Hurt hand. Need advise.

[elenahouse]

Thanks for coming to this tread to help with my problem.

I was trying to prepare for an up coming performance and I practiced for about 5 hours. I had to stop because my hand near my wrist hurt. It even started making a popping noise when I bend it up and down. I haven't played for days because it hurts.

Has any had this same problem and what did you do to get it better?

Here's an example of my playing. I don't know if it will help.

Thanks for your advise.

Elena

[gerryjay]

Dear Elena,
you must talk to your teacher! The first step you already did: stop playing. But only a professional who can watch in detail what you are doing wrong can tell you how to solve this issue. It is kind of an impossible task to get a written solution online and it can make the problem even worse.

Best regards, and very good luck with that.
Jay.

[bachbrahmsschubert]

Hi Elena,

Follow Jay's advice and consult your teacher, however I see no evidence in your playing that would cause wrist pain. I have some questions for you.

Do you also play tennis? There are very common wrist problems that are associated with tennis.

Where exactly on your wrist does it hurt? Top part of your wrist closer to your thumb? Different problems are associated with different areas.

Does it also pop when you move your wrist in a circular motion? When it pops, is it a dull, hollow sound or a high, cracking sound like the sound of a knuckle or joint cracking?

Are there any bumps on your wrist? You may have to bend your wrist down in order to see one. This is called a ganglion cyst, and may or may not be very serious depending on how large and painful it is.

Do you experience any pain/swelling near the base of your thumb? If so, try doing a push-up, do you experience any severe pain in your wrist?

There are many different things that could be wrong which depend on exactly where it hurts. Please try and be more specific. If the pain continues, you should consult a chiropractor or doctor, as it would unwise to accept a diagnoses and solution over the internet.

Best wishes,

As a side note, tell whoever took a flash photo of you while you were playing to never go to a live performance ever again!   So distracting...

[keyboardclass]

I see plenty wrong.  Find a teacher who can show how to use minimal tension.  Practicing 5 hours at a stretch is no good for anyone though.

[nyiregyhazi]

Thanks for coming to this tread to help with my problem.

I was trying to prepare for an up coming performance and I practiced for about 5 hours. I had to stop because my hand near my wrist hurt. It even started making a popping noise when I bend it up and down. I haven't played for days because it hurts.

It makes sense, to be honest. You're producing tone by lifting and then dropping the wrist. This sends more energy into moving the wrist than into the key itself. Then the wrist has to stop rapidly- meaning that all the remaining energy impacts on the sensitive nerves etc. inside it. If I said to keep the wrist "still", it would risk causing you to simply tighten it more, which is certainly not the answer. However, you need to find a way to keep it comfortably aligned- rather than send it into the constant crash landings against the keybed. A wrist drop is an extremely inefficient way to produce tone- especially if you have to brace hard to stop it, upon reaching the key. It sends most of the energy to the wrong places. If you want to use a lift, take care to keep the wrist in alignment when doing so. Also, try flicking the wrist very slightly UP as you land (with a tiny forward action of the arm)- rather than letting it crash down hard. It sends energy away from impact- rather than into causing it.

[pianisten1989]

Oh god, here we go again...

Okay, Elena, here's what's going to happen, and what you're going to do:

Pianoscience-guy and keyboardclass will start a pointless discussion about whether a wet towel is relaxed or not, then there will be some name calling, and, finally, the topic will get locked.
What to do? Ask your teacher. It's really difficult in both ends here. it's difficult for us to see exactly what's going on, and how you will be able to fix it, in every detail. You will also get some problem to do exactly the things we're telling you to.
Simply call your teacher, don't wait to the lesson, and tell her that your hand hurts. Then she can come up with some exercises that s/he can show you on the lesson.

Asking for technical advice over the internet is very very difficult, since we can't really show you how to fix it.

[nyiregyhazi]

Oh god, here we go again...

Okay, Elena, here's what's going to happen, and what you're going to do:

Pianoscience-guy and keyboardclass will start a pointless discussion about whether a wet towel is relaxed or not, then there will be some name calling, and, finally, the topic will get locked.

Or preferably, she can take my explanation of why her movements are inherently high in impact and use it to make progress with her problem. When a wrist is descending fast, either it's going to carry on travelling (and indeed be actively accelerated by gravity) or you're going to have to slam on some brakes to stop it. When the wrist is moving up instead, gravity is naturally providing a slower and smoother braking force- which prevents both the impact of a quick stop and the need to resort to the tensions of rapid muscular braking.

If keyboardclass wants to heckle that's up to him. My advice to the poster has nothing to do with him and I'm not going to respond to off-topic quips or snide dismissals, should they occur. Hopefully the poster will see the common-sense logic in my explanation and use it to start dealing with the heavy impacts that currently occur due to issues in her current premise for movement.

EDIT- I see that there's been another personally directed heckle- that contains no argumentative substance regarding what I said. I have no interest in responding to such posts directly. Either the poster can take my advice, or she can dismiss it as mumbo-jumbo based on one poster's unsubstantiated dismissal. I'd sooner leave it to her than provide fuel for trolling this thread into the ground.

[keyboardclass]

Then the wrist has to stop rapidly- meaning that all the remaining energy impacts on the sensitive nerves etc. inside it.

Not much 'science' here sadly.  You need to see a good teacher who can offer you sound advice, not internet mumbo jumbo. 

EDIT - me too.

[pianowolfi]

Thanks for coming to this tread to help with my problem.

I was trying to prepare for an up coming performance and I practiced for about 5 hours. I had to stop because my hand near my wrist hurt. It even started making a popping noise when I bend it up and down. I haven't played for days because it hurts.

Has any had this same problem and what did you do to get it better?

Here's an example of my playing. I don't know if it will help.

Thanks for your advise.

Elena

I suppose that you practiced 30 Min - one hour per day before. As soon as you realized that the performance is coming closer you suddenly increased your practice time up to 5 hours. No wonder your body can't handle that abrupt change!
 If you want to practice more you need to increase practice time gradually. You can't run a marathon from scratch, you need to build up your shape over the months. Practicing piano for 5 hours all of a sudden is certainly comparable to running a marathon, from the perspective of your playing apparatus! Especially at your age! It is possible, and it can be done without damaging your hand/health, but you need to build up gradually and learn to listen to the signals of your body, way before it starts to hurt!

[sucom]

There could be any number of reasons why your wrist (or hands) has become painful but I would like to offer just one possibility.  First though, I don't see anything wrong with practising for 5 hours IF you have gradually built up to this over a certain period.   As someone mentioned in a previous post, if you have suddenly increased your practice specifically for a concert, you may well have overdone it.

However, the piece that you were playing has quite a lot of repeated chords in the right hand and I notice that you were playing them all with a similar tension which not only reduces the natural 'flow' of the music, but also similarly reduces the natural flow of your wrist movement. To play these repeated chords with the same tension is putting undue stress on your wrists and allowing them to lock up instead of allowing them to flow with a natural movement.  The result is a lot of tension.   Similarly in the left hand, the quavers need to flow, leaning slightly into the first quaver of every four, and reducing the tension in your left hand over the following three quavers, always allowing your fingers to relax the weight through the grouping of four quavers.

At the same time, you occasionally allow your wrists to drop right down below the keyboard, further exacerbating the problem and may be allowing your fingers to lock up.  To be honest, it would be quite difficult to describe how to put this right on paper and I feel that to achieve the flow of these repetitious chords would be best demonstrated by a good teacher.
 

[elenahouse]

Hi Elena,

Follow Jay's advice and consult your teacher, however I see no evidence in your playing that would cause wrist pain. I have some questions for you.

Do you also play tennis? There are very common wrist problems that are associated with tennis.

Where exactly on your wrist does it hurt? Top part of your wrist closer to your thumb? Different problems are associated with different areas.

Does it also pop when you move your wrist in a circular motion? When it pops, is it a dull, hollow sound or a high, cracking sound like the sound of a knuckle or joint cracking?

Are there any bumps on your wrist? You may have to bend your wrist down in order to see one. This is called a ganglion cyst, and may or may not be very serious depending on how large and painful it is.

Do you experience any pain/swelling near the base of your thumb? If so, try doing a push-up, do you experience any severe pain in your wrist?

There are many different things that could be wrong which depend on exactly where it hurts. Please try and be more specific. If the pain continues, you should consult a chiropractor or doctor, as it would unwise to accept a diagnoses and solution over the internet.

Best wishes,

As a side note, tell whoever took a flash photo of you while you were playing to never go to a live performance ever again!   So distracting...

Wow! There are way more detailed responses than I expected. Thank you all very much.

I did talk to my teacher and my doctor. They scolded me also and gave me their own piece of advise.

I usually practice 2 or 3 hours a day but I did up it a little before the last performance.

I don't play tennis but I do martial arts and gymnastics. I did not hurt my hand/wrist there though. (You can see me doing some of this on my website)

The popping is when I move my wrist down not when I move it up. It will pop each time I move it back down though. The good news is that it is popping much less now that I have given it a rest. I didn't see any bumps on the wrist. The specific area of the popping is where the middle finger's tendon connects to the wrist.

Not only was there a flash photographer but the person in the front row, right next to the piano (you can't see her), was drastically waving a hand fan. When I look almost into the camera during the performance I was looking at her and her white blur.

Thank you.
Elena House

Thanks. again.
Elena

[nyiregyhazi]

The popping is when I move my wrist down not when I move it up. It will pop each time I move it back down though. The good news is that it is popping much less now that I have given it a rest.

It's good to hear that- but did you do anything to improve your style of movement? Almost any problem will tend to improve with rest, but you need to make sure you're not doing anything to aggravate it while you're actually playing. Otherwise it could easily get far worse again. If the problem is in the wrist itself, I'd look to deal with those high impact wrist motions very quickly. It's giving your muscles a very large amount of work to do, each time your wrist goes up and then descends during a chord- simply to stop it from crashing down past a horizontal position.

[john90]

I really enjoyed the performance, thanks for the link.

I sometimes have breaks (too many really) where I think about the next piece I want to learn, listen to it (not too loud) on headphones. Not playing for a while can let the last pieces you practised a lot sink in more, and get your mind ready for the next challenge.

[tonalharmony]

Thanks for coming to this tread to help with my problem.

I was trying to prepare for an up coming performance and I practiced for about 5 hours. I had to stop because my hand near my wrist hurt. It even started making a popping noise when I bend it up and down. I haven't played for days because it hurts.

Has any had this same problem and what did you do to get it better?

Here's an example of my playing. I don't know if it will help.

First, which hand is it? If it is your left hand, then I think your problem is your wrist. You seem to be letting your wrist bend at times. I strongly suggest that you pay attention to both wrists and make sure that they are always even with your hand and forearm.

Good luck with the hand,

tonalharmony

Thanks for your advise.

Elena