Right hand finger discomfort that comes and goes – any advice?

[patrickgester]

Hi everyone,

I’m an adult early-intermediate pianist, and I’ve been feeling quite discouraged lately due to persistent discomfort in my right hand.

Some time ago, I was practicing quite intensively, focusing on technique. I didn’t get a diagnosis, but I started noticing finger fatigue — maybe early signs of tendinitis. I took a one-month break, and the discomfort completely disappeared.

But once I resumed playing, the discomfort came back, especially in my right-hand fingers.

It’s not pain, numbness, or tingling — more like an unpleasant pressure or strain. The best way I can describe it is like the feeling you get after carrying a heavy shopping bag with the handles digging between your fingers.

The odd thing is that the discomfort migrates — it doesn’t stay in one finger. Some days it’s in fingers 4 and 5, other days it’s in the index.

Lately, I’ve been focusing on relaxation, better wrist movement, and whole-body coordination using the Taubman Approach. But despite all that, the discomfort persists.

Doctors I’ve seen say there’s nothing wrong and just recommend rest. Unfortunately, medical support in my area is limited, and I can’t afford to travel to a private clinic at the moment.

Do you have any advice or suggestions on what I could try? I know it’s hard to pinpoint something without seeing it, but maybe there are exercises or strategies I could apply in the meantime.

Piano and music are some of the most meaningful parts of my life — it breaks my heart to even consider giving them up.

Thanks so much in advance for any help or thoughts 🙏

[keypeg]

It might be either your right hand (right hand mechanism), or music that you are playing with your right hand, or combination of the two.  Often music has the two hands doing very different things, for example the stereotypical LH plonks down block chords, RH plays a bunch of melody notes.

I had tendonitis years ago.  The fingers lost their ability to grasp so that a coffee cup or a light bag would simply drop out of the hand. 

[essence]

When you say adult, how old are you?
What kind of music were you practising?
Maybe you should focus at present on some wonderful slow movements? They are just as hard as the fast and furious.

I am 71, and was doing some DIY a couple of weeks ago, I was gripping pliers in LH, and got pain in my 4th finger. Like you say, similar to carrying heavy shopping bags, difficult to stretch out the hand afterwards.

Maybe there are some exercises to help you regain flexibility.

Patience is key. When coaching athletes, the worst thing is to come back too fast after injury. Also, do not try to play Rachmininoff for 2 hours after not playing for a year. The body is simply not ready.

The worst thing is to try to recover by playing the pieces which caused the pain in the first place.

Debussy slow preludes. Beethoven slow movements (Hammerklavier?). They will challenge your musical skills like no other. Keep off La Campanella!

[lostinidlewonder]

Post a video of playing, doesn't need audio. That way we can see if there is any technical reason for it. Developing pianists should be wary not to keep playing once that muscle fatigue starts happening. Stubborn more advanced pianists suffer injury also by pushing through pain barriers and over practicing.

[patrickgester]

When you say adult, how old are you?
What kind of music were you practising?
Maybe you should focus at present on some wonderful slow movements? They are just as hard as the fast and furious.

I am 71, and was doing some DIY a couple of weeks ago, I was gripping pliers in LH, and got pain in my 4th finger. Like you say, similar to carrying heavy shopping bags, difficult to stretch out the hand afterwards.

Maybe there are some exercises to help you regain flexibility.

Patience is key. When coaching athletes, the worst thing is to come back too fast after injury. Also, do not try to play Rachmininoff for 2 hours after not playing for a year. The body is simply not ready.

The worst thing is to try to recover by playing the pieces which caused the pain in the first place.

Debussy slow preludes. Beethoven slow movements (Hammerklavier?). They will challenge your musical skills like no other. Keep off La Campanella!

I’m 26 now, but I only started playing piano at 22. I’ve had just one teacher — the person who introduced me to the instrument and taught me from scratch. In the beginning, when I knew absolutely nothing about piano, it was fine. But as I learned more, I started noticing a problem: his teaching leaned heavily on “finger strength” instead of using arm and wrist movement.

I remember struggling with a difficult piece and feeling tension in my 4th and 5th fingers. He told me, “That’s how you develop the muscles,” which I now see as complete nonsense — basically encouraging tension in the wrong way. I left him when I reached Grade 3 and decided to go my own way, working on breaking those bad habits. Most of my guidance since then has come from YouTube — mainly Josh Wright and Denis Zhdanov. (I think most people here know who Josh Wright is.)

These days, I very rarely feel tension while playing. It only appears after a practice session or later during the day. There’s probably another contributing factor I’ve been underestimating: I go to the gym three times a week, and that might actually be the main cause.

As for repertoire, I focus mostly on classical music. I’ve completed Burgmüller Op. 100, around 15 pieces from Schumann’s Op. 68 Album for the Young, and I still work on Czerny Op. 599 (currently at exercise 65) and Czerny Op. 718 Left Hand Studies. Sometimes I’ll throw in a contemporary piece if something inspires me.

[essence]

OK. seems to me the underlying cause is poor teaching and/or the gym!

Certainly at grade 3/4 level strength is not at all necessary. Flexibility and finger independence are much more important.

Can you place all fingers on the notes without depressing, and then play a single note? Or two notes?

What about holding down all notes, and raising individual fingers one by one?

[I'm not a teacher, so treat the above with caution.]

[brogers70]

These days, I very rarely feel tension while playing. It only appears after a practice session or later during the day. There’s probably another contributing factor I’ve been underestimating: I go to the gym three times a week, and that might actually be the main cause.

For what it's worth. The times I've had hand or wrist pain I've checked with my teacher, found nothing problematic in my technique and then remembered some stupid thing I'd done with my hand that had nothing to do with the piano (like stacking 4 cord of firewood in an afternoon). It's always been non-piano related injuries or stresses that I noticed while playing the piano, rather than injuries caused by poor technique. Might be different in your case, but not all hand problems in a pianist are due to the piano.

[lostinidlewonder]

You said:

Some time ago, I was practicing quite intensively, focusing on technique. I didn’t get a diagnosis, but I started noticing finger fatigue — maybe early signs of tendinitis. I took a one-month break, and the discomfort completely disappeared.

But once I resumed playing, the discomfort came back, especially in my right-hand fingers.

So this makes no logical sense if indeed you stopped playing piano for a month and never experienced the problem.

These days, I very rarely feel tension while playing. It only appears after a practice session or later during the day. There’s probably another contributing factor I’ve been underestimating: I go to the gym three times a week, and that might actually be the main cause.

[lelle]

Sounds like symptoms I've had when I had pinched/irritated nerves many years ago. Even if the symptoms are in the hands, the cause can be as far up as the shoulders or neck (thoracic outlet syndrome). So it might be neck or shoulder tension if you don't expereince any tension in your forearms anymore.

Though I have to say - being completely tension free in the hands and wrists is extremely rare among amateur players. That pretty much means a perfectly clean, professional technique. So it's likely you still have some unnecessary tension that might be impacting things even if you don't notice it.

Could you post a video of your playing?

[martinn]

I had great fatigue when starting an exercise piece with quite fast repeated accompaniment with the right hand. Probably my right hand was lazy and accustomed to playing melody. I had to practice this very lightly and not stretch the sessions any more than barely enough. After a while my fatigue went away, and it was feeling more natural. That’s being a beginner.

[picosinge]

If the doctors you have been to cannot diagnose what is wrong, I would absolutely not make any attempt, as a lay person, to diagnose over the internet.  However, having been suffering from bad tendonitis on my right hand for the last 10 months or so, I would like to share what helped me:

1.  Rest.  While I cannot stop using my right hand completely, I wear a splint all the time except when practicing the piano, cooking and bathing.  If nothing else, it reminds me to be gentle with my right hand.

2.  Comfrey or CBD salve (not sure if CBD is available/legal where you are).  I massage them gently onto my hand after my evening shower, put on gloves and the splint and go to bed.

3.  Warm up, literally.  In the colder months I wash or soak my hands in warm water before practicing the piano.

4.  Time - be patient.  Even with one cortisone injection and several acupuncture sessions, it took me 8 months to see improvement.

Again, these are the things that work for my tendonitis.  No idea if they work for you or not, at the same time they are pretty innocuous and most likely won't hurt to give them a try.