This is not a thead in which I'll be expecting much discussion; just a little something to share! I sometimes have cricket and rugby players ring to cancel lessons because of damaged or broken fingers, but last night I had a small child arrive with two strapped-up fingers and a long face, saying, "I won't be able to do much for a while..." But we ended up having what was probably the most constructive lesson we've ever had! I played the RH of his pieces with him, which turned out to be great fun (especially in one little piece where the hands cross, and I landed on the floor ), and which also helped him get over those places where hesitating has become a habit. We also spent some time improving his LH posture, which tends to collapse on fingers 4 and 5, affecting the clarity of his playing - not to mention lots of bass clef sight-reading, which is never usually a popular suggestion.

So in future I won't be rescheduling lessons because of injured fingers! I'll be telling them to come along!

Absolutely right. When I had a student with a broken arm, I did likewise, but since he was already studying music theory with me, and it was his right arm he had broken (he was left-handed), we did more than our usual amount of theory and profited from it greatly.

I once had a student turn up with 2 broken arms!!

(and yes, it was a great lesson - aural, listening, theory, analysis, etc)

Hope they didn't need the loo while they were there.

I haven't laughed so hard in ages! Thanks Dulciana!

There is always stuff to do in a lesson, apart from playing. Sometimes there is not enough time to study composers or composition, arranging or analysis but lessons that do include them are usually great fun and a refreshing change for both teacher and pupil.

I had one like that once and had planned what to do while the injured parts were recovering.
Sadly the parents thought it better not to have lessons at that time leading to the child giving up altogether.

My daughter broke her left arm during the summer holidays two years ago. We were away on holiday when she did it but as soon as we got home she wanted to play the cello again - pointing out that she could still hold the bow all right. I got it out for her but she didn't really know what to do with the plastered arm and kept banging it against the cello. In the end, I was the one who put a stop to it until the plaster came off as I wasn't sure how much banging the cello could take and I was also worried she would end up dropping the cello as she wasn't holding it properly.

I can imagine I might find it hard to play most of my instruments minus a hand... Especially the right one! I'd be forever dropping it... But I could probably use the extra aural practise, though I'm not sure how useful I'd find theory. Thats not to say I wouldn't enjoy it! I'd probably be VERY frustrated at not being able to play for any length of time. (It could be a cue to beg parents to buy me a little e flat clari that I could get my fingers around despite a cast!)

Theres always other things to be done - even sitting down and studying the pieces you would otherwise be playing, which is useful but doesn't happen too often!

Constructive things instrumentally can indeed be done with a one-handed pianist but one-handed oboists don't get on so well!

However, when one of mine broke her arm, we used the half-term of lessons in which she couldn't play to see how reeds are made (I made one and talked her through the process whilst she watched), get through an entire grade of theory, listen to loads of music and discuss it and its place in the history of music, aural tests.

We had quite a bit of fun really and got such a lot done that would otherwise probably have been squeezed in here or there around the oboe playing.

Can't say I recommend this as a course of action (ie the breaking of limbs) but we certainly didn't take a break from lessons. No way.....

Oddly an organ is one instrument you can manage without a hand.

Hymns could more or less be played with one hand and pedals, and a bit of improvisation could cover before, and after a service!

Well if it's a violinist who comes with an injured finger on the left hand...

We can spend the whole lesson playing Amazing Grace.

Only works if they only have ONE injured finger and you need to choose the starting note appropriately but it's a roffle!

I have more than once had pupils turn up with broken legs in plaster and so unable to sit on the stool and reach the keyboard without contortions. Great laughs at attempts to resolve this one. I hate the skiing season and I loathe basket ball matches!

The caught finger and bent right backwards syndrome! This always seems to happen to a pupil the day before a piano exam. An injured Grade 3 pupil postponed it to the next session and didn't do as well as expected. I learnt from this if it happens again - start the next grade or completely new repertoire. Such a shame though after all the hard work.

Last time was a Grade 5 girl - thankfully she recovered in time for the exam but she lost two weeks practice time.

I once had a new pupil who had broken his leg in three places - it was very serious. Some children landed on top of him after falling down a play shute in one of those bouncy castle play areas. His first lesson involved how to sit with one leg stuck out at right angles to the piano stool - not an easy task. I don't think they deal with this one on teacher training courses!! The best advice would have been to wait for recovery but learning the piano helped cheer him up He gave up a few years later because of peer pressure at school

Ugh even the thought of that has made me feel queasy and curl my fingers up

My granny broke her leg when she was 92 but carried on playing the piano - as if she was riding side saddle!

I have injured my fingers playing basketball & rugby, crushed a finger tip weight-training and had so many burst blisters on my palms from rowing that the assistant in Woolworths fainted when I held my hand out for change. Having said which the only thing that actually stopped me from playing music was losing the pulp of the index and middle fingers on my left hand in a circular saw. I am very, very lucky that I still have fingers, let alone usable ones: No bone loss, no ligaments, tendons or nerves gone, just pulp and skin. Even so, it took a year for the damage to scar up sufficiently for me to able to play a guitar or a piano again without sufficient pain that I couldn't do it. I never considered playing right hand only! These days, amazingly, you have to look hard to see the scars, but I still feel them.

I think the point I trying to get to is this: If someone uses a broken arm as an excuse for giving up music, it is just that - an excuse: That person is probably going to give up anyway.

p.s. I think the considerable downside of broken fingers far outweighs any conceivable possible benefit!

Ahhh! Ahhh! Eeeeek! Argh!! Ooooh! Aaaah! Ugh!!!

I used to play the violin... but I couldn't do pizzicato with my index finger (RH obviously) because about a year into lessons, I cut my finger open very deeply and now have a scar that runs round the top of it... and it feels funny to press it where the nerves are damaged, and it's painful to 'pluck' with it. So I used to use my middle finger instead. And what's worse, I don't think my teacher ever noticed!

My pupils have had a series of accidents lately, broken wrist, broken finger, concussion, badly cut finger with severed tendon, etc. Unless they are still actually in shock (as was the case with one) they are still expected to come to lessons. We do aural, theory, and general musicianship.

I was once stewarding for an adult pupil who'd broken her leg two days earlier. She was determined to take her piano exam, but wondered where to put her crutches in the exam room and if she'd lose many marks for bad pedalling!

*faints*


The only thing that ever gets to me is cutting my fingers. I can chop any other part of my body off but I faint if I see blood from my hands - I think it's something to do with spending so many years working to be a concert pianist, and now a painter, and so reliant on my hands/fingers for what I do.
The last time I cut my finger on a broken pot my husband put me in the recovery position and then went and got the camera!!!!!!

Sounds a bit like my husband.
When he got a nasty cut from a cricket ball and I passed out after the stuck it under my nose to show me he left me on the floor and went next door to get it dressed.

That's never happened to me, but there have been some who've nearly left that way...

Boroque counterpoint can do the same thing to your fingers!!

Ditto hands and fingers are the one thing I'm reeeeeally squeamish about.