Hand/wrist tension during chords and octaves

[pinanomeno]

Hello. I have tendonitis in both of my wrists, which makes playing piano very challenging and I have to be extra careful when practicing pieces. One of my problems is that when I play octaves or chords that span an octave, I tense up a lot when playing these. I know that you are supposed to use your arm weight, but I find it hard to grasp the concept.

There are to main concerns I am facing. I find stretching my fingers to reach the notes in the chords very uncomfortable, especially if I am holding the chords for a long time.

My other concern is that when using my arm weight to hold down a chord; what is supporting the wrist? Is it the fingers? The shoulders? Am I supposed to tense up my forearm muscles to keep my wrist leveled to avoid wrist tension? All of these combined?

So I guess the main issue I am facing, is how do I properly attack a chord or octave using arm weight? My old teacher told me that I am sort of supposed to drop my arm into the chord, catch my hand and push it inwards with my forearm.

Sorry if I am making my problems unclear, so feel free to ask questions if it is necessary to explain it further.

[j_tour]

My other concern is that when using my arm weight to hold down a chord; what is supporting the wrist? Is it the fingers? The shoulders? Am I supposed to tense up my forearm muscles to keep my wrist leveled to avoid wrist tension? All of these combined?

So I guess the main issue I am facing, is how do I properly attack a chord or octave using arm weight? My old teacher told me that I am sort of supposed to drop my arm into the chord, catch my hand and push it inwards with my forearm.

I don't think you're being unclear at all.  It's certainly something I've heard about both in the real world and in print.

I do know that many others here will have more detailed and perhaps authoritative prescriptions, and I can't speak from direct, first-person experience, having been at the keyboards most of my life.

The language, though, I think gives some hints as to the root cause.  After all, in some ways, the description can give a few clues as to the disposition of mind of the agent.

So, when you say "drop my arm, catch my hand, and push it inwards," that is completely alien to everything I know about playing piano. 

For guitar, which is a kind of polar opposite of a keyboard instrument, it might be good advice. 

About your question, where does the prime mover come from, down to engaging at the keyboard?  It depends I think greatly on the specific passage you're executing, but, leaving aside stunts like playing while standing up, or using the feet on the keyboard, it can be from the core muscles of the body, down to the hips, but I feel it mostly in the shoulders.

I think a good exercise for you would be to play the octave passages, as an experiment, using a more comfortable interval for your hands.  Could be thirds, or perfect fifths (perhaps altered), and observe for yourself where the interface lies exactly for you.

All I know is, as you know, you can watch a thousand pianists, even those with a certain baseline of technique, and find a wide range of adaptations made for each. 

So, you'd have to investigate by observing carefully your own approach.

I do know a lot about tendonitis, but the ones in the feet and lower legs, so I can't say anything about your specific tendons, except to offer sympathy and I do understand the challenge.

Anyway, there are people here who can and will say much more, but that's a start.

[pinanomeno]

Thanks for the detailed response! Let me clarify on what I meant by dropping the arm and catching it. Imagine you’re hovering over the chord you’re supposed to play, now completely release the tension in your arm muscles so the arm is being pulled down by gravity and nothing else. As soon the hand hits the chord, you slightly raise your wrist (catching the hand) and push a bit inwards using the forearm muscles to not accumulate any tension in the tendons.

This is the explanation my old teacher gave me, however the concept feels weird to me, and I’m not even sure if it is the “correct” approach.

For instance, right now I am looking a bit at the first movement of Beethoven’s sonata No. 23 and during the first ff section with the chords, atleast to my understanding this technique could be applied. Please correct me if I’m wrong, that’s after all why I made this thread!

[j_tour]

Thanks for the detailed response! Let me clarify on what I meant by dropping the arm and catching it. Imagine you’re hovering over the chord you’re supposed to play, now completely release the tension in your arm muscles so the arm is being pulled down by gravity and nothing else. As soon the hand hits the chord, you slightly raise your wrist (catching the hand) and push a bit inwards using the forearm muscles to not accumulate any tension in the tendons.

That seems clear:  from the point of view of the pianist, you're not introducing any additional pressure.

Instead, after the attack of the note or chord, you're mitigating the damage or pain to the inflamed tendons.

I wouldn't know how that would stack up against therapeutic treatments involving avoiding use of the tendons, but it surely would put a lot of mental pressure on me if I were doing something that were already physically difficult.

In your case, playing octaves.  In somebody else's place, maybe walking tenths in the LH in Db or Ab.  Anything that's already stretching physical capacity.

I don't know what to say.  I take 800mg of ibuprofen a few times a day for muscular pain. 

I think somebody should be here with some better advice soon, but that's all I can tell you.

[pinanomeno]

While having tendonitis sucks and certainly makes a lot of tasks challenging, such as playing piano and video games (which are two of my main hobbies haha), it certainly makes me more aware of my technique because as soon I’m doing something wrong for an extended time, my tendons will naturally become more inflamed which will make me reevaluate. Looking at videos that addresses technique and prevention for pianists with inflammation usually just leaves me with more questions than I started with. Most of them will just say to rest and be sure to keep a relaxed wrist. Although these being good advice, it also does not address other issues related to tendon inflammations.

Pain when playing the piano always means something is done wrong, but when that pain also hinders your playing it is very hard to progress and find a technique that cooperates with tendonitis. I do fine playing without any pain if I can keep a natural hand position, but as soon as something is introduced that forces my hand out of its natural shape and requires my hand to stretch, I don’t really know how to address the problem. The most optimal thing to do would be finding a teacher equipped to handle my issue, but it’s nearly impossible to find a good teacher in my area, nonetheless one with experience with injured pianists.

[j_tour]

Well, I was really hoping some more experts would weigh in, but I can't resist just giving my off-the-cuff opinion.

It might be very well true that you will have to forgo performing rep that requires octaves.

To me, and probably most piano players, that sounds absurd....as in...."What?  How can one possibly?"

But there any number of tricks for re-voicing difficult passages.  And there are no shortage of legit pianists who have had notoriously smaller hand-spans.

At least by diminishing one physical difficulty (the reach from fingers 1 to 5), it might be possibly to find a compromise.

And, of course, for inspiration, there are any number of very fine pianists who made do with significant limitations.  Horace Parlan.  Paul Wittgenstein.  I'm sure you know the whole range of those sorts of folks.

I am curious about the nature of the tendonitis:  like many here, and perhaps you as well, I've been drawn over the years to looking up things in Gray's Anatomy.  I wonder how much you might be able to stabilize the wrist and still play.

I've had recently a boxer's fracture in the LH, and quite a long time ago fractures in fingers 4 and 5, but I only really know from personal experience how the tendons in the foot/lower leg operate (posterior tibial tendon, the plantar fascii, and one other structure I can't think of).

I'm just thinking I might do a thought experiment for myself, and actually do it in real life, try taping my wrists and forearms with kinesio tape and seeing what gets activated.

I probably won't get around to it, but that would be the way to find out, it seems to me. 

Nota bene, I'm not saying I'd just slap a wrist brace on, nor go as far as to turn the wrist using tape, but using some different configurations of KT tape just for myself as an experiment.

And I'm sure you have much better information about your own ailment:  I'm just thinking about how I can replicate it at home using the many paramedical supplies I have at home from dealing with my feet, and thinking about how it would work on the hands/wrists/forearms.

[pinanomeno]

Greetings. Ever since I've made this post, I've been reading into a lot of litterature and watching lectures about tension in piano playing, especially tension with octaves or chords. I've been a lot making progress, albeit a very slow one since I don't have a teacher to correct my mistakes.

Regarding the chords and octaves I have discovered my main problems, but I am working on correcting them. My current problems can be divided into 3 different parts.

My first problem being with how to properly attack a chord or an octave. Most of my teachers have been telling me to constantly keep a loose wrist, but the lectures I have been watching contradicts this notion. Apparently, the wrist needs to be firm, although there seems to be a very thin line between these two groups. So when dropping your arm into a chord, you let gravity do most of the work; there is still enough muscular activity in the forearm, fingers and/or wrist to keep it from collapsing. I'm struggling with making sense of this concept, but I seem to be making progress as I am getting less fatigued when playing octaves. Since I have tendonitis and don't want to risk injuring myself even further, I am just practicing a few minutes a day, very slowly, and in larger intervals.

My second issue was with how I was opening my fingers. I was opening my fingers in a very isolated manner, with the merely the thumb and pinky being opened. If I open my hand with support from my other fingers, and opening more from the middle of my hand (is that makes any sense) I immediately notice a huge difference.

While this part especially requires more practice, apparently when going from another octave to another you are supposed get support from the rebound of the keys, and when doing so there are small forearm rotations away from the body when the hand rebounds (according to the lecture).

I'm still strugging with comprehending these different concepts, as it is very difficult when no one corrects me since I do not know what I am doing right or wrong, but I am making progress. If anyone is interested, I've been reading "Gyorgy Sandor - on piano playing" and the Taubman technique.