Retraining After Injury: Too Late?

[cloudkill]

Hello all you pianists out there,

To give you some context, I am a nineteen year old piano student who has been playing since the age of five. I left the piano temporarily around the age of seven, but returned with a passion at ten, practicing up to eight hours a day. My practicing slowed significantly when junior high arrived, but I continued to practice all through junior high and high school. Just this last year I completed the California Certificate of Merit exam for Advanced Level, performing a repertoire of five memorized pieces that included the Grave from Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique, Bach's Fugue in C Minor, and Debussy's La Plue Que Lente.

A year and a half ago, I began to suffer from acute wrist and arm pain. I discovered that my playing displayed excessive tension and that I would need to learn how to let my hands and arms "breathe" to mitigate the pain and improve my phrasing. Part of this problem may have arisen from long hours of impulsive solo improvisation.

My condition is improving, but I'm nervous about my ability to progress should I return to the piano (which I really want to do!). I will have to relearn key aspects of my technique, and I am afraid that it might be too late to really master the subtle aspects of playing that I failed to learn at a young age. Is it too late for me? I'm aspiring to become a concert pianist of the highest caliber possible and would be willing to practice as much as possible after my injuries have healed.

[ted]

The way you have couched your question is puzzling, as nobody, including you, could tell in advance what is feasible long-term without first attempting to solve the problem. Such problems as you describe are highly variable in their resolution, taking anything from a couple of weeks to years depending on many factors. I do not think posters on the internet, however well meaning, could possibly answer your question, and indeed, might proffer completely wrong advice.

Does it have to be a choice right now between being a concert pianist and not playing at all ? Would you not still want to enjoy playing the piano anyway, in whatever capacity you could ? I would be inclined to commence the process of careful relearning first, and not worry too much about whether anything is too late until your mechanism is again fluent.

Speaking from personal experience, and as a ferociously compulsive improviser, I would be very surprised if improvisation, however intense, were the cause. My problem was painless lack of control, so perhaps that is different, but I found improvisation a great help in correcting it.

[faulty_damper]

This post may fall under the category of "TROLLING".  If so, moderators, please delete.

ENGLISH POLICE ALERT!

1. A space between paragraphs would make your post much more legible.

2. Most people now only read 140 characters or less so you have to be concise.  If you can't say it in 140 characters or less, don't say it.  It's like if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it.  Though this has nothing to do with your post.  But it's just there to fill up space.  Like these sentences.  Absolutely nothing to say.  But it reads like you can read more.  So be concise.


*I'm sleepy and tired.  The filter part of my brain is already asleep.  So forgive this post if you are offended.  But I just wanted to offer English writing advice.  I'm a teacher.  So a student who can't write well annoys the crap out of me.  So I have to give instruction so that it's no longer annoying.  A teacher is a repairman.  We fix things.

[cloudkill]

Does it have to be a choice right now between being a concert pianist and not playing at all ? Would you not still want to enjoy playing the piano anyway, in whatever capacity you could ?

Thanks for the advice ted, I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself. I should just focus on getting rid of this pain first.

ENGLISH POLICE ALERT!

I'll try and follow those posting guidelines in the future.

[faulty_damper]

Hello all you pianists out there,

To give you some context, I am a nineteen year old piano student who has been playing since the age of five. I left the piano temporarily around the age of seven, but returned with a passion at ten, practicing up to eight hours a day. My practicing slowed significantly when junior high arrived, but I continued to practice all through junior high and high school. Just this last year I completed the California Certificate of Merit exam for Advanced Level, performing a repertoire of five memorized pieces that included the Grave from Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique, Bach's Fugue in C Minor, and Debussy's La Plue Que Lente.

A year and a half ago, I began to suffer from acute wrist and arm pain. I discovered that my playing displayed excessive tension and that I would need to learn how to let my hands and arms "breathe" to mitigate the pain and improve my phrasing. Part of this problem may have arisen from long hours of impulsive solo improvisation.

My condition is improving, but I'm nervous about my ability to progress should I return to the piano (which I really want to do!). I will have to relearn key aspects of my technique, and I am afraid that it might be too late to really master the subtle aspects of playing that I failed to learn at a young age. Is it too late for me? I'm aspiring to become a concert pianist of the highest caliber possible and would be willing to practice as much as possible after my injuries have healed.

Wow!  That's a lot more legible. Thanks! 

As to address your issue:
It's obvious - you have shitty technique.  I've been there and done that.  Good musicianship with shitty technique leads to excessive hours practicing to compensate for said shitty technique. 

It's now how your hands feel, it's how the music sounds.  You can spend a lot of energy pounding keys or you can be economic and spend very little while still sounding the same.  My advice is to focus on making playing as easy as possible - that's the goal.  The least amount of effort to achieve the desired sound.  It's worked for me extremely well, though unfortunately, I end up making difficult pieces look easy.  Because they are.

[indianajo]

If you haven't already performed a major concerto with the LA phil or SF phil, it is too late.  That is how Lang lang got his start, age 11 wasn't it?  I'm sick of seeing him play things I can play on TV, but I'm not a programmer, what do I know. 
If you want to be famous, compose like Lennon, or arrange and find great artists like David Foster. 
And find a good teacher, shouldn't be hard in California.  They will have a much better idea of what is wrong. 
And I think the 140 character limit to communication is so stupid, I never post or read Twitter at all.  I read 1000 wpm and type 200, why be afraid of a few words?

[faulty_damper]

Do you really type 200 wpm?  I doubt that.  since most people average 40 and max out around 120.

[keypeg]

Do you really type 200 wpm?  I doubt that.  since most people average 40 and max out around 120.

In this day and age I would be surprised if many people were that slow.  I also wouldn't set a 140 character limit.  In reading posts, I want to have enough information.  I do agree that it should be well organized into paragraphs by idea.  All of that is off topic, of course.

[faulty_damper]

It is that slow.  Touch typing requires a keyboard.  Most youngons use their cell phones and don't read books anymore.  Also, writing instruction in schools is virtually non-existent in America, which is why so many college professors now complain that their students are submitting crap.  One professor I had told us of an idiot who turned in a paper written in txt spch.  R U Kddng? No, he ws srs.

Source:
https://www.learn2type.com/typingtest/typingspeed.cfm

[keypeg]

It is that slow.  Touch typing requires a keyboard.  Most youngons use their cell phones and don't read books anymore.  Also, writing instruction in schools is virtually non-existent in America, which is why so many college professors now complain that their students are submitting crap.  One professor I had told us of an idiot who turned in a paper written in txt spch.  R U Kddng? No, he ws srs.

Source:
https://www.learn2type.com/typingtest/typingspeed.cfm

We're not in America.  Students have to type their assignments.  I'm going by observation.  Are you going by sites such as the one you quoted?  

Again, people's typing speed is not pertinent to the OP.

[faulty_damper]

Yes, most sites list 40 wpm as the average.  I concur that it is that slow having witnessed many students and adults type.  In fact, even now as I type this reply, I'm probably averaging that, even though my maximum is above 80 wpm.  Why is it half my maximum? Because I have to think of what to write and that takes a lot of mental effort.