Crying hands D:

Hi everybody.
I will be very thankful if you'll try to help me. The matter is that I use to practice almost every day for a hour or two, since I've got my piano (a month:) and do just everything I know to play: scales, some songs, the first sheet of Fur Elise with both hands...BUT: I feel pain at the outside of my hand after half of a hour of practicing javascript:emoticonp(''). I thought it is because my hand isn't used to this activity...tried to stop for a while, but the pain returns when I start practicing again. Am I do something wrong?


Thanks.

Maybe you shouldn't play as much or at least try to rest one of the hands while playing with the other (play more with hands seperate). Also, I suggest that you check Andrew's video about relaxing your body while playing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-OpESpRYeI
After all, maybe you aren't playing relaxed enough. Maybe you sit too close or too far from the piano. Maybe your bench is too high or too low. Maybe your fingers are "overcurved". There are lots of different reasons of why it can happen.

Thanks a lot. I guess all the mistakes happens because of non-professional learning. Is it possible at all to reach any level without causing harm to myself?

hi...dont push yourself too much remember 1 thing...its better playing 1 day for 15-30 minutes better than playing 1 day with 24 hour its means dont push to much because if you play the advance music before you train your finger its will pain
so our time practise its have right but your finger dont ready to play advance music likes fur elipse choose another simple sheet music
if you wanted i know the basic book should you play if your are begginer because i take a piano classical lesson have been 1 year
so you can step by step follow me...what i have done in my course for practice fingering buy BEYER and play it until no.65 because for iam learning that number now

if i may know how long you have been playing piano ???

1748 wrote:

if i may know how long you have been playing piano ???

I've been playing one month

If your feeling pain after such a short amount of time, then I'd suggest getting your hands checked out at the doctors or something. What kind of pain is it? Is it a slight discomfort or..?

for have been playing one month dont to push to play fur elise because your finger havent know the pattern of sheet music
better u play simple music likes marry had a little lamp or another
but if you wanted to try for fun fur elise its OK
the simple one is if your hand got drowning its because your finger not ready to press that music
but sometimes its works to practise your finger to flexsible
so dont push yourself... play easier sheet music....
note just for practise your finger not to play that music

Alistair123 wrote: What kind of pain is it? Is it a slight discomfort or..?

It's kind of discomfort (as if you make a fist 100 times with your hand). It's not medical or something - I don't have these problems, so I'm sure I do something wrong with my practice. I just don't know what.
Due to the advices - all of you really mean I should play "marry had a little lam", "happy birthday" and this stuff even it is already really boring??? I know these songs so I just wanted to go on...

I thought about trying to make a fist 100 times to see what its like BUT I decided not too :p. How can you be sure it's not medical? If they really start to ache after such a short time of practising then it most likely IS medical. You would have to be doing something very very very wrong whilst practicing to make them ache that much, and im sure your not. Rickard mentioned Andrews video about relaxing your body, have you seen that?

And I wouldn't suggest you play things like "happy birthday" and "mary had a little lamb", because like you say, they are horribly boring! Fur Elise is a good one to start with. Have you seen Andrew's tutorial on it? I dont like tutorials myself, but if you think your practising in the wrong way, then its worth a watch to see the correct way.

This is probably just ordinary pain from your muscles not used to this amount of activity, your hands have reached their "limit". Remember, you cant run maraton without practice. You need to build up strenght and endurance, and that takes time.

Sports guys usually suggest 1 week off if overtrained ( sign are usually pain and tiredness in the affected area ). Hands arent different from any other part of our body. If you use your hands they will need rest to repair themselfs and get new energy from what we eat.

The good thing tho is that you will get stronger and you will be able to play for longer periods aslong as you keep playing. Pro pianists play for hours, but they didnt when they first started.

haha thats only my opinion you may play another classical song the easier
but i will tell you something...sometimes you need to boring to play classical song
because classical song is have great foundation of fingering

thats its depend on you wanna perfect or just fast way to playing some music
i am not underestimate you for playing advance song...maybe you well then me
but my advice is learning with step by step

Thanks to all of you! I watched Andrew's lesson #17 and it was a pity for me that it wasn't one of the very first lessons, because it's such important - how to seat, to put your arms etc. I discovered some of my mistakes and hope it will help.
Thanks again:)

I had the same problem because when I practiced I did it for long periods of time (for a beginner, I started only 2 or 3 months ago) I went on vacation 2 weeks and now I practice and take brakes all the time, I feel its better then the other way, try that, when you start making to many mistakes and are a little tired go eat something, listen to music, or study theory make exercises, and then come back to practicing. Also there are songs full of chords that make me hurt I avoid them until I am more comfortable with chords.

1748 wrote:for have been playing one month dont to push to play fur elise because your finger havent know the pattern of sheet music
better u play simple music likes marry had a little lamp or another
but if you wanted to try for fun fur elise its OK
the simple one is if your hand got drowning its because your finger not ready to press that music
but sometimes its works to practise your finger to flexsible
so dont push yourself... play easier sheet music....
note just for practise your finger not to play that music

Due to his english I think some people got the wrong idea from what he was trying to say. Fingering is absolutely important and if playing Mary had a Little Lamb helps you with that, it's actually a way to practice; and not that you have to play only childish music.

the taubman approach is a very reputable place for injured pianist to seek for help. Check out the Golandsky Institute: https://www.youtube.com/user/TaubmanGolandsky

To shed some light on why some people r more prone to injury than others, you can read ideas from Moshe Feldenkrais. Some sources will refer you to the Alexander Technique, but I personally like the former better.

lckay wrote:the taubman approach is a very reputable place for injured pianist to seek for help. Check out the Golandsky Institute: https://www.youtube.com/user/TaubmanGolandsky

To shed some light on why some people r more prone to injury than others, you can read ideas from Moshe Feldenkrais. Some sources will refer you to the Alexander Technique, but I personally like the former better.

Interesting, I will check out the channel. Thanks for the link.

Consider getting a Reiki attunement, and then giving yourself Reiki. Learn about Reiki at, e.g., reiki.org.

Oh, Taubman Golandsky... the teacher who acts as a kind of messiah... But really, it's not an accurate way to play the piano... The technique I'm learning is very effective for injured or weak pianists, and it's almost totally opposed to Taubman...

Matthieu, mind sharing some info about the technique you're learning, at least the name of the author of it so we can do our research?
I have 17 years of computer keyboard usage on my back, so I'm trying to be as careful as I can. Also this may point many people to the right way

I'm not sure whether a lot of info is available on the web, but my teacher's name is Heide Goertz (she developed the technique). I think there are a few documents on her homepage www.heidegoertz.com

Apparently the infos are only available in German but if you want specific information about something, just ask (describing the general method would be... long.)

It sounds like it relates to proprioception, sensitivity, and a lot of specialized individual attention to how one moves.

For all these exercises, you should allow at least 12 months to the time when you realize that "the finger reaches the brain." Very few students can use this ad hoc. The inaccuracy of the finger-brain co-operation is often shockingly large.

Indeed! It's scarily effective, and has improved my technique a lot...

Matthieu Stepec wrote:Apparently the infos are only available in German but if you want specific information about something, just ask (describing the general method would be... long.)

Asking for detailed information here would be inadequate... That's enough topic for a proper article/thread - Maybe someone somewhere translated or wrote about it in english somewhere, so I'll look for it. Is there anything beyond the obvious that could help my/our research?

Thanks a bunch

rbacl wrote:It sounds like it relates to proprioception, sensitivity, and a lot of specialized individual attention to how one moves.

(...)

Well those are about the fundamentals of any technique of this kind, I suppose... Proprioception is what I always worked with on the computer, and now I'm paying double attention on the piano. The first days were a bit stressing to my fingers and forearm, but I'm slowly finding positions and weight distributions that make me more relaxed. Of course, I probably won't go too far without a proper technique...

This happened to me all the time. The best thing to do is wash your hands with cold water after every practice