Fingers Tired at Night

[seanhmoss]

I am an organist, but started an account here for the forums. My fingers become stiff at night, at which time I find playing quickly a bit more difficult. Who has encountered such a thing, and what was your solution?

[iansinclair]

I was an organist too -- in fact there are a number of them on the forum.  Welcome!

Couple of things: first, how much do you practice?  There is such a thing as enough!  Second, what are you playing?  There is a huge difference between a heavy tracker and a light all electric action.

And yes, I have encountered fatigue which showed up not so much as stiffness as slowness.  I countered it in two ways: first, a slightly more reasonable practice schedule and second, sheer time.  After 40 years or so, my fingers got to be pretty strong!

[indianajo]

Saw your post on organforum, thought you were a bot.
Life without pain is a life not lived. If you are praciticing enough the muscles in your forearms should be tired at the end.
Tendon pain and joint pain are not good.  If you are arching your hands enough, have the wrists straight,  and droop the forearms down from the elbow properly, and still have undue pain, perhaps a lesson or two with a trained keyboard teacher is in order. And/Or perhaps, a taller bench to get the right posture.
There is a stretching exercise for forearm muscles that is never talked about by piano teachers (that I had) but I learned it from the ergo program at the factory.  Like all muscles, stiffness is remediated somewhat by stretching before and after exercise.  Look in an ergo book at the library, I want them to be the expert instead of me.  It involves pushing back the fingers with the other hand until stretching is felt, NOT pain.  Several repetitions of a stretching movement should result in lengthing of the muscles being stretched.
I'm 63 and have considerable discomfort from any exercise.  Use it or lose it; my neighbor that bought an electric wheel chair is dead after 3 years of sloth.  The longest lived people are farmers that never quit, and people that live on an island in Greece where the houses are on top of the island, and the grocery store and restaurant are down at the harbor.      

[nyiregyhazi]

Saw your post on organforum, thought you were a bot.
Life without pain is a life not lived. If you are praciticing enough the muscles in your forearms should be tired at the end.   

The forearms are not a suitable place for pain. If they are tired, it suggests fixations of the wrong muscles. Only the hand should reasonably get tired. I've heard various good teachers describe it this way and my own experience is the same. My forearms only hurt if I'm practising wrong. Fortunately, I haven't had any forearm pains for a long time now.

[j_menz]

Only the hand should reasonably get tired.

Or the brain.

[indianajo]

The forearms are not a suitable place for pain. If they are tired, it suggests fixations of the wrong muscles. Only the hand should reasonably get tired. I've heard various good teachers describe it this way and my own experience is the same. My forearms only hurt if I'm practising wrong. Fortunately, I haven't had any forearm pains for a long time now.

Are you over sixty?  Testosterone covers a number of pains, just wait until it goes away.  This phenomenon is the reason so many former atheletes veg out in retirement.  Give 110%, find out the consequences when you get old.  My knees give me **** as a result of the US Army requirement to train to run in combat boots in the seventies.  Fortunately, the Army didn't mess up my hands. 
There aren't large muscles in the fingers. I get my power of my fingers from my forearms, which pull tendons pulling the fingers down.  I don't wiggle the second joint from the end playing piano, I wiggle the third joint back at the knuckle. 

[nyiregyhazi]

Are you over sixty?  Testosterone covers a number of pains, just wait until it goes away.  This phenomenon is the reason so many former atheletes veg out in retirement.  Give 110%, find out the consequences when you get old.  My knees give me **** as a result of the US Army requirement to train to run in combat boots in the seventies.  Fortunately, the Army didn't mess up my hands.  
There aren't large muscles in the fingers. I get my power of my fingers from my forearms, which pull tendons pulling the fingers down.  I don't wiggle the second joint from the end playing piano, I wiggle the third joint back at the knuckle.  

If you're older, I'd be more concerned, not less so. The forearms simply shouldn't be worked hard. Any pain suggests muscles contracting against each other or being forced to overwork due to excessive arm pressure.

Even when I've been doing weights in the gym and have aching forearms in general, I don't tolerate pain in that area while playing. In fact, this is one of the best times to tell if I'm overworking the muscles. If I'm playing with the right quality, it doesn't cause any problems there, even if the muscles were already feeling tender. The right movement doesn't make for any issues. However, if I'm tensing them just a bit (rather than moving in a simple fashion) I'll know about it from the pain.

[faulty_damper]

I don't know how organists are trained, but if they are trained the with the fingers like "hammers" on the keys, like eagle claws, then that's the reason for the pain.

[seanhmoss]

I am playing an Allen MDS-5 LDS, which has a very firm touch. I plan to have it adjusted to feel like a tracker. At the church at which I study, there is a fine tracker action organ. Its touch is effortless, when smaller registrations are involved.

[iansinclair]

Organists should not use their fingers like hammers!  There is no need for it.  We do use some fingerings which are not (usually) used by pianists, though, as the need for an absolutely even touch isn't as great -- either the pipe or pipes sounds, or it doesn't.  I'm not sure whether it is a valid generalisation -- I've not seen enough various performers -- but my own feeling is the an organist generally uses somewhat flatter fingers than a pianist, however.  I certainly do. 

Any good organ should have a reasonably light touch -- certainly no heavier than a good grand piano.  Electric/electro-pneumatic instruments can have insanely light touch, although -- at least on the few which are that way I've encountered -- repetition speed seems to suffer if they are too light.  Trackers are variable.  Some have remarkably light touch -- so long as one is working with just one manual (they really shouldn't differ with registration within one manual).  It is almost inevitable, however, that if couplers are used the touch becomes heavier, as then you are actually operating two (or more) manuals at once.  There is a very definite tradeoff, though, between the weight of the touch and the size of the instrument -- bigger instruments tend to be heavier -- and maximum repetition speed, as the force available to restore the tracker connected to the key must be larger if you want more speed -- and that will mean a heavier touch.  But a heavier touch will also mean you don't play quite as fast... and so on!

Ideally the instrument will be well maintained, and will have been designed and voiced for its space in the first place -- and the organist will enjoy it!