Calluses and Piano Playing

[tripletrobot42]

Hello friends!

So I have been playing piano for quite a while now, and almost since the beginning I remember having calluses on the edges of pinkies and thumbs (about where the finger touches the keys when playing octaves). This was never a concern, but yesterday I was practicing quite a lot of loud octave sections in both hands, and now putting pressure on either of these calluses causes pain-- as if pressing into a bruise. I did some research online, but I couldn't find anything about pain under calluses after playing piano. Is this something that I should be concerned about? Are these calluses something that will be damaging to my piano playing? Thank you so much!

[j_tour]

Yes, I would be concerned about it.  The pain sounds to me like it could be a problem with one of the flexor tendons, rather than anything to do with the calluses.  Unfortunately, I have not found any magic cure for tendon problems, except for rest and some extremely careful stretching.  Could be just aches related to the bone itself:  they can get messed up, too!

I don't know that I've built up calluses from keyboard work to the extent that one does when playing, for example, guitar or another string instrument.

But there are certainly parts of each finger, really, that have developed some loss of sensitivity and a kind of rough quality.  I haven't found it to be anything but an advantage, so long as the "pads" of each fingertip retain their sensitivity, which I find to be indispensable when doing anything at the keyboard.

If the calluses bother you, you can use pumice stone on them, but it sounds like it's an advantage to you for octave work, especially if you're hitting parts of your fingers that don't normally get much use.

[ted]

This is to some extent puzzling. I have played very vigorously for decades, including on a Virgil Practice Clavier set to seven ounces or more resistance, and I have never had the slightest sign of callouses. The pain on pressure sounds like a plantar wart, but can those occur on fingers ? I don't know, but I imagine you would have to play excessively hard and long to get callouses from smooth, flat surfaces.

[j_tour]

I don't know, but I imagine you would have to play excessively hard and long to get callouses from smooth, flat surfaces.

I admire you as a musician, ted, and I don't doubt your experience, but are you sure about that?

Actually pounding on the piano, sure, like in rock and roll or something, you're going to get some loss of sensitivity in the nerves.  Not calluses though, surely not.

But doing, say, octave work, especially if one doesn't have Eubie Blake-sized hands, you're going to be hitting, most likely, sort of the edges of certain fingers.  Even if one has pretty large hands with no problem making the octave. 

I could see calluses forming in that kind of way.

After all, it's just "rubbing the wrong way" against surfaces of varied geometry.  Sort of like how one gets calluses on the feet, rubbing against the shoes, or walking barefoot across even relatively smooth asphalt or concrete.

I don't know about large, very rough calluses, but certainly some irritation from the repetitive rubbing action.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

It sounds pretty unlikely tbh. @op Are you sure you didn't get the calluses in another way, like manual labour, and the piano playing is aggravating them? Yeah, I can imagine that if you did hours of double octave scales each day, and missed a lot of them, you probably would affect your hands, but you would be noticing this at the time. I've played a lot of heavy duty rep, occasionally over six hours a day, and never had anything like this. I will say (re rubbing) you don't really do that type of motion playing piano unless you're doing glissandi, and yeah I can imagine hours of that affecting the hand surfaces, but who does hours of glissandi?

[ted]

I admire you as a musician, ted, and I don't doubt your experience, but are you sure about that?

Actually pounding on the piano, sure, like in rock and roll or something, you're going to get some loss of sensitivity in the nerves.  Not calluses though, surely not.

But doing, say, octave work, especially if one doesn't have Eubie Blake-sized hands, you're going to be hitting, most likely, sort of the edges of certain fingers.  Even if one has pretty large hands with no problem making the octave. 

I could see calluses forming in that kind of way.

After all, it's just "rubbing the wrong way" against surfaces of varied geometry.  Sort of like how one gets calluses on the feet, rubbing against the shoes, or walking barefoot across even relatively smooth asphalt or concrete.

I don't know about large, very rough calluses, but certainly some irritation from the repetitive rubbing action.

You could be right. If he repeatedly scrapes the edges of adjacent keys when playing heavily I suppose that might do it. But that would surely cause a lot of other musical issues long before callouses appeared, certainly enough to stop doing it.

[j_tour]

But that would surely cause a lot of other musical issues long before callouses appeared, certainly enough to stop doing it.

Not the way I play!   I'd probably keep doggedly scraping the keys and figure, "Meh, good enough.  Count off the next piece!  1, 2, 1, 2, 3 'get it!'"   

[thalbergmad]

I get calluses from lifting weights, not playing piano.

[lostinidlewonder]

I have played very vigorously for decades..... and I have never had the slightest sign of callouses.

Same here Ted. As pianists we don't press into the notes hard enough really to develop callouses unlike guitarists where the string impacts on the fingers a huge amount more compared to a flat piano key.

[j_tour]

Same here Ted. As pianists we don't press into the notes hard enough really to develop callouses unlike guitarists where the string impacts on the fingers a huge amount more compared to a flat piano key.

Well, yeah.  You can hit as hard as you want on the attack part of a given phrase, but, you'll never develop a callous that way.  Nerve damage, loss of sensitivity, sure. 

I don't think I'm alone in that I'm kind of curious about exactly what calluses have developed.  Like, I don't know, a quick low-res jpeg or something.

I know my fingers have some "toughened" up parts, but that's just from use, and I wouldn't call them calluses. 

Give us Callous-arabus! 

I'm really curious now what kind of thing the OP is talking about.