Exhausted after practicing

[Bob]

I feel very tired after practicing.  How can I overcome this?

[pianistimo]

you always make my day, bob.

ok.  here's how i see it.  practice half the time with regular lights - and the second half (the stuff you think you have from memory) with the lights dimmed.  it just makes you feel like time is going slower or something. 

ps exactly what is exhausted on you?  your fingers.  your head.  your body/back?  everything?  you should get a back massage while you practice.  that is my other advice.  yes!  that's it.  one of those 'massage chairs' that automatically rolls this thing up and down your back - while you practice.

with wooden benches you have to watch out for legs falling to sleep.  don't want to get up and stumble- like victor borge.  my new cushy bench has made all the difference in how my legs and back feels.

you can also try eating while you practice.  put a bowl of cherries on the top right of the piano.  spit the seeds into a canteen on your left.  seriously, if you aren't prone to spillage - make a drink of some kind.  you know - a fruit drink or banana milkshake.  that should keep you going for two hours.  sipping it here and there.  or, how about eating your entire dinner at the piano.  pasta or steak and potatoes.  pre-cut.  (i use the organ bench for the table in this case).

[penguinlover]

I am tired too.  Maybe a bit more excercise away from the piano would be good.  Build up your stamina in other areas.  At least that's what seems to be my problem, along with lack of sleep.   Maybe finding the fountain of youth pill would work too.

[pianowolfi]

This is also my problem. I get extremely and excessively exhausted. It's painful. The only solution is sleeping. At the time I sleep often in the breaks between lessons or between practice sessions. If I have some Practicing seems to be an activity which strains the nervous system extremely.

[ted]

Exhaustion ? No, I have never felt tired to that degree. I sometimes feel somewhat spent after a continuous hour of improvisation and recording but it is a pleasant, happy sort of tiredness with a sense of achievement, and nothing a good rest will not dispel. Provided you are otherwise healthy, getting enough rest, food and exercise and are generally happy, I cannot see why playing the piano should exhaust you. Perhaps it is a mental issue; perhaps you are not enjoying yourself at the keyboard any more. Then again, what do I know ? I do nothing that could properly be called practice.

[ada]

I always have a cup of coffee or a pot of green china tea nearby when I practice. The problem is that the coffee tends to go cold if you are practicing a long piece.

I am not advocating smoking but a nicotine hit will also stimulate your neural pathways  and help you focus and concentrate. However the trade off is you may die prematurely of lung cancer and your hard work won't pay off.

Everything has a back.

[pianowolfi]

Exhaustion ? No, I have never felt tired to that degree. I sometimes feel somewhat spent after a continuous hour of improvisation and recording but it is a pleasant, happy sort of tiredness with a sense of achievement, and nothing a good rest will not dispel. Provided you are otherwise healthy, getting enough rest, food and exercise and are generally happy, I cannot see why playing the piano should exhaust you. Perhaps it is a mental issue; perhaps you are not enjoying yourself at the keyboard any more. Then again, what do I know ? I do nothing that could properly be called practice.

Yes you play. When I play it is the same for me. But practicing and playing are still two different things to me. Which does not mean I don't like practicing, I love it. But it has definitely it's limits at the time.

[opus10no2]

You have to be a fit person to practice long hour.

Get fit.

[mosis]

Practice is hard work. You should be exhausted if you did it correctly!

[stevetrug]

I too become exhausted after a long period of practice, especially if I'm tryiny to read and learn new pieces and techniques. I am extremely fit and strong, but still my back, head and hands ache.
My backache was made much better by purchasing an ergonomic chair with a back. It has helped, but doesn't combat the tension type headaches and general exhaustion. I suspect it is tension based.
This is the chair (without arms). https://www.office-ergonomics.co.uk/g64.htm
I bought it at a fraction of the rrp by searching second hand office furniture stores, in fact I found a brand new one.

[pianistimo]

can you find these without wheels?  just wondering.  i'd feel kinda uneasy rolling up and down the keyboard.

[danny elfboy]

I don't think the orgonomic chair will help.
The main problem with back ache at the piano is sitting on the coccyx instead of the ischial bones if your butt. It's rather easy to sit on the coccyx because it's rather close to the ischial bones. In fact the modern sofas and soft chair promote this flawed way to sitting by being soft and collapsing the sacral portion of the back. I guess an ergonomic chair may be soft enough to promote the same sitting.

Another problem is that we don't actually need to remain still on the bench.
We actually need to move forward and backward for different kind of sound and different kind of playing. The same freedome of movement should be in our elbows. Playing with a fixed position and a static back is counterproductive and may even increase a subtle tension.

When we lay our back on a support we are actually bending at the lumbar portion.
We're therefore not keeping the back straight but flexible in its natural position (which is not the kind of straight when you put your gut in and chest out) but we're slouching in a way and creating tension all over the back and shoulder by modying the natural flexible curves in the spine. This also means that all the weight and balance is moved towards the back rather than having the spine supporting the upper body at the center.

[cherub_rocker1979]

You should feel mentally exhausted not physically.

[keyofc]

Bob,
I'm pretty tired after practicing too - it puts something into you - but it takes something out too!

I do practice better than I used to since I started learning the Taubman method.  I'm not trying to sell it or anything - but I learned how not to put as much stress on my body by certain ways of moving my arms, etc.

Nevertheless, when I have done a good day of practicing - I'm still tired.

don't think it's going to take away all of the tiredness though...

[danny elfboy]

You should feel mentally exhausted not physically.

Absolutely true.
Someone mentioned the Taubman approach.
But the phylosophy behind it doesn't allow someone to be exhausted physically.
In past technique books you may read that it has been calculated that just to play the notes of a piano concerto takes as much energy as shovelling three tons of coals.
It's just not true.
Take a look at the Kcal/hour expenditure of playing the piano and you'll see it's a light activity with a slow energy consumption and stamina rate.
If you then slow down a fast load piece and a slow light sonatina you'll see the body motions  are pretty similar in nature if not identical. This is because speed comes actually from "moving less" not from "moving more". Trying to move more, faster, to obtain speed it what usually create tension and speed walls. What we really are doing when we obtain a fast speed with is also smooth and fluid is decreasing the size of all motions.

Many students and concertists working with efficient use of the body biodynamic and proper balance of the body mechanism claim that when you really master these aspect it doesn't matter what piece you play, you should feel physically refreshed and better after playing for a long time and not physically exhausted.

[lostinidlewonder]

The mental exhaustion from practice is unavoidable if you have a dead line with a lot of work to get through and especially if you are unmotivated. The physical should never be a problem unless you are playing absolutely insane music which is simply not the case all the time unless you are crazy and even then "difficult" music can be practiced gently.

You can pretty much practice everything in the p range. However with some actions at the piano it doesn't matter if you play loud or soft, so I will not overpractice things that can put stress on the hands in this way such as, very large stretches, glissandos, or finger twisting multiple simultaneous note patterns in one hand etc.

How you practice also depends at which level of ability you are at with the piece. If you are confident that you can put whatever expression in any situation of the piece at your own will then it becomes irrelevant to practice pieces with expression and more efficient to simply learn all the notes.

I find this true when studying my students pieces, many of them are much lower than my own level so when I practice them I simply practice the notes, the expression is obvious. The memorisation of notes is also obvious but not as automatic as putting in the expression, it always requires some focused attention. Once the notes are controlled the expression can automatically go over the top. This can only be done with pieces which you find relatively easy.

If you are not confident you can crack the expression you should practice with the expression, this however will limit the amount of time you can put into a practice session and how fast you progress through a piece. When you practice the expression you can get caught up in confusion and negative thinking; Oh, this isn't good enough, I must practice this one section 100 times before I move on, is this completely correct? etc. When practicing notes you have always a limited number of repetitions until you achieve the memory, but with expression we can go on forever with repetitions thus waste a lot of time/energy.

So one question we should always ask before sitting down to practice; Could I play this piece with expression if I knew all the notes? If we know our hands well we can always answer this without even touching the keyboard. Practicing expression saps our energy especially if a piece is loud and furious. Knowing you can produce the expression at will and holding back that potential until you have all the notes mastered will reserve your energy.

When I teach a student who practices an energy sapping part of a piece (the definition of what is energy sapping is different for all people) with me I will first ask for them to play it with expression (even if the notes are not 100%). If we notice that producing expression is controlled then we abandon the expression and focus on the notes if the notes are not completely accurate. It makes it physically less taxing for them and focuses the effort where it is needed most. Expression is mostly controlled by what we hear, so long your ear knows what is good and what should be avoided then your expression is more often than not than fine.

After you ask a student to repeat say... a Rach FF over and over again they will eventually get exhaused and unmotivated to produce the big sound and thus your idea to teach control of the expression and notes will collapse. Hearing the same big chord over and over again can give you repetitive stress syndrome You will eventually find you don't care about the expression because it is happening again and again and boring your ears to tears. It looses the effect it should have on you.

When I teach expression I don't care if they hit a wrong note, all I care about the expression. When I teach notes I don't care if it sounds like a robot, so long all the notes are correct. It is asking a lot from a student to play all the notes and expression correct when practicing a piece and I think it is an ineffective method of teaching unless the student is studying a piece that is very easy for them.

If you find you have to repeat a section many times you must question is it a note or expression issue. It is always one or the other and many more times note problems. To mindlessly repeat trying to maintain notes and expression is silly and will take you many more repetitions to come to the solution, and of course make you tired both mentally and physically.

Also I have found studying multiple pieces can keep the mental stress down because once you have had enough of one piece you can refresh yourself and move onto the other piece and make some grounds there. Then as soon as that second piece annoys you go back to the first or even a third one depending on what you know you can handle.

To give a piece you studied for 1 hour a break then coming back to it soon after you spend time with an other piece will ensure you take stock of what you remembered and what you found you forgot. YOu take away that chance aspect of forgetting your notes which can easily happen with long practice sessions. Your brain starts memorising only for the short term (while you sit and practice) but as soon as you stop practicing and do something else, when you come back you find you forgot chunks here and there. THis definately add to your frustration and mental stress!

You must then put in memory aids (which is a whole other discussion but basically reminders on the sheet music) to help you recall things you forget. The stress level of forgetting stuff is limited then because you are taking stock of everything you forget and controlling it.

The memory aids you have on your sheet music will act as a reminder of what you need to play, don't keep these aids in your head, what notes escape you must be marginalized from the rest of the music and you have to make a written statement which forces you to remember it in context with the music. This way you can practice the piece without the piano but by simply observing the memory guides and reaffirming with yourself what needs to be done.

Once you have made several sucessful repeptions on the keyboard and achieved the beginnings of the muscular memory then you can forget about written memory aids. But these aids will always benefit you especially if you don't play a particular piece for a number of years then decide to learn it again, all the infomation of what troubled you before will be there to help you out and reduce the stress level that might come if you forget a piece.