Tension in the shoulders and arms. Do I just blast through it?

[dontcheeseme]

There is this particular piece that I have trouble getting down. I keep missing notes, and feeling tension in my shoulders and arms, especially when I try to add the dynamics. Do I slow down till I can play the piece at 100% accuracy while relaxed? If I did, then I would have to play really REALLLLY DAMN SLOW and take so much of my time.

In addition I can't get a Grade 3 piece down even after an hour of practise. occassional mistakes et al. And like I said, tension in the shoulders. What to do...?!

[adodd81802]

You have to learn what you are doing wrong and fix it.

Going slowly you will be using different muscles anyway so that's not the answer, the answer is working out why it hurts when going faster.

It's like putting your hand under a hammer and going well when they bring the hammer down really slowly it doesn't hurt, but at full speed it's really painful, so should i just keep my hand there and hope I can build up the pain barrier through slowly speeding up the hammer...

It's not always obvious what's going wrong as your shoulder could just be the result of another part of your body that is wrong, rather than just bad shoulder posture.

One Idea you could try is mirroring. Take the same passage and completely mirror it in the left hand and see if you can keep the same speed without tension. If you can't then there's something definitely going on, if you can, work out how your left different from your right - there you can use slow movement to an extent.

Nobody on an internet forum can give you the answer (unless by luck). You have to experiment.

Let this not be misunderstood, slow practice is a good thing, but not honestly the answer to working out bad posture or technique.

[visitor]

+1 to above.

i am disappointed I was hoping for a description of what is, and how to 'blast through' on the piano. sounded like it would be a neat stage/party trick. 

[huaidongxi]

make sure you are seated at the right height and distance from the keyboard.  in my case, failure to stay relaxed when practicing will result in a burning pain in one of my shoulder blades.  to start each day my priorities are rehydrating and stretching.  specific attention to lower back, shoulders, neck, loosening the hips and hamstrings in the process.  putting the shoulders through a range of movement with very light isometric resistance for some of the stretching.

have learned the hard way that certain pieces are more likely to bring tension than others, and one direct antidote is simply to practice a very specific type of music, slow to moderate tempo, lyrical in nature.  gets the whole body feeling the melody and rhythm in a relaxed state.  for me Schubert works, for you it might be Burgmuller or Clementi.