The Advice Musicians Ignore Until It’s TOO LATE

please learn from my mistakes don't do what I did which almost cost me my career twice if you look at my hand first joint of the finger is right here sitting at a computer and editing a video isn't far from playing piano when it comes to preventing injuries all I thought I needed to do was avoid things like playing volleyball practicing etudes for 11 hours straight or avoiding these strange Contraptions that apparently strengthen your fingers kind of like what famous Panasonic composer Robert Schumann used back in the day but I was wrong there are so many other things that we should avoid and so many things that we should also include in our daily lives to stay injury free I'm gonna first talk about my experience then cover seven tips from professionals that will help you stay injury free and avoid ever having to quit music because of these reasons a quick disclaimer the information in this video is based on my personal experience and is intended for General guidance and entertainment purposes only and is not to be substituted as medical advice so let's talk about my two injuries the first one was in 2018 when I strained my left shoulder while running some errands I was doing these weekly bulk grocery runs for this family I was staying with at the time and I basically lost grip with one of the boxes the pain in my left shoulder was immediate and I had to stop playing piano for several weeks even after I returned the pain lasted over a year and this is also when I wrote my Etude for right hand only most musicians who watched this will still choose to ignore it because we're just not used to taking injury prevention all too seriously that is of course until an injury does happen but oftentimes it's too late oh trust me prevention is a lot easier than recovery the second injury happened in multiple stages between 2020 and now I moved in and out of about six places which means over 12 moves and each time I was of course handling a lot of heavy items luggage and moving boxes after each move I had a sore wrist but I didn't think much of it especially because other stressful things in my life overshadowed this issue different physical therapists told me slightly different things but what's for sure is that I had severe inflammation on the ulnar side of my right wrist the treatment for both injuries involved rest different types of physical therapy everything from ultrasound massage Rehabilitation exercises and stretching of course my injuries could have been more serious but it was still a scary place to be because I really rely on my arms and hands to do my work now it's January 2023 I learned a ton from this experience and I now know not to move so much but also these three things not to overestimate my technique not overestimate my strength especially away from the piano and not overestimate my pain threshold when it comes to Technique we have to be aware of our level let's say you have a recital coming up in one month and you feel like all you need is two weeks to learn this one piece give yourself a little more time this will go such a long way strength this one is very straightforward I think we just need to be mindful about how when and where we use our hands and our limbs to move things especially if they're heavy pain threshold it's quite easy to get used to the feeling of discomfort tension and pain in your body and we should not settle for being in this constant state of discomfort and really raise our standards for the default Comfort level that we should just be feeling sitting there standing there playing our instruments next I'm bringing on osteopath Alexandro savoff and Evan Michael I'm a movement specialist the information that they have to share is extremely invaluable and what's special about them is that they both also have a background in music performance so they really know about both sides of the picture musicians tend to feel a little bit Untouchable just the lifestyle is very different maybe there's no time to even address it like if you're a touring musician I mean where are you going to even do that having dealt with injuries myself I now really see the value of prevention believe me the recovery process can be very complex and not so straightforward so it's better to be mindful of these things before injuries show up so now let's get into the top seven tips to protect yourself from injury these are things that you can start building into your routine right away number one ease into intensity you want to follow a certain curve in terms of intensity I've got this uh acronym I like to use which is SSD which is strength speed and duration whichever of the three you add to the mix you are adding to intensity if you're going to go for a lot of speed and strength then you want to go about it gradually during your practice I saw your warm-up videos they're great it's really it's really great yeah you can get creative with that there's a peak somewhere in the middle of your practice where you're going up and then you want to go back down number two increase your overall Fitness any movement is better than no movement if you don't move you will lose it this goes without saying but you are using your body while playing your instrument so if you're in better physical condition you'll run into less discomfort and tension while playing but also keep in mind you might want to be very careful with any sports that involve the limbs that you most use number three learn about the anatomy of the body and hand this will help you understand how to aim for muscle balance not just relaxation if you look at my hand first joint of the finger is right here it's not here for my index finger it's really all the way down there and when you start mapping the Motions of the finger from this point of view from this place to feel that you can gain just a little bit more adduction in the hand what I'm learning is that this knowledge helps me think less about moving my fingers from my Knuckles down and finding ways that I can use the whole hand structure to naturally move my fingers from one position to the next number four stretch and massage in general with stretching you want to be at roughly if zero as I'm not stretching and ten is that's as far as I can go you always want to be at around five or six you need to be at a place to where you're getting a stretch but you're relaxed because your brain really won't let your body let go stretching after is probably even more important sometimes than stretching before because if you build up all that lactic acid and things start to get tight and then you just let it sit there it's going to keep getting tighter including stretch and massage into your routine is also a way to consistently stay in touch with your body number 5. listen to your body cues never think that pain is normal if you're going to go for any longevity at all you're gonna have to start listening to your body cues and that can start with just minor tingling that can be minor tensions that can be minor freckling of a finger just a finger going a bit like you know we have to start paying attention to these before it's too late number six mind your posture at and away from your instrument think about how you're moving sitting and standing throughout the day proper posture is the foundation for everything sitting at a computer and editing a video isn't far from playing piano and we're constantly slowly doing this in order to get yourself to better posture it's constantly reminding yourself how to get back to getting that new position to feel like home everything's going to feel weird for a while so you have to constantly be in that weird zone until it no longer feels weird also mind how you breathe especially with your diaphragm everything starts from where you're standing and how you're standing you actually want to be pressing your diaphragm specifically Down and Out in 360 degrees so it's giving your spine support from the front and that's like how a singer would be singing and number seven take care of your mental health as well one's mental and physical health both tend to improve or decline in parallel to one another there is more and more research showing that for instance especially chronic pain tends to be associated with we could cause somatization what I find is that usually you have some sort of a mixture between the two things it's never just a mentally never just a physical there's no clear grammar so far as to how we should describe these things I'll just give you a piece of my personal experience because I can speak at least for myself self I've Had It episodes where I would feel some discomfort or pain or numbness somewhere and I would solve these things even though I'm a manual therapist was just asking myself okay so what's bothering you these days what's the thing that's bothering you and that you can't really come to admit to yourself and then when I found that and I just said it out loud to myself the painter's vanished also it's not a Panacea it's not the only thing out there we have to go deeper so don't think it's all mechanical or all psychological it's always a mixture it there's there's a space there's a Continuum between the two and sometimes Solutions can be found both ways now let's do a quick summary there are three things not to overestimate your Technique strength and pain threshold and the Seven tips for injury prevention are to ease into intensity increase your overall Fitness learn about the anatomy of the body and hand stretch and massage regularly listen to your body cues mind your posture at and away from your in instrument and take care of your mental health I must also add that it is definitely important and worth it to find the right therapy and the right therapists to help guide you through any injury and also injury prevention I hope this is a reminder to everyone that injury prevention is just as important as learning your scales and music theory when it comes to musicianship and this should just be given a lot more attention should be talked about should be normalized there shouldn't be any stigma towards it injuries happen and sometimes we're not always able to be super prudent about it but reminders go a long way so I hope this was just a little extra push for you all to think about this thank you to my patrons on patreon for your continued support and thanks for watching this channel I hope to bring a lot more information to you all this year and I hope we can grow together as musicians and music lovers I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Nahre Sol

Views: 130,738

Keywords: piano, music composition, harmony, music theory, nahre sol, classical music, improvisation, pianist, film scoring, jazz, modern music, injury prevention, musician tendinitis, injury musician, musician health, musician lifestyle

Id: ddh6NYb7M70

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2023