Forearm problems

[sashaco]

While I am not a very accomplished pianist I have never experienced the least bit of discomfort or pain while playing.  Last month I was working quite hard on Chopin Op 10 No 3, and finding that near the end of the parrallel sixths section (bars 46-54) I would feel a tightness in the top of my right forearm perhaps three inches below the elbow particularly when I played it slowly.  Presumably this came from holding the hand very open for an extended period- something I don't think it would be possible to do in an entirely relaxed manner.  I stopped working on the etude, but after a while I began to feel discomfort playing almost anything.  I took ten days off and worked on the Scriabin Nocturne and the left hand of the Revolutionary.  I iced the forearm most days during that time, but am still feeling discomfort if I play with it.
The only reason I can think that the right was disturbed and not the left from the same section is that the muscles in my right forearm used to be hypertrophied from enormous amounts of squash ( I taught and played semi-professionally) although the forearm has long ago returned to fairly normal size.  Possibly there was more friction between the muscles where they edge into the tendons in the right arm.  This seems a bit far-fetched and anyway you'd think ten days would be enough rest.
Any thoughts?  Similar experiences?

[dima_76557]

@ sashaco

Overuse injuries seem to be quite common in squash, most often a "tennis elbow" from the high-velocity and repetitive arm movements.

From what I read, though, it sounds like your piano technique is not up to the pieces you were practising. The B section of the Chopin etude does not require you to keep your hand outstretched throughout; you have ample time to release the tension immediately. Keeping the stretch for a prolonged time causes severe problems, which you are now facing. This may take you months and months to heal.

See a doctor/physiotherapist and rethink your piano technique, preferably along the lines indicated here:
https://www.pianomap.com/injuries/index.html
and here:
https://www.musicianshealth.com/Pianostress.html

[sashaco]

Hi Dima,
Thanks for answering.

Squash should actually cause no forearm strain at all- I have had weeks when I hit the ball 50 hours without any strain.  Only radically bad technique will cause problems (unlike tennis where slightly bad technique or off-center hitting can hurt your arm owing to the far greater momentum of the ball)  and I was a pro- my technique was pretty sound. At any rate I don't play squash any more- or not more than a couple hours a week with my children, who are small.

I think the problem was caused by repeating those 8 bars too many times without resting- had I simply been playing the whole B section through I think I'd have been ok- as you say, there is adequate space for rest.  I don't think the piece was way beyond my technique- I used to play the Barcarolle (not for concert stage of course, but I've performed it for school audiences) and felt no strain or discomfort with the sixths there, or indeed with the extended passages of octaves. 

The question now is really how to go about recovery. Perhaps a physical therapist is the way to go, but I'm guessing pianists will know more about this sort of thing than therapists.   (Certainly as a squash pro I was more helpful to people who got forearm pain from mis-hitting than their therapists.)  I hope it does not become months and months!

I thank you again for your quick and thoughtful response, and I will look at those sites you mention.

[dima_76557]

I think the problem was caused by repeating those 8 bars too many times without resting- had I simply been playing the whole B section through I think I'd have been ok- as you say, there is adequate space for rest.

A few thoughts:

* From the location of your pain, it seems like you stretch out your fingertips to reach for the impossible, while you should actually learn to open the palm slightly without stretching the fingers themselves too much. Then use the arm to simply guide your hand to the next interval.
* Your coordination seems to be heavily arm-and-elbow-oriented, coming down on passive fingers, most likely a result of your squashing past. If you did that kind of harmful stretching with "strong hands" in mind and with relaxed arms, you would most likely suffer from pain in the wrist area, not so high up in the forearm.
* It would be interesting to know what your reach is between 2-5 without tension.

[sashaco]

Dima,
Interesting.  I think my palm barely opens at all, so what you are saying makes good sense.  I also wonder  if I have been trying to play the slurred pairs too legato, so that when both sixths are down I am indeed reaching for the impossible.  As you say, I should be using the arm to guide. I think I have been reaching with the fingers and pulling the arm to the new sixth.

I am pretty comfortable reaching a seventh between 2 and 5 with my left hand and quite relaxed on even an augmented sixth, but not so with the right.  This may be true right now because of inflammation in the right forearm, or it may always be true because my palm is less flexible owing to squash and other grip-strengthening activities.  Reading through the piece on injuries you linked I was reminded that tennis elbow can leave some roughness in tendons and perhaps that caused some friction.  (I've had tennis elbow as a result of using an extremely inflexible string, Pro Blend, which worked well for me when I was younger but bothered my arm five years ago when I started using it again.)

It is very kind of you to take the time to offer these thoughts.

Cheers, Sasha

[dima_76557]

Dima,
Interesting.  I think my palm barely opens at all, so what you are saying makes good sense.  I also wonder  if I have been trying to play the slurred pairs too legato, so that when both sixths are down I am indeed reaching for the impossible.  As you say, I should be using the arm to guide. I think I have been reaching with the fingers and pulling the arm to the new sixth.

Not only that. I think you also use excessive force downwards, force that does not go into tone making. The result is that for every blow down, you get a reactive blow back on the area that hurts.

It takes very, very little to make tone. After you recover (!), you should practise not louder than mf and try to gauge how much energy is really required to get sound. Actually, "dusting" the piano with your fingertips already gives you tone. Fortissimo is initiated from the shoulder (without moving it however), not from a locked elbow.

I am pretty comfortable reaching a seventh between 2 and 5 with my left hand and quite relaxed on even an augmented sixth, but not so with the right.  This may be true right now because of inflammation in the right forearm, or it may always be true because my palm is less flexible owing to squash and other grip-strengthening activities.  Reading through the piece on injuries you linked I was reminded that tennis elbow can leave some roughness in tendons and perhaps that caused some friction.  (I've had tennis elbow as a result of using an extremely inflexible string, Pro Blend, which worked well for me when I was younger but bothered my arm five years ago when I started using it again.)

A seventh is more than enough since you only need a sixth and there's not really need for physical legato. How about 1-3?

[sashaco]

I was always taught to support the weight of my arms with my fingers.  I think that it's possible that, at times, particularly when I'm learning something, I am unconsciously pushing down.  Perhaps this will sound odd, but I tend to think of tension as locking my arms so that their weight is NOT going into the keys, so in an attempt to force relaxation (obviously an oxymoron) I push down- use excessive force, as you say.
In sports we see the same thing.  Golfers are told, "Keep your head down," when the point is actually not to lift it.  Then beginners force their heads down with resulting muscular tension that they fight against with the opposite muscles.
I think the spreading of the fingers was making my forearms feel tense, so perhaps I was trying to create the illusion of relaxation by making sure plenty of weight was sinking into the keys.
I think before I go back to Chopin I had better let the arm get close to full recovery- perhaps I'll go back to Bach fugues for a while and maybe try some left hand etudes to work on technique a bit more.
As I write this I realize that for me the best way to avoid tension has been  simply not to think of playing as a physical challenge, but rather to listen ever more closely to the sound being produced and to try to bring it closer to what I want.  I think that in that sixths passage I don't HAVE a clear idea of what I want.  In the rest of the etude I know what I'm trying to do (for better or worse!) but in that passage I'm just waiting  for something to happen, so it becomes physical.  Iws that too goofy an idea?

[dima_76557]

Is that too goofy an idea?

I can't look into your mind, so I'll just assume that it is a correct idea.

2 remarks:
1) Think not straight down, but slightly diagonally forward down into the key. This gives you more control over the key, and hence less loss of energy.
2) See a doctor and tell him/her EVERYTHING, including the "old" tennis arm thing. Do not underestimate this!

[hardy_practice]

Fingering doesn't seem to have come up?!

[dima_76557]

Fingering doesn't seem to have come up?!

? Chopin's fingering is ideal for all types of hands, big and small.

The main problems here are:
1) improper reaching and stretching,
2) most likely also the wish to accomplish physical legato where none is required and
3) continuing when the body tells the pianist to stop.
P.S.: Do you have any alternative fingering maybe that still allows for virtuoso execution of that cadenza?

[hardy_practice]

Agree with 1, 2 and 3.  Have you got Chopin's fingerings?

[dima_76557]

Agree with 1, 2 and 3.  Have you got Chopin's fingerings?

I have the fingering that all editions show, which I assume are Chopin's own because it's all so natural as soon as you understand the notes, the direction of the sequences, and the related "in and out" movements: 5-2;3-1 and 1-3;2-5 throughout for both hands.

[hardy_practice]

I have the fingering that all editions show, which I assume are Chopin's own because it's all so natural as soon as you understand the notes, the direction of the sequences, and the related "in and out" movements: 5-2;3-1 and 1-3;2-5 throughout for both hands.

I don't think it's natural and it only encourages your point 2.  It comes from the Wessel edition.  As it's in no other first edition I assume it's not from the manuscript.  I'm using 5-2; 4-1; 2-1; 4-1 repeat, then 5-2; 3-1; 2-1; 5-1; repeat  That seems more natural to me.

[dima_76557]

I don't think it's natural and it only encourages your point 2.

If a pianist cannot discover the simplicity in movement of the "standard" fingering I indicated, then there is always the trick of completely regrouping the lot, of course.

Let's say you take the first sixth (d-b) separately with whatever fingering and then go to groups of 5-2;4-1, 1-4;2-5, etc. completely against Chopin's pattern, so you get really "closed" positions and problem solved. That seems like something Taubmanites would propose. The only problem left is then pedaling to cover up the holes. Chopin's lesson, however, is thus completely bypassed: "souplesse avant tout, however inconvenient the positions are".

[hardy_practice]

Perhaps doable but then why?  My fingering keeps Chopin's pattern and certainly feels more souplesse than the usual.

[dima_76557]

Perhaps doable but then why?  My fingering keeps Chopin's pattern and certainly feels more souplesse than the usual.

Can't say I like your fingering patterns very much in action (just tried them). Why the 4, when 3 is already there? That's too much pivoting for me to be comfortable at full speed. 1-2 seems to me rather "stretchy" and not at all so natural for some thumbs (not mine; I can take a ninth with 1-2).

[hardy_practice]

Can't say I like your fingering patterns very much in action (just tried them). Why the 4, when 3 is already there?

Well, at least you're willing to suck and see!  You can say the same about 2 in the trad pattern: 5-2; 3-1; 3-1; 5-1;  why use the second 3 when 2 is on it?  In my pattern as the thumb moves down 4 goes where 3 was - if your hand's relaxed (though I think I use 3 for some?!).

[dima_76557]

You can say the same about 2 in the trad pattern: 5-2; 3-1; 3-1; 5-1;  why use the second 3 when 2 is on it?

Because the third in the middle of Chopin's pattern, fingered 2-3, is the imaginary pivot around which everything else occurs. That's how I feel it technically. Wrist/arm slightly right, wrist/arm slightly left, etc. No contortions breaking that simple pattern. Seems psychologically very convenient to me.

[hardy_practice]

I would say in the trad pattern the wrist leads, in mine the fingertips.  The wrist still moves much the same - the difference is where the sound initiates from.

[amytsuda]

Sorry for jumping in. I tried your fingering, it's almost impossible for my hands to do that. I can only do 5-2 3-1 5-2 3-1 as written on my score. I can do 5-2 4-1 2-1 4-1 only the first part starting from B and interestingly it does feel more natural so I see a point of this discussion. But after that, my fingers get tangled up.  Can you post a video of how you do that whole section...?

[hardy_practice]

I'll see what I can do re vid by the end of the day.  It's the semitone movement that really isn't that well served by the 5-2; 3-1; 3-1; 5-2 pattern.  I noticed with my 5-2; 3(4)-1; 2-1; 4-1; I may use 3 more than the 4 so I've put it in brackets - when fingers are telling you something you aught to listen!  

[dima_76557]

It's the semitone movement that really isn't that well served by the 5-2; 3-1; 3-1; 5-2 pattern.

Why would that be? Maybe, some time in your past, you simply tried to bring it up to tempo too fast so that that fingering felt (and keeps feeling) unnatural? Here's a tutorial played slowly by a woman with fairly small hands (time set to start with the cadenza) that is very useful to watch from a technical viewpoint for those who are thinking about trying the piece. I don't see how any other fingering could actually make it easier for both mind and body:

&t=3m4s

[hardy_practice]

Why would that be? Maybe, some time in your past, you simply tried to bring it up to tempo too fast so that that fingering felt (and keeps feeling) unnatural? Here's a tutorial played slowly by a woman with fairly small hands (time set to start with the cadenza) that is very useful to watch from a technical viewpoint for those who are thinking about trying the piece. I don't see how any other fingering could actually make it easier for both mind and body:

&t=3m4s

you can't get much legato without the odd dangerous stretch with the trad pattern.

[dima_76557]

you can't get much legato without the odd dangerous stretch with the trad pattern.

If your hand feels stretched or strained in this passage with this fingering, then you simply haven't found the right movements yet. Chopin's lesson to accomplish legato is more about moving and listening than it is about stretching. IMHO, of course.

[hardy_practice]

If your hand feels stretched or strained in this passage with this fingering, then you simply haven't found the right movements yet. Chopin's lesson to accomplish legato is more about moving and listening than it is about stretching. IMHO, of course.

there is no evidence that the trad pattern is Chopin's.  By its awkwardness and lack of musicallity I say to the contrary.

[dima_76557]

there is no evidence that the trad pattern is Chopin's.  By its awkwardness and lack of musicallity I say to the contrary.

I don't see what's "unmusical" about it. Chopin requires "con bravura" which is a contradictio in terminis with the physical legato you want to accomplish against Chopin's own slurring of the patterns. He wants you, instead, to raise your hand slightly between each group. Again, IMHO.

[hardy_practice]

We all know Chopin liked putting finger 5 under/over 4?  and vice versa?  The Wessel fingerer was unaware of this - as was the rest of Europe.

Actually you would have Fontana would have done!

Title page:
WESSEL & Cos.|NEW & REVISED EDITION.|Douze|GRANDES ETUDES,|(en Deux Livraisons.)|pour le|Piano Forte,|dediées ŕ ses amis|J. LISZT [sic], ET FERD. HILLER,|Par|FREDERIC CHOPIN.|(de Varsovie.)|Edited with additional fingering by his Pupil,|I. FONTANA

https://chopin.lib.uchicago.edu/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?a=d&c=chopin&d=CHOP043.1

[dima_76557]

We all know Chopin liked putting finger 5 under/over 4?  and vice versa?  The Wessel fingerer was unaware of this - as was the rest of Europe.

Why don't you address the musical point I made? Chopin would use 5 under/over 4 and vice versa if there was something to be united, to be tied. The musical notation in this cadenza, however, goes against the physical legato you want to accomplish.

[amytsuda]

Does any of you know where we can find the original Chopin manuscript? It obviously exists:
https://www.ourchopin.com/analysis/etudelear.html

To be honest, I wonder even if Chopin has put any fingering on it, or even slurs. He is known to be skipping details and assumed players should know how. And all the editors added tons stuff later.

I played this piece so many times (partly because my husband liked to sing on top the first A section), anyway, I never got how to play that particular section in discussion. Not necessarily due to my small hands (my hands exactly look like ones in the instruction video with a bit shorter pinkies), but simply it didn't click with me in terms of how it should be played.

[hardy_practice]

I you find it amy let me know!  @Dima Did you see my edit?  I don't dispute where/where not to have legato but 4/5 over/under each other, legato or not, is Chopin!  

Nice link amy.

[amytsuda]

So do you say you use different fingering, but still aim to achieve exact same musical interpretation with what other fingering would do? It sounded you are actually adding something more, can you elaborate semitones?

[hardy_practice]

So do you say you use different fingering, but still aim to achieve exact same musical interpretation with what other fingering would do? It sounded you are actually adding something more, can you elaborate semitones?

No.  I'd say my fingering is closer to Chopin's and therefore a better interpretation.  The semitones G# to A is best 4 to 5 as is G# to G.  It doesn't matter that they're not marked legato there's a flow there.  Also some lower halves of the 6ths can be held with my fingering.  The idea that you just put the pedal down and hope for the best is not Chopin!  Yes, at times.  But not here, and not as much as many think (and do).

edit: My pattern also seems to allows more preparation - a musical thing in itself.    

[dima_76557]

No.  I'd say my fingering is closer to Chopin's and therefore a better interpretation.

 
To Fontana's that is. Why "closer to"? If the principle of "musicality" is that important, why not go to the end and do exactly what Fontana wrote as a suitable fingering, which you take to be Chopin's own?

P.S.: Now that I think of it, the fingering 5-2;1-3 - 1-3;2-5 might just as well be Liszt's. Remember Chopin's quote? "I should like to steal the manner in which he plays my etudes"?

[hardy_practice]

 
To Fontana's that is. Why "closer to"? If the principle of "musicality" is that important, why not go to the end and do exactly what Fontana wrote as a suitable fingering, which you take to be Chopin's own?

P.S.: Now that I think of it, the fingering 5-2;1-3 - 1-3;2-5 might just as well be Liszt's. Remember Chopin's quote? "I should like to steal the manner in which he plays my etudes"?

Fontana's is not Chopin's!  That's the point.  And yes, Fontana's is more of a Lizst fingering.  Do ya think he was having sly lessons on the side?

[dima_76557]

Fontana's is not Chopin's!  That's the point.  And yes, Fontana's is more of a Lizst fingering.

The link you gave us as proof leads to an edition edited by Fontana with his fingerings added (it says so on the title page). That fingering, however, is actually closer to yours than it is to the traditional one, so there's nothing Liszt-like there. Just like amytsuda, I highly doubt that Chopin himself found it necessary to add any fingering to this particular "con bravura" cadenza passage since it all speaks for itself.

[hardy_practice]

https://chopin.lib.uchicago.edu/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?e=d-000-00---0chopin--00-0-0-0prompt-10---4---Document---0-1l--1-en-Zz-1---50-home---001-001-1-0utfZz-8-0&a=d&cl=CL3.5.1&d=CHOP043.13

You're confused - it's English fingering.  + is thumb, 4 is 5!

[dima_76557]

You're confused - it's English fingering.  + is thumb, 4 is 5!

I didn't even see "+" (my screen's too small obviously). Now it makes a lot more sense.
Still, Fontana, who proudly announces on the title page of that edition that he is a Chopin student went against the Master's musical and technical teachings? I find that hard to imagine.

[hardy_practice]

I didn't even see "+" (my screen's too small obviously). Now it makes a lot more sense.
Still, Fontana, who proudly announces on the title page of that edition that he is a Chopin student went against the Master's musical and technical teachings? I find that hard to imagine.

There doesn't seem to be any evidence he was a student of Chopin   He was a very hard working copyist, secretary and factotum.  They were school friends.  According to Eigeldinger Fontana never 'assimilated the characteristics of Chopin's playing' pg 154 - worth a read.

So  someone who never 'assimilated the characteristics of Chopin's playing' is responsible for the pattern handed down and accepted through the generations.  Interesting!

[dima_76557]

So  someone who never 'assimilated the characteristics of Chopin's playing' is responsible for the pattern handed down and accepted through the generations.  Interesting!

OK, let's check then what some people suggest that were really close to the music of Chopin:

Mikuli, a genuine Chopin student, gives NOTHING for the cadenza in the Schirmer Edition. Probably because nothing is required. If there were some deep musical secret in an alternative fingering, he would have indicated it. If nothing is indicated, then general rules apply: "scissors" technique, with the central fingers (2-3) being pivots and the outer fingers (1 and 5) hinges that do not hold the notes.

Jan Ekier also gives the standard 5-2,3-1, 1-3,2-5 in the Urtext as far as I remember.
 
Cortot, a celebrated Chopin interpreter, also gives the standard 5-2,3-1; 1-3,2-5 in his student's edition of op. 10.

P.S.: I'll just stop here. Let's just wait for your rendering of that fragment.

[hardy_practice]

OK, let's check then what some people suggest that were really close to the music of Chopin:

Mikuli, a genuine Chopin student, gives NOTHING for the cadenza in the Shirmer Edition. Probably because nothing is required. If there were some deep musical secret in an alternative fingering, he would have indicated it. If nothing is indicated, then general rules apply: "scissors" technique with the central fingers 2-3 being pivots and the outer fingers (4-5) hinges that do not hold the notes.

I'd be fascinated to see the 'general rules' from 1832 - have you reference to them?  Even then, would Chopin follow them?   Fontana would have been taught as all his contemporaries so we can't expect Chopin fingering from him.  So Mikuli gives nothing?  Not the best of evidence surely?

[dima_76557]

So Mikuli gives nothing?  Not the best of evidence surely?

Surely not evidence for something other than what is to be expected because he does give explicit fingerings in other places that could cause misunderstanding.

[hardy_practice]

Surely not evidence for something other than what is to be expected because he does give explicit fingerings in other places that could cause misunderstanding.

Err..  I'd expect that kind of rationale from your mate!

[dima_76557]

Err..  I'd expect that kind of rationale from your mate!

My mate? As in "check and mate"?

[hardy_practice]

You are sailing perilously close to an argument from ignorance - a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa).  Mr Verbose thrives on such things!  It is undoubtedly Fontana's fingering as Wessel says on the cover.  We need to leave it at that.  As for a vid, that will prove nothing.

[dima_76557]

As for a vid, that will prove nothing.

I would never ask for one. It's just that amytsuda asked you to show how it works in a clip, and I'm also genuinely interested in the musical consequences of your particular fingering. I am flexible enough to reconsider certain principles if the game is worth the candle.

[hardy_practice]

Don't hold your breath.  Nature (memory) needs to take its course.

[amytsuda]

Wow, you guys were working hard while I was asleep and back to my work. (I shouldn't be visiting here now, should be working!)

Yes, I'd love to see the video and learn the difference it makes on the interpretation of the section. With the fingering of 5-2 3-1 3-1 5-2, it's so easy to get into the auto pilot mode, so people tend to play it sort of bang bang bang bang and rit at the end to appear a bit more musical. (Of course, disregarding fingering, we shouldn't do that.....) This whole conversation triggered me to think, maybe, I needed more crisp (Liszt like) sounds (which is easier with 5-2 3-1), or maybe having this semitones of G# to A to have more singing tones like a soprano going crazy.

Feel quite motivated to work on this piece again (but have to do my job now)

[dima_76557]

With the fingering of 5-2 3-1 3-1 5-2, it's so easy to get into the auto pilot mode, so people tend to play it sort of bang bang bang bang and rit at the end to appear a bit more musical. (Of course, disregarding fingering, we shouldn't do that.....) This whole conversation triggered me to think, maybe, I needed more crisp (Liszt like) sounds (which is easier with 5-2 3-1), or maybe having this semitones of G# to A to have more singing tones like a soprano going crazy.

Louis Lortie gives one of the best renditions of this piece I have ever heard. Although he doesn't have really big hands, his fingering, not surprisingly, is the traditional one (seen from above in the clip) without banging on this Fazioli, but then he put decades of work into the etudes before recording them: Louis Lortie: Chopin Etude Op 10 No 3

[amytsuda]

Oh, great video! Thank you!  Early this evening, I decided to take videos of two ways myself 
Fingering 1: 

Fingering 2: 

I didn't spend much time to get used to the second one, so I got confused back to Fingering 1 from the middle, but at least you could hear the difference at the beginning. My conclusion is probably it's not the fingering but something else I need to fix to be more musical  But was fun thinking through this

[dima_76557]

Early this evening, I decided to take videos of two ways myself  
Fingering 1:  

Fingering 2:  

I found the deep breath you take beforing digging in very charming.

It is clear that variant 2 is the least preferably of the two. You know why?
* There's stress on the second finger from the repetitive movement (in fingering 1 it has a fraction of a second to relax, which is crucial in virtuoso technique);
* the 1-2 stretch is indeed unnatural within the context as I assumed already and will cause problems to get this a tempo;
* the thumb repetition this fingering requires is really un-pianistic; and
* there's also too much lateral deviation of the hand to be healthy.

If you practise fingering 2 too often, too loud, and too fast, get ready to see a physiotherapist.