Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.piano Subject: Re: Recovery from tendinitis, and piano teacher search Date: Tue, 03 Nov 1998 17:19:18 GMT > I am recovering from tendinitis in my hands, and have just recently > (Hallelujah!) been allowed to play the piano again. Does anyone have any > suggestions on how to restore my hands to their former shape? I used to > play very technical pieces before I hurt my hands, and would like to get > back to pieces like Liszt's "La Campanella" (which is what I was learning > before I got hurt). Also, are there any piano teachers in the Bay Area > that have had some experience with recently recovered RSI sufferers? The good news is that you should be able to play pieces that you've played before once you've fully recovered. The bad news is if you've hurt yourself once, the chances of you doing it again are high since the tendons in your arm are now weaker than they once were...but this can be avoided. Chances are that you hurt yourself because of faulty technique...like pushing through a passage when your arms were tired or your wrist were tight. All I can say is that, regardless of how difficult the piece you're playing is, you should NEVER feel lke you're straining your arms, hands, or wrists to play it. So, I would seriously analyse your technique before you return to more difficult pieces. I suggest checking out the website on musicians and injuries for more information. The URL is http://www.engr.unl.edu/eeshop/music.html. I also suggest getting the video "Freeing the caged Bird" by Barbara Lister-Sink which goes into more detail about the philosophy of playing I mentioned above. Whatever you do, just be sure to take it slow and don't overpractice! Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.piano Subject: Re: Recovery from tendinitis, and piano teacher search Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 14:14:04 +0000 > > The good news is that you should be able to play pieces that you've played > before once you've fully recovered. The bad news is if you've hurt yourself > once, the chances of you doing it again are high since the tendons in your > arm are now weaker than they once were...but this can be avoided. Chances For what it is worth, I found the above statement to be true in my experience, but it was foolish use of Hanon that gave me my 2nd problem. I now will only attempt things that I can play in a relaxed fashion, and I'm building my technique again really. You can go quite along way with tension (at least in terms of amateur playing) but you head down a dead end. So it's easier Haydn for me at present and the Beethoven is shelved for a couple of years (or more ??) Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.piano Subject: Re: Recovery from tendinitis, and piano teacher search What if you have small hands, and stuff with large streatches is giving you premonitions of injury? I find I can make most of the right hand streatches, but my left often cannot. My right seems to be more flexible than my left, so I started to try doing inversions and inverted chords up and down the keyboard with that stiffer hand, to try to loosen it up. A pain across the palm of the hand made me stop immediately. But while my finger span is C-D at max, and my hands don't seem to be getting any bigger, I can't really just forget about some of these pieces written by guys with extraordinarilly large hands. Is there some way that one can gently ease into this widely spaced material? Any special exercises? Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.piano Subject: Re: Recovery from tendinitis, and piano teacher search I think you will find that just normal exercise over the years will increase your reach somewhat. However, if you can reach a normal octave that is all that is really necessary. When an extended chord is written, it is often very easy and perhaps even required to pick up the extra note(s) in the other hand. Often if you see an 11th chord written you will find that the 11th is the melody note in use. The same with 9th and etc. These are the only two you are likely to run into in the real world. Try to see the overall scheme of things instead of just looking at what you think you must do with one hand and it will all be clearer I think. Some will disagree with me, but I see myself as having 10 fingers and I am not terribly concerned with which side of my body they are attached to so long as they all connect to my brain. Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.piano I can't really span more than 9 notes either. There are some composers who were reputed to have a very large hand span, like Liszt -- 12 notes. Maybe their keys were a little smaller or something. (there's apparently a new keyboard that's out where the keys are a tiny bit narrower. Anyone know about this? Anyway, whatever you do, when you're stretching... close your hand once in a while, and then open. Gently. You need to relax your muscles in order to continue the stretch. Hey, I also can't do the splits, but know that some people just practice by gently stretching gradually, over a long period of time. Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.piano Subject: Re: Recovery from tendinitis, and piano teacher search If your hands are small, you CAN'T do stretching exersises them to make them bigger. If you keep trying to stretch for chords you can't reach, you will undoubtedly injure yourself sooner or later, perhaps permanently (I know personally of two pianists injured themselves this way). So, you have two choices: 1) Don't play stuff that requires big stretches. 2) Play the stuff with big chords, but break them or roll them up if you can't reach them. I wouldn't feel too bad if you have to do this, I've heard Askenazy do it on some of his Rachmaninoff and Scriabin recordings.