# Should you ever just take a day off from playing?



## Manok

I have been playing Rachmaninoff's Prelude in F# minor lately, and getting really close to completing the whole thing to my satisfaction. However, I've had a problem with my left hand lately. Around the time I go to bed, or around the time I get up in the morning my left hand will ache unbearably, sometimes just running it under cool water will help, and I'm wondering if I need to not play it so much, especially since my hands are almost too small to play the piece? I don't really remember having this problem before, except when I attempted Schumann's Toccata in C major awhile back. So I thought there must be a connection. Do I continue even though I ache afterwords, or play for a couple of days, then rest, then a couple of days? How do I handle playing a piece that is I suppose virtuosic in nature?


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## Headphone Hermit

"my hand will ache unbearably" 

if my body told me this, I'd listen to what it was telling me!


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## PetrB

You are doing something wrong, and repeatedly. There is no other assessment you should consider, and the 'medical' cure is 
1.) Cease playing that piece, 
2.) and do not pick it up again later... _until _
3.) you have found a competent piano teacher.

Whether you go to a teacher or no, you must stop playing that piece, period. The result of continuing to do so could end up being permanent and non-correctable physical damage.

I'm in complete earnest here. 
I started piano lessons at six, later went through conservatory and became a professional teacher and performer -- _something is just not at all right about what you are doing and how you are going about it_, and that is something which needs professional guidance to correct and prevent your doing similar in future.

Drop the piece. Period. I am sorry the news is not better, but _that is the real news here._

P.s. the content of your post just about announced, in bold large letters, "I am working without a piano teacher." Sometimes, unfortunately, the problem you have is what happens when you do without.


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## Manok

So I thought I'd update now that I had time. I found out that it wasn't something I was doing on the piano wrong at all. Though I did find a few things wrong with my playing style. I tend to hold my iPad one handed. Which is very bad. I also tend to hold it in a really weird way that is also bad, and was the cause of my hand pain. So if you are experiencing hand pain, or arm pain of any kind and have a tablet. Take note of how you hold it.


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## PetrB

Manok said:


> So I thought I'd update now that I had time. I found out that it wasn't something I was doing on the piano wrong at all. Though I did find a few things wrong with my playing style. I tend to hold my iPad one handed. Which is very bad. I also tend to hold it in a really weird way that is also bad, and was the cause of my hand pain. So if you are experiencing hand pain, or arm pain of any kind and have a tablet. Take note of how you hold it.


Happy news. A lot of those 'inexplicable' aches and pains and worse come from some use of the electronic media in our lives, the laptop, the telephone, the iPad, and not keeping in mind rather common ideas of posture, ignoring oddly held devices which are not at all good body ergonomics.

I'm relieved and happy to hear the problem was so readily found, the solution a simple readjustment


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## Headphone Hermit

you were too late for an April Fool's joke, pal


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