Week THREE: Share your love! (Watch Party is next week!)

Michael Oh NO!!! Take care and be patient with the recovery!

To be fair, I have to also watch myself not to overdo it as well. I saw a new community thread on the injury topic ... probably time to participate there 

https://piano-community.tonebase.co/t/x2hahp8/musicians-health-matters-discussing-music-related-injuries-and-prevention-strategies

Michael Oh, no!! I hope you caught it early/immediately and have a quick recovery.

I know in sport we have pro-active exercises to reduce the occurrence of injury - essentially they are the physical therapy exercises one would do after injury. I wonder if there is such a thing in piano? It seems like there should be. I have to be careful as I've entered learning the piano with pre-existing hand/wrist/elbow/shoulder injuries (being a gymnast and hand-balancer can do that to a person!), and just prior to this challenge had to stop playing for a couple of weeks after aggravating an old injury.

Priya Viseskul Thanks Priya! I plan to dive into that new thread bigtime. 

Michelle R Thanks Michelle. Given your background I’m impressed you have found a way to carry on with the piano! Last year, after a month of overuse practicing a later Beethoven sonata (that fugue!) I developed lateral epicondylitis so severe that it impeded my normal daily activities. Took about 6 months to get back to normal. Similar symptoms, and exacerbation of carpal tunnel sydrome, developed rapidly over just a couple days last week. I think doing the ongoing trills in 4th and 5th fingers while using the rest of the hand for other purposes (the last variation) was an inciting factor. I’ve learned from my prior experience just to stop all playing immediately, shut the lid of the piano, and avoid all sources of temptation. I even took a Tonebase break.

I trashed my arms-hands from repetitive motion injuries reading radiological studies from a digital workstation. Think pressing mouse buttons with several fingers about every 2 seconds for 8+ hours/day. Who knew??

Michael my husband (family medicine doc) has had a recent bout of epicondylitis (probably lateral, but I don't remember for certain) from the whole mouse-clicking thing since everything is electronic these days. He's figured out a way to work that seems to have helped (after trying to do everything left-handed for a week!), at least for now. 

When I worked as a personal trainer in the 90's we were starting to develop protocols  (like sets of supination/pronation with little to no weight) for helping people avoid some of these over-use inuries. Of course, we were thinking golf and tennis players - we had no thought that "mouse clicking" would become such a popular thing!

Take care!

Michelle R mice are a whole lot more threatening than anyone could have guessed.

Michael  I’m so very sorry to hear this Michael. You may be interested in the work of Rae de Lisle ( piano professor at Auckland, NZ) who has studied pianists’ rehabilitation for several decades after losing her performance career in her twenties due to an overuse injury. She is an international level pedagogue and has recently published a book called Fit4Piano available in hard copy with embeddened video demos or as an e-book. She worked with our leading concert pianist here, Michael Houston, who made a complete recovery from debilitating focal dystonia, having previously had to retire from the concert platform.  He had to rebuild his technique from scratch. I know of one student who was just beginning to develop the condition who studied with her and reported that she was unsurprised that he had previously played the Harpsicord. Presumably a very different finger action? Perhaps not transferring well to the piano keyboard. Her book is very clear, easy to understand, and concise. Very user friendly. I heard second hand that of all the pedagogues she interviewed she considered Penelope Roskill’s work and philosophies closest to her own. I have both books. I have huge respect for Rae and have attended several of her presentations. She is a leader in her field. 
Here is a link to a presentation she gave to an international conference about her work. 
https://youtu.be/JvqCRyfzz4o

and her website. (The book may look like it’s intended for children but it is directed to all levels and specifies advanced repertoire where a particular exercise is relèvent and helpful. )

https://www.raedelisle.com/fit-4-piano.html

I’m sure you will find much of value here. She’s worked with many health professionals and may be available for consultation by Zoom, I’m not sure. 
 

Wishing you the very best for a complete and sustained recovery Michael. 

Michael Sorry to hear this! Hope you are back to the piano soon.

Michelle R for your mouse-clicking husband, check out https://contourdesign.com/collections/rollermouse

I tried every ergonomic product I could find, and the rollermouse was the winner.

marina thanks so much for your kind, thoughtful and very helpful information! You may want to share your suggestions and links in the new forum for discussing musicians’ injuries https://piano-community.tonebase.co/t/x2hahp8/musicians-health-matters-discussing-music-related-injuries-and-prevention-strategies

Priya Viseskul thanks! The thread you reference is made for me!

Vidhya Bashyam thanks

Sindre Skarelven thank you

Gillian thank you

Michael so sorry, Michael! Hope you get well soon!

Michael Thanks, Michael. I'll let him know about this product. Great timing, because his lateral epicondylitis flared up again this week.

Michael Sorry to hear this, Michael! Hope you get recovered soon. Take care!

Michael get well soon 

Michael Hope you recover soon Michael!

Ching Lee Goh I was waiting to see who would take the honour to post the first recording for the final week! You might just convince me to reexamine my relationship with Czerny 

Ching Lee Goh Really great playing of this rare and virtuosic work!