If I play fast stuff or scales really fast, my left hand drags like mad, it's sometimes 2 notes behind in scales. It can't go any quicker though coz I got RSI in my wrist and since then if I play anything fast it hurts. It's doing my head in, and I know it's a case of building it back up again, but I used to be *really* strict about getting things bang in time, especially with scales. Has anyone got any good exercises, which won't hurt too much, please?!

its really annoying when the left hand messes up something isnt it! i get it a lot!

Just try to limit your practice time. Say, each day, spend only 20 mins or so on each piece you do, and concentrate on a small section, play lots of hand seperately, alternating between hands. So, play for 15-20 seconds with Right hand, then 15-20 seconds with left hand. Doing this for 10 or so minutes isnt tiring and helps loads!

Its really like a magical thing - the results should be very good!

Given how rarely your lh plays scales in 'real' music, should you be trying to tackle the problem by 'strengthening' it?

'Real' piano music does not contain technical difficulties that will cause pain and injury unless it is practised to extremes in a bad way.

Is RSI in your left wrist a medical diagnosis? If so, then 'building up' will not help. Only going with the advice of your medical advisers will help.

If not, and your problems are a result of the 'if it doesn't hurt, then it doesn't work' philosophy, then you are misguided.

Playing the piano is not supposed to hurt, Isobel. If it did, then most of us would not do it. None of us would inflict it upon our children.

Steve

Hi,

Hopefully I can help you a bit! First, a little background about me - I have broken my wrists twice each and my left elbow twice as well, and I have chipped my mid-lower back before. lol - Too many horse accidents!

Okay, I used to get really bad RSI while I was studying at UNI - I was practicing for about 4-5 hours a day excluding gigs, jams and teaching. The pain would start in my wrist and hand, shooting really painfully up my arms. It is the most uncomfortable, unusual and frightening thing (not to mention painful).

For the short term the only way to stop it hurting was to put my arms and hands in a sink of warm water for 10mins before playing and then only practicing for short regular busts. After each practice I would rub heating lotion in to my arms to help the blood circulation. I would make sure that I would practice carefully and stop BEFORE it started to hurt (You can tell just as it's starting to push it too much and so stop).

Sometimes I had to put an ice pack on because my arms would get really swollen and hot - this was particularly so during jazz gigs last year when I had to play 'dance' music for 4 hours in a trio and I was the only soloing instrument.

For the long term cure I went to the music library to do some research and spoke to many different teachers about techniques. Due to my injuries I found that the 'correct' positions (for posture and hands) described in music text books did not work with how my arms and muscles had developed, so I had to work on finding my own posture. I also found that it is as much a mental battle as it is a physical one.

A technique that really helped me a LOT - and this has really helped for very difficult passages in classical works, such as Liszt, Beethoven Sonatas, Rachmaninov, etc - is to use circles. Basically this means imagining doing circles with your hands and wrists that move throughtout a phrase or hand pattern.

How to do it (hope this is an OK explanation - if not, post me):

1. Make your shoulders and elbows very relaxed so that if someone were to move them, there is freedom of movement
2. Try putting your finger tips on the desk and without moving your shoulders do circles with your wrist. Your hand will have to be completely relaxed, and yet your fingers firm to stay stuck to the desk
3. Try moving your wrist up and down, side to side, round and round etc. Even your fingers should be free to move in the motion - but don't let go of those fingertips!! Note that when you go down, there is a feeling of weight from your whole arm due to it being relaxed. These are the movements you need to do when you are playing. You use it for phrasing, dynamics, unusual hand positions etc. Everything in other words.

Basically this exercise makes you very aware of tension vs relaxation. You want your fingers to be doing a lot more work, rather than tensing up your hands, wrists and lower and upper arms, which have been effected by RSI.

So in summary, I have no problems with RSI now. And now I can play very difficult pieces without too much trouble becuase my technique is good enough for it. Before it was always the case of understanding and knowing what I want to play, but never being able to play it. Now both playing and knowing are on a par with each other, more-or-less. The only time I get pain now, is if I sit at a new piano and the stool isnt the right height - I just get pains in my back where I broke it!

Hopefully this will help you a bit. I hope so.


And finally,
..........................
SteveHopwood said:
"Given how rarely your lh plays scales in 'real' music, should you be trying to tackle the problem by 'strengthening' it?"
..........................

Lots of pieces have scales in them and fast linear movements for the LH - Beethoven, Rach, Liszt, etc for example. Strengthening is great (using weights etc) but mainly working on the movements and minimising tension is the best way to play these pieces.

Thanks for the replies!

I stopped going to a physio coz she decided that after 3 sessions my RSI was cured and would be ok Still do her exercises, but they only really help my wrist doing normal things, not playing or typing.

I'll try the circles thing, coz that's what I usually do if I feel it twinge. I usually stop if it starts hurting, but it's only recently started coming back since I've started doing lots of piano. I don't really play for very long, but it still hurts.

Thanks again

Pianists only get rsi from playing the piano if they are doing something badly wrong. Usually the causes is something different and they feel it most when playing; it is an unnatural position we adopt when playing.

I suggest you consult as many pianists as you can persuade to give you a few minutes of their time. If you are doing something badly wrong, then one of them will spot it.

I also suggest you examine the stresses you put on your body when engaging in other activities. For example, I am a devil for slouching when using the computer keyboard. I have to remember to sit upright all the time and to keep my spine straight, or I get murderous back pain when playing the piano. Sit properly at the computer and I get no back pain when playing.

There have been times in my past when I have been practising ridiculous concertos for hours a day - Rachmaninov, Brahms et al. Not once during all this did I suffer any physical symptoms. Neither should you, unless you are doing something wrong.

I have sent you a pm as well.

Steve

I know I have bad posture while playing, but it never mattered til I busked for ages in the cold on clarinet, and lost all feeling in my fingertips.

I'm going to have a piano lesson when I go home from Uni for Christmas, but I know I'll have got bad (or worse) habits since I haven't had a lesson since Easter, which is when I hurt it in the first place.

I haven't got your pm yet, but I'll have a look when it comes through, thanks

Bad posture will do for you every time. Have resent the pm.

Steve

When I was writing my dissertation, I strained my left wrist - I wasn't used to typing for 8+ hours a day and I hold my wrist slightly twisted when I type. It didn't hurt much at the time, but playing the piano caused a lot of pain! Have a look at all the things you do with the bit that hurts and see if you can find something. If not, as Steve said, it could well be a bad habit that has slipped in.

8 hours??????????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


i cant even play for 2 hours, what say --scales--the most boring thing in the piano world.

You misread what Suzymac said! 8 hours typing! Although I wouldn't object to 8 hours piano

RSI is a term we doctors use to describe something we cannot diagnose. In fact there is no such thing as RSI it was something "dreamt up" to stop patients from continually bothering their GP's with wrist problems. Like any muscle tissue in the body, wear and tear sets in. It's a degenerative process which is less noticable in young people but becomes very apparent as we get older, as I'm sure some of you older pianists and musicians will testify to.

But I'm not that old

Hmm. I hope Isobel receives more helpful advice than this from her doctor.

Or playing something like Schubert's Erlkonig!

IrisH - LoonY

Can I ask a question? Can playing piano, or any other instrument for that matter, actually give you rsi!?

Guess what? There is a technique for playing this.

Steve

There seem to be quite a few of these illnesses that doctors create to shut people up, instead of addressing the real issues. And then because they're made up, good doctors refuse to remotely diagnose them because they're not technically seen as illnesses, even though the problem's still there, and the doctor could get into trouble for it.

I went to see a good doctor on the RSI thing and she packed me off straight away to a physio and understood completely that I couldn't really afford to rest coz then I'd loose practice time for my A2 performance.

I have the same problem. My teachers been doing finger exercises from that Fanny Waterman exercise book. It's pretty good.