the things he had done wrong. Not that he was playing the wrong notes but simply not using arm rotation and putting stress on the wrong muscles. Without surgery, he was able to play the advanced level pieces that he had difficulty with just a short while ago.
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I've often wondered about this. I frequently get wrist pain from playing the piano; but I frequently get pains in my legs after running, or in my shoulders after lifting weights. It never really occurred to me that demanding, repetitive practice of any physical activity ought to be pain-free, and yet in musicianship it's very often claimed to be a bad sign.
I suppose my concern is that pain when playing the piano might be a sign of crappy technique, whilst pain after running or lifting weights is a sign that I'm alive. I wonder if there is a way to distinguish crappy-technique pain from the honest pain of effort? With piano, it's less about muscles being used and more about tendons. You can strengthen muscles, but not tendons. So when there's pain after playing (or during), that's a sign that there's a technical issue, either one concerning misuse, overuse, or a combination of the two. The OP hasn't been playing in a while - not sure how long they've had a break for - so it's likely that the technique isn't as solid as it once was. Combine that with practicing for long periods and pain will set in. Luckily, the OP claims that they had good technique before, so the body should remember how to get back to that. However, I do think that lessons with a good teacher that knows about how to teach good technique would help get them up and running safely.
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...when there's pain after playing (or during), that's a sign that there's a technical issue, either one concerning misuse, overuse, or a combination of the two.
In sport, overuse is called "training" To use muscles beyond their usual endurance is almost what distinguishes training from, well, not training. I'd agree that tendons and their associated structures should not hurt after training, even though muscles are expected to, at least a little. Serious, competitive athletes often training until a biopsy of their muscle is indistinguishable from that of a person with a degenerative disease. Opinions different about whether this is a good thing or not. What I'm wondering whether it's always and forever the case that pain when playing the piano is a sign of poor technique. Would a person with flawless technique, whatever that amounts to never, ever experience pain when practicing? Not even a little? My worry is that there is a chicken-and-egg problem here: if you can't practice for long-ish periods of time, you can't improve your technique, because you can't practice for... and so on. Unless, of course, improving technique is more of an intellectual exercise, rather than a physical one. But is it?
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What I'm wondering whether it's always and forever the case that pain when playing the piano is a sign of poor technique. Would a person with flawless technique, whatever that amounts to never, ever experience pain when practicing? Not even a little? Pain's subjectivity is important here. The majority of the times I practice, I feel normal after practicing. If I've had a particularly long or vigorous session, I might feel 'fatigued' after playing. If I start to feel that fatigue coming on during playing, I'll usually be aware enough to break for the day. Having had some computer- + piano- related injuries in the past, I also know what 'pain' feels like. When you're feeling 'pain,' it is really, really easy to convince yourself that it's just 'fatigue'. Stay in a condition of continued pain under the guise that it's just 'fatigue' or that you'll 'develop stamina to deal with it' and you're on a road to permanent injury. As to whether flawless technique would yield no fatigue at all, maybe one day I'll know. However, it's more likely that the reduction in fatigue I feel nowadays is the result of better technique at the keyboard than conditioning in the traditional sense.
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Joined: Apr 2007
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...when there's pain after playing (or during), that's a sign that there's a technical issue, either one concerning misuse, overuse, or a combination of the two.
In sport, overuse is called "training" To use muscles beyond their usual endurance is almost what distinguishes training from, well, not training. I'd agree that tendons and their associated structures should not hurt after training, even though muscles are expected to, at least a little. Serious, competitive athletes often training until a biopsy of their muscle is indistinguishable from that of a person with a degenerative disease. Opinions different about whether this is a good thing or not. What I'm wondering whether it's always and forever the case that pain when playing the piano is a sign of poor technique. Would a person with flawless technique, whatever that amounts to never, ever experience pain when practicing? Not even a little? As I said, playing piano is not like a sport. You are not dealing with large muscles, but very small ones that get fatigued quickly, and should really be used minimally. This is why there are places like Golandsky Institute and the Taubman technique. If you experience pain while playing or afterwards, it means you went too far. The warning sings your body sends are fatigue, excessive tension, and numbness. If you ignore those things and continue without fixing the technique that is causing it, then you will experience pain as the next symptom, often in the form of carpal tunnel syndrome. My worry is that there is a chicken-and-egg problem here: if you can't practice for long-ish periods of time, you can't improve your technique, because you can't practice for... and so on. Unless, of course, improving technique is more of an intellectual exercise, rather than a physical one. But is it? You misunderstand the advice being given by myself and others. People can practice piano for 4 hours a day without pain. BUT they need to rest after 30-45 minutes at a time. The advice given specifically to the OP was to help them back into the routine of practicing. It sounds like they went from 0 practicing to 1-2 hours, and playing the difficult music they could play after presumably years of building up to that. A beginner practicing for an hour may not be as bad because they won't be able to play something as technically demanding. Still, it is a good habit to take breaks every 30 minutes or so. Please do a search on this and the Pianist Corner forum and other websites about pianist injuries. It is NOT considered the "norm" or healthy at all. It will eventually prevent you from playing piano if not addressed properly.
private piano/voice teacher FT
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As to whether flawless technique would yield no fatigue at all, maybe one day I'll know. However, it's more likely that the reduction in fatigue I feel nowadays is the result of better technique at the keyboard than conditioning in the traditional sense.
I remember an interview with Ilya Itin in which he said that what initially attracted him to Taubman technique was that he felt fatigue after playing. He said he had assumed it was normal and everyone felt that way, only to learn it could be eliminated. He was already a virtuoso and is now on the faculty of the Golandsky Institute. Haven't heard whether he has absolutely no fatigue no matter how many hours he plays. Given the limits of human possibility, I think there has to be a point where anyone would be tired, no matter what the activity. Anyway, for me (having studied Taubman technique), my brain gets tired way before I would even think about having tired hands.
1989 Baldwin R
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OP
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Thank you everybody for your comments! I just played some of the easier pieces, for a shorter time, today, and was pleased that I experienced no pain. I will continue to do this as Morodiene suggested. I will also take breaks during longer practices as various people mentioned.
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...when there's pain after playing (or during), that's a sign that there's a technical issue, either one concerning misuse, overuse, or a combination of the two.
In sport, overuse is called "training" To use muscles beyond their usual endurance is almost what distinguishes training from, well, not training. Loose exploration. I don't have expertise here, but I've been toggling between these two worlds for a few years due to solving my own issues . My adventures started when I took up violin as a new instrument and increasing discomfort kicked in over time - these eventually turned out to have technical reasons, with a number of causes figured out. This instrument stopped for the time being, I had a piano again after several decades - this had been self-taught as a child so I already knew there would be technical issues. (There were). In the meantime the first scenario had made me aware of poor body use in general, which the start of aging made worse. I almost ended up using a cane a decade ago. I joined a gym and got a personal trainer, which brings in the other part: "sport". In the gym, with the trainer, there was a thing called "proper form". If your body is aligned wrong, you risk injury or at least the exercise will be ineffective. After the music thing, I was keen on form. My trainer told me that I made good progress because I worked steadily, consistently, in a focused manner with proper form, upping it gradually .... the same principles as for an instrument. As an older, almost "elderly", unfit female, this was all new territory. There are similarities and differences. In weight training, the muscles are torn down by going past your limit and rebuild "stronger and better". This will give aches. Each muscle group must be given time to rebuild, so you only go at one of them twice a week. In practising music, you go at it every day. On the sports side you have aches from the muscles rebuilding. You also have aches and twinges from improper form. That part is like in music. Some things that caused aches and/or technical problems on the instrument: locking up any joint anywhere, a flow of movement blocked anywhere, using muscular effort with strain instead of the momentum of motion, not knowing how to release after "impact", keeping a rigid upright "posture" with stiff neck. I discovered that on modern violins with the much greater tension in the strings, you don't have to press them all the way to the fingerboard, which stiffens the hand - I did similar on piano originally. Stiff hands can travel into the neck; stiff shoulders can travel down to the fingers, which in turn can impact the wrist. It's a whole chain. Some of the issues found at the piano, identified by a teacher, were actually addressed in the gym, with my trainer. He had me stack invisible boxes moving a light weight from center body to up-left, up-right, from an aligned central core. Go from that to moving to the high left or right piano keys. Anyway, those were my adventures in these two areas. GETTING OLDER is another factor. What you got away with at 20 may start giving warning signs when you're 50 or 60. I've been told to look for old instrumentalists who still play well. These will have good technique and form. Rubinstein. So old that he was half blind, playing with control and sensitivity.
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I vote for your mother! She nailed it on the head.
All the best / Steve
Bösendorfer 170
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