My 68 year old piano pupil who is just embarking on Grade 3 reckons she has injured her RH little finger from using it too much when playing the piano. She thinks that if she followed the proper fingering in the first place then she wouldn't have encountered this problem. Has anyone else come across this? I did point out she could have injured it doing something else but she's convinced it's the piano!

Any ideas or cures?

David

I'm no pianist of merit but it's hard to imagine someone actually injuring that finger unless they are doing something silly like trying to 'improve their stretch' by forcing it apart from the thumb at the piano, or really hammering out something, which does not seem in keeping with grade 3 (unless things have changed greatly)!

What is the injury? Strain? Will massage help, a little oil or moisturiser about the joint? Is the pupil otherwise healthy, not arthritic?

If I have to lots of stretching the little finger on my LH (coz it's weaker) sometimes gets stiff. But then if you shake it, it usually feels fine again!

At 68, is there any chance the problem could be some form of arthritis? Obviously you have checked she is using it properly but in my experience 5th fingers may often be weak but not painful. If she thinks that learning the correct fingering in the first place will solve the problem then why doesn't she?

She would have to be going through some bizarre contortions or using her finger to hammer the keys repeatedly to do this. It's either arthritis\rhumatism or she picked up an injury from some other activity that made her finger painful playing the piano.

Steve

My finger started bleeding when I was playing my firends piano. I don't know why it just did. but anyway I had to quickly wipe the blood off the piano keys before he noticed. It's not as bad as it sounds though

I've injured myself from piano playing a few times, with regards to the little finger problem it sometimes goes stiff if you've used it alot, but it goes after a while as someone has already mentioned. Small hands pull tendons in the fingers if they try and stretch too much - I know that one - tiny hands all the way!

No, Snowman. If you injure yourself playing the piano you really are doing something horribly wrong. Playing the piano is not supposed to hurt. Do youhave specific problems?

Steve

I agree. I've been playing the piano for 25 years and I have never injured or strained my fingers/hands yet from playing. I do remember though that I cut a finger once doing a glissando after catching it on a sharp edged key...ouch!
The fingers can become tired from overpractice, yes, but I've never experienced pain in the hand or fingers. The Violin though, now that's a different story!

Gae

Oh, yes. We are talking supreme agony here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having small hands myself I have sometimes found that particular pieces of music written by composers with big hands have caused the odd wrist ache - one particular piece always causes problems in my left wrist but it could also be that I injured it through sporting activity at college and may have weakened it as a result. As soon as I stop practising the piece my wrist is fine again. (Part of the reason is that I'm, probably trying to be too perfectionist and aiming for good sustained legato when in reality my hands are just too small - it's through a combined octave/lateral action which is causing the pain. Shame as I love the piece and keep trying it from time to time but always after a few days my wrist starts to hurt. If I didn't insist on trying for the legato I'd probably be OK. As for 5th finger I don't ever remember having a problem with that except for when I was excessively trying to bring out the top line of a series of chords and was overpractising.

(seeing if I can do this 'quote')

Yes, the E-string is a little like cheese wire, isn't it?!?! The A isn't much better!
Peggy.

I agree on Chocolatedog's comment that you can strain your hands if playing long stretches for long periods because you are unnaturally forcing your hand to over-reach. My advice in these circumstances, unless you enjoy pain, is to play something more suited to your own particular anatomy. There's soooooooo much music out there to choose from isn't there?

Before I decided to learn the Presto Alla Tedesco Grade 8 Beethoven choice, I had first tried the other Beethoven sonata movement on the B list but after trying to play the fast 10ths up to speed I started to get pains in my hand. In the end I decided to change pieces and I'm glad I did.

Gae

I've developed a ganglion on the back of my left wrist through piano playing. It got smaller for a while, but never completely disappeared, but has got larger again since I've been working on Grade 8 pieces. I'm afraid there is practically no repertoire at that level that doesn't require octave stretches, so I'm stuck with it. A traditional remedy is to drop the family Bible or other large tome on it, but I'm not that desperate yet.

Well, I've practically slaughtered my left hand learning Bella Notte by Einaudi; about 3 pages of it feature fast* I,V,X melodic intervals!

*Fast = All quavers, approximately 200 crotchet bpm :|

Ah, but I will carry on practising it...it's so damn beautiful!

Steve, what I put didn't come out the way i meant it to! My hands hurt because they are really really really small and I often try stretch them out too far which results is my own fault!

i never had an injury of playing the piano, but my hands are sometimes tired (like now ). But this is because i played the waldsteinsonata of beethoven for more than an hour so i would be playing it better. but i think that is normal. what a terrible idea, to hurt yourself beacause of playing piano! that means you can't play for a while .

I see what you mean. When I say that 'playing the piano isn't supposed to hurt' I do mean it, obviously. That statement is also partly a reflection of my own desire not to have young (or old, for that matter) players hurt by an activity that is supposed to be enjoyable.

Advanced students with small hands can find a variety of ways round the problem. Some develop such flexible joints and muscles in their hands that they appear to be made of rubber. Others leave out notes or rearrange chords. Others simply choose repertoire that they can play without adaptation; the trouble with this is it leaves them unable to play stuff they might really want to.

Experiment with leaving out the lowest notes of RH chords and the highest of LH chords. It rarely makes a big difference to the sound. 'Spreading' them helps a lot but there are situations where you just don't want a spread chord.

Just don't hurt yourself, okay?

Steve

Dead right, tinusjuh. Muscle tiredness is normal, especially after an hour of the Waldstein. You will build up the stamina in your fingers and wrists the more you play this piece.

Steve

The only pain I've ever gotten from playing the piano is in my wrist/slash fingers from playing the triplets in Rachmaninoff's C sharp minor prelude. *ouch*

I have two ladies who come for lessons and from time to time they have complained about their little fingers. I think that it may be due to unaccustomed stretching of hands to cover large intervals (one of them cannot stretch 7ths). Possibly if your pupil started playing fairly late in life - say late fifties/early sixties -her fingers might not be as flexible (in the stretching out over intervals sense) as those of some one who's been playing from a much younger age.

I've always advised them to do a bit of the awkward/offending piece every day and then move on to other work. Sometimes it works, but sometimes they decide to leave the offending piece.