On Injuries and Technique

I had a lesson with Madeline Bruser on Tuesday.  Who is Madeline Bruser you ask?  Well, she happens to be the author of a book I bought several years ago, The Art of Practicing.  Like I mentioned, several weeks ago I had extreme pain on the right side of my ribs.  I recalled her book, found out that she lives in the City, and thought it would be a good idea to have a lesson with her.



It was a good idea, as in the past week I started having random pains in my arm, fingers, wrist, etc.  There must be something wrong with my technique--either that, or my piano's action is truly messed up, which is entirely possible, as I have documented in a previous blog: Downweights.

I would go into more details my lesson with Madeline Bruser another time.  But here's a question I asked her at the end of the lesson: do conservatory students receive some kind of standardized lesson on proper technique?  Her answer was negative.  In fact, it wasn't until the high-profile injuries of Leon Fleisher and Gary Graffman in the 80s that pianists started to take injuries seriously.

Upon some googling, so far I have the conception that everybody will eventually develop his or her own piano technique.  It pretty much has to be, because everybody is built differently, be it physically, mentally, or genetically (by genetically, I have in mind mostly the ability to recover from stress, from injuries, etc, i.e. the more biochemical process of things).  Madeline said that her dad, who did not receive formal piano training, had the most natural and effortless piano playing she had ever seen.  Clearly, that is an indication that there is more than one way to do it.  So, my opinion currently is that there is no one right way to play the piano, apart from some rudimentary techniques.

With my pain, I am doing something wrong when I play the piano.  Madeline pointed out a few things.  I don't know if everything she says is tailor-fit to suit my needs, but most of them are certainly pertinent.  As a scientist, the most useful things she said had to do with which muscles control what finger movements, because the information made it possible for me to "debug" what's causing me pain.

Here's a couple of useful resources for injuries related to playing the piano:

http://pianomap.com/injuries/index.html
http://bodylearning.buzzsprout.com/382/2662-introduction-to-the-alexander-technique

The audio from the second link claims that 80-85% of professional pianists experience some kind of pain, or injuries.  That's an astonishing number, although I have no idea when the man got this number from.

Anyway.  So I have a bunch of self-discovery about my body in the next little while.  First off, I'll need to make better use of my wrists.  It's incredible how I never thought about this when I play arpeggios.  I'll probably schedule another lesson with Madeline once I'm happy with my adjustments in my wrist technique.

And I just might contact somebody who's in the business of teaching the Alexander technique.  We'll see.

ps. Come to think of it, I get pain in my hands/wrist from programming too much.  In fact that's the reason why I like to use ergonomic keyboards.  If that's the case, how can I not be getting pain from over-practicing something much heavier like a grand piano?  Hmm.