Forearm Tension

[drkz4ck]

Hello, everyone!

My new teacher has been telling me about my forearm tension for over a month, but I couldn't actually feel it before yesterday.

I'm finaly starting to feel it as I play, but it takes more than just willing to avoid it, and I think it's because almost every other activity I do that uses the hands also uses forearm tension. So it's become some kind of automatic association of the body.

I am way more tense on the left arm, and also when I play chords.

So I was wondering if there are some practical "exercises" that could help release the forearm and improve weight transfer while playing.

I know total relaxation is impossible, or we wold just fall of the bench. I'm talking about excessive/unecessary tension during playing.

Thanks for the tips =)

[louispodesta]

Hello, everyone!

My new teacher has been telling me about my forearm tension for over a month, but I couldn't actually feel it before yesterday.

I'm finaly starting to feel it as I play, but it takes more than just willing to avoid it, and I think it's because almost every other activity I do that uses the hands also uses forearm tension. So it's become some kind of automatic association of the body.

I am way more tense on the left arm, and also when I play chords.

So I was wondering if there are some practical "exercises" that could help release the forearm and improve weight transfer while playing.

I know total relaxation is impossible, or we wold just fall of the bench. I'm talking about excessive/unecessary tension during playing.

Thanks for the tips =)

First registered/posted in 2011, and you just noticed this problem.  I don't think so!

This is another made-up post from those at Pianostreet who refuse to formally recognize and feature the piano technique experts of our time (Taubman, Golandsky, Mark).

[dogperson]

First registered/posted in 2011, and you just noticed this problem.  I don't think so!

This is another made-up post from those at Pianostreet who refuse to formally recognize and feature the piano technique experts of our time (Taubman, Golandsky, Mark).

WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU ASSUME THIS IS A MADE UP POST???  If you would have  bothered  to read the previous posts by the OP, this was a self-taught pianist who now has just gotten a teacher and switched from a digital to an acoustic piano.  Of course, he is now learning of problems he didn't know he had!!!!!!!!!!!!   Louis, really enough of this nonsense.

[pianoplayer002]

First registered/posted in 2011, and you just noticed this problem.  I don't think so!

This is another made-up post from those at Pianostreet who refuse to formally recognize and feature the piano technique experts of our time (Taubman, Golandsky, Mark).

Are you for real?

@OP I don't like the use of the word relaxation in terms of piano technique because it creates the kind of misunderstanding that you are demonstrating in your post. Yes, if we relaxed completely we would fall of the chair, but we can still have a completely soft and supple arm while we play. So it's not "okay" to still have some tension in the arm. (Don't misunderstand me, of course it is okay to struggle with relaxation, but the goal is the complete freedom of every joint in the hand, arm, and shoulder).

I.e. the goal for your "relaxation" work still has to be that whenever you play any note, any chord, any type of passage, before, during, and after pressing down any key with any finger, your wrist should be so loose that somebody else (or yourself) could grab it and push it in any direction without feeling any resistance or stiffness from your body.

I have found over the years that forearm tension either comes from putting pressure on the fingers with the strong muscles higher up in the arm, so you have to tense up the forearm (where the muscles that govern the wrist and fingers are) in order to resist the pressure (else everything would just collapse under the pressure), or from trying to inhibit yourself and "holding up" things. You might for example constantly hold your elbows up instead of letting them hang loosely by your side. Or you might subtly try to "hold up" your fingers, away from the keyboard, while pressing down the keys, so that you are not firmly holding down the keys in the keybed, but your contact with the instrument is flimsy and insecure. This kind of inactivity in the fingers causes you to use the arm instead to prod down the keys, which creates a similar kind of problem as if you are pressing down on your fingers as described above.

Are you able to completely relax your arms and hands, then rest the hands in a natural playing position on the keys, while still keeping finger, wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints relaxed, and then play a key by moving any finger? Feel it as if the movement is originating from the fingertip, and make sure everything else remains loose. Make sure the movement is only with the finger, and that there is no additional pressure from the hand and forearm, or that you are not tensing up and inhibiting the arm from being able to move!

[anamnesis]

Are you for real?

@OP I don't like the use of the word relaxation in terms of piano technique because it creates the kind of misunderstanding that you are demonstrating in your post. Yes, if we relaxed completely we would fall of the chair, but we can still have a completely soft and supple arm while we play. So it's not "okay" to still have some tension in the arm. (Don't misunderstand me, of course it is okay to struggle with relaxation, but the goal is the complete freedom of every joint in the hand, arm, and shoulder).

I.e. the goal for your "relaxation" work still has to be that whenever you play any note, any chord, any type of passage, before, during, and after pressing down any key with any finger, your wrist should be so loose that somebody else (or yourself) could grab it and push it in any direction without feeling any resistance or stiffness from your body.

I have found over the years that forearm tension either comes from putting pressure on the fingers with the strong muscles higher up in the arm, so you have to tense up the forearm (where the muscles that govern the wrist and fingers are) in order to resist the pressure (else everything would just collapse under the pressure), or from trying to inhibit yourself and "holding up" things. You might for example constantly hold your elbows up instead of letting them hang loosely by your side. Or you might subtly try to "hold up" your fingers, away from the keyboard, while pressing down the keys, so that you are not firmly holding down the keys in the keybed, but your contact with the instrument is flimsy and insecure. This kind of inactivity in the fingers causes you to use the arm instead to prod down the keys, which creates a similar kind of problem as if you are pressing down on your fingers as described above.

Are you able to completely relax your arms and hands, then rest the hands in a natural playing position on the keys, while still keeping finger, wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints relaxed, and then play a key by moving any finger? Feel it as if the movement is originating from the fingertip, and make sure everything else remains loose. Make sure the movement is only with the finger, and that there is no additional pressure from the hand and forearm, or that you are not tensing up and inhibiting the arm from being able to move!

Now a days, I less and less like trying to ascribe an initiating movement because it is somewhat dependent on the subjective experience of the pianist, and what they actually experience as part of the movement. I certainly have my own opinion, and admittedly it is influenced by my experience in other movement and athletic disciplines and sciences.   

I think part of the confusion is caused orienting the discussion towards the act of a single articulation.  Although that is the most obvious part of the playing experience, it is only a portion of it.  At least in my experience, I find that it becomes easier to be "loose" in the rest of the playing mechanism when you place importance to the kinesthetic experience of what you do between the playing of tones rather than only focus on the hitting. 

Of course, fingers are active and articulate to make contact with single tones.  But what happens after?  What happens before?  How does this build up into a phrase or how do you re-balance the activity when thinking in terms of higher metric and larger tonal structures? 

Inhibiting the arm and tensing up ultimately comes from focusing on the articulation of single tones, especially as you said with overt pressure coming from the arms or holding.  And that is because that inhibition and holding excessively focus the arm on single tones rather than loose and yet direction filled rhythmic activity between tones that helps build up phrases.  The role of the fingers is that they have to be active enough to help sustain the rhythmic movement between tones much like making contact with the ground during a run helps sustain the rhythmic movement originating at the hip (and if you can see the parallel homology withthe upper extremities, you can see why I personally have a hard time wanting to say that the movement is initiated at the fingertips rather than the fingers being captured inside of something larger.)   

[hardy_practice]

Yes we use fingers, mostly that's what we do, but we also drop our weight into the keys oftentimes.  I have students hang their hand from the wrist and drop into the key releasing the wrist the moment the tone is produced.  The wrist keeps going down until parallel with the forearm.  How many students can't resist 'taking' the key with the fingers at the very last moment!  I see it all the time.  Their body's are conditioned - fingers play the piano, fingers play the piano, fingers play the piano.

[louispodesta]

WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU ASSUME THIS IS A MADE UP POST???  If you would have  bothered  to read the previous posts by the OP, this was a self-taught pianist who now has just gotten a teacher and switched from a digital to an acoustic piano.  Of course, he is now learning of problems he didn't know he had!!!!!!!!!!!!   Louis, really enough of this nonsense.

[drkz4ck]

... this was a self-taught pianist who now has just gotten a teacher and switched from a digital to an acoustic piano.  Of course, he is now learning of problems he didn't know he had!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much. This is pretty close to what my story actually is.
Everytime I'm about to post something here, I start off telling about my whole life story, which always ends up so long, and I forget reason I was posting in the first place.

I used to think that there was something wrong with me and I was just not meant to play the piano, but little by little I'm learning about issues that could've been hampering all along, such as tension, lack of a good posture and so on.

I've been taking lessons with a new teacer for just a month now and we've been working together with a very objective and practical aproach.
Still, I'm curious towards other pianists opinions and aproaches for the same technical problems I might have.