Piano and the Pain It Can Cause

by Kirsten
(New Zealand)

I have been playing the piano for 16 years. I started off as child, taking lessons from my mother. I loved to make music and so I continued to teach myself after I had surpassed her abilities. Because signing up for piano lesson was not in the budget, I had unfortunately learned some bad habits along the way.

As a college piano student, I began to practice three and four and five hours a day to make up for lost time from not having lessons. I started running into problems with my hands about the same time. I had pain and swelling in my thumbs and wrists. I didn’t know what was going on or how to stop it. Pain killers provided a temporary fix, but it was getting to the point where everyday tasks were a challenge.

I learned I had developed tendonitis. The doctor told me it comes from overuse of the tendons and muscles, from stress and tension in the area, and from misusing the body. That made so much sense to me. I had been working tirelessly on a Mozart sonata that had running eight note octaves in my left hand, at Allegro. My small hands were being stretched and moving about so much that I wasn’t paying attention to what it felt like to play.

I was able to rest my hands for while and that helped the condition to resolve itself.

The tendonitis comes back every few years, usually brought on by external factors like cold weather, but now I know how to prevent it from getting worse. Awareness is the key.