Need Help Releasing Tension in Playing!

[fluster]

Hello People!

I am new here so please go easy on me!

I am student studying under a private local piano teacher. My piano technique is worrying me as it frequently gives me tension in my wrists and forearm. I would have 'good days' and 'bad days'. On the 'good days', I would somehow feel almost no tension in my playing. I will have so much control over my playing and be able to play with speed and ease. However, more often than not, I would come across a 'bad day'. On these days my hands will feel very stiff and immobile. There will be so much tension when playing especially in my wrists and forearm. I was uninformed about possible injuries that might arise at that time.

Recently, the situation has got from bad to worse. For about 2 weeks straight, I kept on getting these 'bad days'. It has come to a point at which it seemed almost impossible for me to even place my hand at the piano without feeling some kind of strain somewhere. I became very desperate and started to search for ways to correct my technique and get rid of the unnecessary tension- to no avail. I tried adjusting the height of the seat but it did not work much.

I consulted a teacher who advised my to stop playing for 2 weeks straight. I freaked out. For the past 2 years I have been practising every single day. When he told me to stop playing for 2 weeks, I was really shocked. I didn't know what to do. My own teacher thinks that it could be due to overplaying. I do not think so. I believe that if you play with proper technique, you would not feel any tension at all.

I am worried that I might have slowly injured my hand due to years of bad piano technique. However, I do not really feel pain or discomfort when I do not play the piano. My fingers are still able to move properly but when I play the piano, the piano keys just seem so heavy.

I feel that my thumb is giving me a lot of problems. When I press the key down with the thumb, the Metacarpophalangeal joint of the thumb tends to protrude outwards in a very disturbing manner. This is most prominent when doing thumb-under crosses when playing scales This gives me a lot of tension at the thumb.

I feel very helpless and lost. Do you guys have any advice with regards to this? What are some methods that I can try to correct my technique?

PS. Pardon my bad English. English is not my first language.
This is an old video of me playing the piano on one of the 'good days'.
I just can't figure out what is wrong with my technique!!! HELP!

[nyiregyhazi]

Your technique is good in many ways- but I see a lot of impacts that are created by collapsing fingers and too much arm pressure. Try reading the two posts on "keybedding" from this list.

https://andrewthayer.co.uk/index.php?p=1_6_Essays-on-piano-technique

It's all about the objective difference between movements that cause impact and those that dont. You're piling momentum into a dead stop too often. You need to activate the hand better to redirect it away from impact. When spare energy is rolled slightly over the top, it's much healthier than when it piles into a dead stop. Also, the last post on that list is about efficiency. The "negative movements" are frequently to be seen in your hand. The collapse of the arch reduces the proportion of energy that goes into sound. The rest of that energy is getting piled into an impact against the keybed. You need to both move more positively from the hand itself and be able to redirect energy away from impact, after sound occurs. At the moment, you're working hard to merely reduce the collapses in the hand. If you learn the way to move positively within the finger, you can eliminate collapses altogether while actually working less hard.

I'm still writing the posts on specifically how to avoid these issues when playing, but these posts should give you a lot of ideas about what is causing your problems. I've also written one on the basic finger movements that eliminate collapses, but am still in the process of producing posts on directly how to apply these things to everday playing.

[lostinidlewonder]

It doesn't sound like a good quality piano you are playing on for the level you are at, to me in the recording it sounds like you are putting a lot of effort and the piano is giving little back. If you play on a better quality piano with better response you might find it a lot easier.

Try softer/slower practice. From gentle and controlled you then can produce what you want, not produce what you want without discovering an effortless touch first. You may also need to slow the tempo so that you can practice pieces with more comfort. Practicing in this mode helps for when you shift gears and play at performance standard, it does not seem as taxing. If you always practice with tension or trying to get the biggest sound possible all the time you forget how to play passages comfortably sometimes and feel that being tense is what it is always feels like.

[danhuyle]

Play a piece you can handle and see if you can play in relaxation.

[chopincrazy23]

I don't know if this helps but I have run into your problem before were I have strains in my arm. This happens to me when I am playing fast intervals such as octaves were my hand is stretched. I sometimes lock my hand in the position of a octave and forget to relax. This leads to my arm getting tired and me having an arm strain. I fixed my problem by reminding my self to relax when my arm starts feeling tired, this helped my problem a lot.   

[keypeg]

I'm in no position to give advice.  I do notice however that the video never goes past a bit of the forearms.  What the rest of the body is doing is a factor, as I understand it.

[hfmadopter]

I don't know if this helps but I have run into your problem before were I have strains in my arm. This happens to me when I am playing fast intervals such as octaves were my hand is stretched. I sometimes lock my hand in the position of a octave and forget to relax. This leads to my arm getting tired and me having an arm strain. I fixed my problem by reminding my self to relax when my arm starts feeling tired, this helped my problem a lot.   

Yes, fast melodic octaves for me, those are what I can feel some tension with. In my case I know it's locked wrist causing it. Some day I'll get that wrist to relax during those ! I have a lot of tension in my body as I'm a rather anxious person even though you would never know by looking at me. That anxiety when I go into the octaves causes a lock up in the wrists that one day I shall conquer. It's on my piano to do list. However, I don't stay locked up when I get past those passages.

[chopincrazy23]

I didn't really mean that my hand stays locked up throughout the piece, but throughout the octave section I would keep it in that stretched position. I forgot to mention this before but for me, it helps to not only let your hand relax, but also use your whole forearm to move throughout the octaves. (this is especially the case if your playing broken octaves) I am very anxious too and sometimes I have my shoulders up, thats when I forget to play with my whole forearm and relax.

[nyiregyhazi]

I didn't really mean that my hand stays locked up throughout the piece, but throughout the octave section I would keep it in that stretched position. I forgot to mention this before but for me, it helps to not only let your hand relax, but also use your whole forearm to move throughout the octaves. (this is especially the case if your playing broken octaves) I am very anxious too and sometimes I have my shoulders up, thats when I forget to play with my whole forearm and relax.

Don't forget the role of movement that is generated within the hand though! This is the one thing that is least inclined to receive so much as a reference- yet virtually everything hinges on this. If you're not creating useful movement, your choices are to rigidify or to lose speed and accuracy with flaccid fingers (that your instincts will have no choice but to turn into stiff ones during the key depression anyway- assuming that you don't want to hit a cluster rather than an octave!). When people don't have an instinct for generating useful movement within the hand itself, there is no possibility of a loose wrist- yet for some reason this is the one thing which virtually no method actually looks at the necessity of training.

This post illustrates two necessary elements without which a loose wrist is objectively altogether impossible to achieve (one of which is movement from the fingers and the other being a slight arm follow-through that takes out the impact of a dead-stop). If these elements are missing, you are literally attempting the impossible, when hoping to relax the wrist.

https://pianoscience.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/introduction-to-three-core-posts-on.html

I didn't have a clue what true relaxation of the wrist even means until I learned how much of a role the hand itself plays.

[hfmadopter]

I didn't really mean that my hand stays locked up throughout the piece, but throughout the octave section I would keep it in that stretched position. I forgot to mention this before but for me, it helps to not only let your hand relax, but also use your whole forearm to move throughout the octaves. (this is especially the case if your playing broken octaves) I am very anxious too and sometimes I have my shoulders up, thats when I forget to play with my whole forearm and relax.

That's ok, I didn't really mean that my wrist truely locks either ! Lot's of years ago I left off playing piano attempting to master more relaxed octaves in the melody and find myself right back there is all. I know my wrist is stiffer than it should be at least in the right hand.

On that note, what fingers are you using for your octaves ?

[chopincrazy23]

That's ok, I didn't really mean that my wrist truely locks either ! Lot's of years ago I left off playing piano attempting to master more relaxed octaves in the melody and find myself right back there is all. I know my wrist is stiffer than it should be at least in the right hand.

On that note, what fingers are you using for your octaves ?

I generally use 1 and 5, but sometimes I use 1 and 4 when the piece has a chromatic section.