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Generally, if you are involved in intense activity of wrist or fingers, you can have some soreness. It is very, very important to be very relaxed when typing or being a cashier or playing the piano. An acoustic piano requires quite a bit of strength. I would suggest that you be very gentle of your wrists such as carrying heavy bags of groceries, etc. I have typed since I was 13 and I am now in my 60s. I have time to time have had wrist discomport. It is usually under stress of the fingers and wrist that pain or discomfort develops. I play an acoustic piano by I only play it softly as a beginner. I suspect if I play the piano forte all the time I might have wrists pain. I suspect you will be just fine if you just be gentle for a while and hopefully the discomfort will diminish and you can slowly and cautiously return to your regular piano playing.
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No problem. In that case, keep in mind a few things: 1. Do not "press down" the key after you have played it. Use just enough weight to keep it down, without forcing. 2. Do not "stretch" your fingers out. (Press your fingers together so they are all touching. Then, spread them out as wide as you can so none of them touch. This spread out form is "stretching" and can cause tension.) 3. Do not "lock" your fingers, hands, wrists, or arms in any one position. Each must move throughout the playing, whether it's a simple trill or a complex passage. If they're "locked", it's tension. These are probably the top three easiest "tension checkers," though I'm sure others may have more ideas for you. I hope it helps. I'm having left wrist issues, and I think I'm guilty of all three of those. I really want to work on correcting this with my teacher, but my wrist just isn't recovering :-(
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No problem. In that case, keep in mind a few things: 1. Do not "press down" the key after you have played it. Use just enough weight to keep it down, without forcing. 2. Do not "stretch" your fingers out. (Press your fingers together so they are all touching. Then, spread them out as wide as you can so none of them touch. This spread out form is "stretching" and can cause tension.) 3. Do not "lock" your fingers, hands, wrists, or arms in any one position. Each must move throughout the playing, whether it's a simple trill or a complex passage. If they're "locked", it's tension. These are probably the top three easiest "tension checkers," though I'm sure others may have more ideas for you. I hope it helps. I'm having left wrist issues, and I think I'm guilty of all three of those. I really want to work on correcting this with my teacher, but my wrist just isn't recovering :-( If it's bad enough to cause significant aching/pain, you may need to take some time off. Also, keep in mind that other uses of the hand away from playing may exacerbate the issue. If you hold a phone in your hand all day, if you type incorrectly on a keyboard (usually with wrists resting on a surface, whether gel or not), if you finger rapidly through pages of copy, etc. Any of these can causes repeated stress-related injuries. There are hundreds of examples, but the most important thing to keep in mind is this: inflammation builds over time. You won't necessarily feel it while performing the specific task. You may only feel it hours later, and often immediately before going to sleep. If you want to take a look at/tackle any specific problems, I'd be happy to try and help, whether within or outside the realm of the piano.
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
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Where do you live? There may be members in here who can help you find a good teacher. I may be able to help. And there is the teacher's sub-forum you can post in. Thanks for the offer. I have some local leads to follow in the coming days. If they don't pan out, I'll then look for some additional input. BTW, I live in southwestern RI (aka God's country, except for our politicians).
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Southwestern RI? I'm very familiar. Used to have a house in Westerly, about 2 blocks off the beach. But I haven't been up there in a few years now.
The closest I can get is the Boston suburbs.. which is likely too far for you to travel for lessons. I'll ask around up there and see if anyone I know might know someone in RI for you. I'll PM you if I get a hit.
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
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Dear 88slow,
"...we have recently acquired a vintage Mason B to replace an old and untunable family instrument."
I like the advice you have received here--- and I can see how such an instrument would be both a motivator and a temptation which any pianist would find hard to resist. Still, you are wise to stop trouble before it gets started, because it can turn out to be a big and difficult problem if it's not turned aside.
In the circumstances, you might as well make it a point to ask candidate teachers if they are knowledgeable and experienced in helping students to avoid physical problems that can come from playing. This will not be the case with all of them, even in your area, though if you threw a dart at a map of metro Boston it would probably lodge in the roof of a conservatory or university music school (or at least a concert hall). It is possible that calling such a school could yield teacher recommendations.
Meanwhile, even if a vid of your playing is not possible, how about a still photo? A thousand words, you know. One bad mistake in seat height or seated posture, or of the alignment of hand/wrist/arm with the keys, is all it takes. I'll give you one example: some people sit way too low, so that instead of pushing the keys down with a fairly straight wrist, they instead pull the keys down with their wrists bent almost at 90°. It is a disaster in the making; the tendons resent this badly.
I can't say what is the story with your wrist discomfort from what we know, and what to do depends on what is wrong. One would doubt that you have had time to develop an overuse disorder (rest, ice/NSAIDS, correct technique); it could be as simple as a little touch of arthritis (and in that case, movement IS the treatment). Not that I'm a doctor--- merely a student who has been through some of this trouble myself.
I'll wish you the best of luck with it, and I hope you'll write back and let us know how it goes.
Clef
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If it's bad enough to cause significant aching/pain, you may need to take some time off. Also, keep in mind that other uses of the hand away from playing may exacerbate the issue. If you hold a phone in your hand all day, if you type incorrectly on a keyboard (usually with wrists resting on a surface, whether gel or not), if you finger rapidly through pages of copy, etc. Any of these can causes repeated stress-related injuries. There are hundreds of examples, but the most important thing to keep in mind is this: inflammation builds over time. You won't necessarily feel it while performing the specific task. You may only feel it hours later, and often immediately before going to sleep. If you want to take a look at/tackle any specific problems, I'd be happy to try and help, whether within or outside the realm of the piano. I haven't played the piano with my left hand for quite a few months now. I have continued my lessons, but we are doing right hand only practice. I'm curious about your typing comments. I just bought a rest to put in front of my keyboard at work, and a "mouse bean" for my mouse hand, even though my right hand is fine. It feels like they are keeping my hands in a better position than when I don't use them. If I read your post correctly, you are saying these things are bad? I've been typing for about 35 years, and it's never caused me problems, btw. When I started having wrist problems (about 8 months after starting piano), everything seems to aggravate it at least sometimes.
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It seems I have opened quite a hot topic with this thread. It would be interesting to hear additional accounts of personal experiences with soreness and/or stiffness issues. For the moment, I am paying attention to any symptoms that arise and curtailing my practicing as necessary. At this point, my symptoms are minor, but I don't want them to escalate.
I'm hoping that with some conditioning of the piano-playing muscles, these issues will diminish.
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As a 67 year old with FMS I have many physical issues.
Some things that are helping me to help myself and my teacher to help me are:
Thomas Mark’s book What Every Pianist Needs to Know about the Body – after going through the book I also acquired the DVD, but have not checked it out yet
Barbara Lister-Sink’s DVD Freeing the Caged Bird
Finding a really good Neuro-Muscular Massage Therapist who is interested enough to have reviewed Sink’s DVD and Mark’s book
Having a really good teacher who watches me like a hawk and picks up on tension and bad form
I just started the first book of exercises in Piano Games by Terrence Rust – these are uncovering all sorts of tension and weakness issues
I have learned from my teacher to have patience, to work exercises and scales slowly while paying close attention to hand position and tension – and to expect that progress will be made – but it will take some time – each little step mastered has become a really big thing for me – and I’ve learned to feel really good about mastering something that many would take for granted
I wish you the best – just be very patient with yourself – I think it’s great that you picked up on the problem and realize the importance of dealing with it early
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As a 2-month newbie aspiring non-classical pianist, I'm looking for some wisdom-
I'm advised to practice 30 minutes every day. By 20 minutes or so, I begin to feel a slight soreness in my left wrist. I'm confident that I am using good hand posture and attribute the soreness to lack of conditioning in the wrist muscles, joints, etc.
What should my strategy be for this- stop playing when this happens? Make the practices shorter? Do multiple short sessions? Just keep going? The soreness is very mild but I have read horror stories of serious and permanent injury.
I don't want to let my enthusiasm do me in!
LOL! Now you sound like a guitar player! +1 to shorter sessions.
Last edited by Bane; 12/01/12 09:39 PM.
www.soundcloud.com/btrailblazerCable-Nelson upright piano, Casio WK-200, Mackie MR5MK2 monitors, Cubase Artist 7, Steinberg's The Grand 3, Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 interface, Asus R500a-RS52 Windows 8, i5-3230M 2.6 gHz, 6GB RAM, 750GB HD (5400RPM)
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As a 67 year old with FMS I have many physical issues. What is FMS?
Blues and Boogie-Woogie piano teacher.
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rocket88 -- FMS is Fibromyalgia Syndrome -- the aspects that affect piano playing are chronic overall pain and sore, weak muscles.
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Blues and Boogie-Woogie piano teacher.
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An update- I have been using shorter but more frequent practice sessions and watching my hand posture carefully. These efforts seem to have all but eliminated the difficulties. Of course, while I am watching my posture, I manage to hit more ♪ ♫ wrong notes! They never said it would be easy...
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I have also been having hand soreness lately.. It actually does not hurt during practice but I can feel some pain in my fingers and wrists especially when my hands are cold - thanks to cold season.
My piano learning journey began something like four (4) months ago now and I might have been a little over enthusiastic in regards to practice hours.
I have read that many hours of practice a day should not cause hand soreness on it's own. The soreness is most likely caused by bad posture, tension when playing and unnatural and/or bad finger technique.
For my part, the main issue I can see is the tension when I'm practicing mainly when sight reading. I can feel the tension in my neck so I guess this can be related in some degree to the hand soreness I have been experiencing. I now try to relax the best I can when practicing.. My teacher also suggested me to keep my wrists a little higher when practicing but overall it was not too bad.
As I don't want this problem to deteriorate any further, I googled this subject quite a bit and have read some very good comments on the book "What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body" by Thomas Mark. DinaP also mentioned it in this thread. It wants to make you understand the body mechanisms a little better so you are more aware of what can hurt your body when practicing (or even at the computer keyboard, etc.).
I have not received the book from Amazon yet but I'll certainly provide some feedback here once I complete reading it.
Yamaha YDP-181 Alfred's All-in-One Level 2
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Slowpoke that is great news! I'm so glad it's helping. I also find I hit more wrong notes when I'm watching my hand positions.
Becca Began: 01-12-11 Roland RD300NX
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If it's bad enough to cause significant aching/pain, you may need to take some time off. Also, keep in mind that other uses of the hand away from playing may exacerbate the issue. If you hold a phone in your hand all day, if you type incorrectly on a keyboard (usually with wrists resting on a surface, whether gel or not), if you finger rapidly through pages of copy, etc. Any of these can causes repeated stress-related injuries. There are hundreds of examples, but the most important thing to keep in mind is this: inflammation builds over time. You won't necessarily feel it while performing the specific task. You may only feel it hours later, and often immediately before going to sleep. If you want to take a look at/tackle any specific problems, I'd be happy to try and help, whether within or outside the realm of the piano. I haven't played the piano with my left hand for quite a few months now. I have continued my lessons, but we are doing right hand only practice. I'm curious about your typing comments. I just bought a rest to put in front of my keyboard at work, and a "mouse bean" for my mouse hand, even though my right hand is fine. It feels like they are keeping my hands in a better position than when I don't use them. If I read your post correctly, you are saying these things are bad? I've been typing for about 35 years, and it's never caused me problems, btw. When I started having wrist problems (about 8 months after starting piano), everything seems to aggravate it at least sometimes. Hello there! Let me try to address your response in 'groups', so I can make sure to touch upon each one of your points. The order in which I do so is not necessarily indicative of importance.. I'll go through your post chronologically to try and keep some order to my thoughts. You first mentioned the keyboard/mouse pads. I don't want you to think I'm against them, per se. What I mean to say is this: the pads help reduce stress injury by absorbing some shock. However, if one typed with "correct technique", the pads would be useless because your wrists would never touch them. Just like you need to keep your wrists up (to keep them from 'breaking') while playing the piano, you should also do the same at the keyboard. With a mouse, only your fingertips should touch it. This will reduce and in some cases, eliminate stress injuries while typing/mousing. To your second point, this is actually a far more interesting discussion--and one I really didn't know much about until I was twenty years into playing the piano. The wrist is built to handle quite a bit of use. However, it is also very sensitive. Stress injuries and inflammation caused by environmental factors (tendonitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc) tend to happen over long periods of time. In many cases, years of misuse. Sometimes, the misuse is so minor (typing on a keyboard) that you don't even notice it. But then you add another stressor (playing the piano), and it exacerbates the injury to the point that you do notice--usually accompanied by significant discomfort and/or pain. I found out about these compound stressors in my very first job out of college. I was a sales rep, and spent at least five hours a day on the phone. I always held the phone in my left hand. After the first three years, I could barely play with my left hand--but my right hand was fine. I learned about compound stress issues, and tried an experiment. I stopped playing the piano for three months, and switched answering the phone to my right hand. Then, I went back to playing. This time, my left hand was much better, but after about a year-and-a-half, my right hand started to hurt. So, I bought a headset. My right hand healed, but my left hand never completely healed. I still have the issue to this day, though the symptoms are far less cumbersome than they were. If I took six months to a year off, it might heal completely, but while I can stop playing the piano, I use the computer for business. So, for your case, you may have only had a very minor and manageable stress issue when typing, but once you added piano to the list, your body was no longer able to heal as quickly or completely between uses, and it caused a more recognizable stress issue. I wouldn't say injury, but certainly if you continued that might be the case. There are ways to combat it, but it is difficult and typically requires a complete retraining on how to type on a keyboard. Fortunately, since you have piano experience, I can describe the basics quickly and easily using piano terms. Keep the wrists up (don't break them by resting them on the desk or a pad). Don't reach with your fingers for a letter. Move your hands/arms just like you would at the piano. It feels weird at first, because now your entire hand and arm is moving (including your elbows), but it is much much better for your hands. Don't grip the keyboard. Press the key you need and move on. Don't "twist" to hit keys out of alignment with your hands (parenthesis, dashes, backspace, shift, tab, etc). This will help, and I sincerely hope that it does.
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
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Thanks Derulux. And sorry for hijacking your thread, 88slowpoke. I'm glad your wrist is feeling better.
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I recently took a break of piano for one week and started to play again just to find myself waking up the next morning with the same pain I had before the break.
I have read many articles on the web and have applied most precautions explained in "What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body" by Thomas Mark...
As a complete beginner, my technique is far from perfect and I was wondering any of you guys know a teacher knowledgeable in piano related injuries in Montreal, Canada? I know something is wrong with my technique but I am just not able to pin-point it.
Just so you know, I already have a piano teacher but he thinks my technique is just fine. He is a very fine teacher but I think he does not know much about injuries as his own technique is quite at the opposite of some of the best practices I have recently read about.
Thanks so much.
Yamaha YDP-181 Alfred's All-in-One Level 2
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I recently took a break of piano for one week and started to play again just to find myself waking up the next morning with the same pain I had before the break.
I have read many articles on the web and have applied most precautions explained in "What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body" by Thomas Mark...
As a complete beginner, my technique is far from perfect and I was wondering any of you guys know a teacher knowledgeable in piano related injuries in Montreal, Canada? I know something is wrong with my technique but I am just not able to pin-point it.
Just so you know, I already have a piano teacher but he thinks my technique is just fine. He is a very fine teacher but I think he does not know much about injuries as his own technique is quite at the opposite of some of the best practices I have recently read about.
Thanks so much. Can you post a high-res video of you playing something technically challenging? If not, Bluoh is offering skype lessons.. might be able to help you out. If those options don't work, I also PM'd you.
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
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Piano
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Piano
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