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5 Dumb Things Musicians Do With Their Hands

photo by Dylan Ashe

Even the most careful musicians get hurt.  Injury for musicians seems to come with the territory.  But dumb musicians seem to get an extra helping.  After a while, most of us tend to develop a healthy level of hand consciousness that can limit the risk of injury.  Sometimes the best way to stay safe is knowing which activities to avoid.  Here are five of the most common ways to get hurt.

photo by Juhan Sonin

1.  Power Tools- These things scare me.  They are loud, violent, and fun...until you lose a finger.  Forbes has a great article about the most dangerous tools.  The two worst offenders in my book are chainsaws and circular saws, colloquially called skilsaws.  I avoid them whenever possible.   

photo by Adikos

2.  Typing- Here's one that's nearly unavoidable in modern times.  While working on my dissertation, I developed sciatica, an early morning case of trigger finger, and some mild carpal tunnel symptoms.  The repetitive strain from typing is the number one cause of carpal tunnel syndrome which can cause missed work and/or surgery.  For whatever reason, women statistically suffer more from this activity than men.  Be sensitive to your hand health and the corresponding amount of time you spend on the computer. 

photo by Cliff

3.  Sports-  This is one of the first activities I began to avoid for the sake of my hands.  I've seen numerous musicians with casts and splints from seemingly harmless activities such as skiing, basketball, and arm wrestling(yes, a pianist I knew really did break his arm pretending to be Stallone in Over the Top.)

photo by Dinner Series

4.  Making Dinner- Unless you are independently wealthy and can hire a full-time chef or you are lucky enough that someone else volunteers to do it, you are probably stuck having to cook for yourself.  I personally have learned to enjoy it.  Washing dishes is another story entirely.  Besides having a few close calls, I have known at least two musicians who have had serious, even life-threatening, injuries from mishaps with kitchen knives.  One severed a tendon, and the other feared losing his thumb.  My personal thoughts are that haste makes more than waste when your are using a knife, and the one thing more dangerous than a really sharp knife is a really dull one.  Applying excessive pressure with a knife often results in an unpredictable slip.  Go slow and be careful.  Check out this blog post about common kitchen injuries. 

photo by Nosha

5.  Practicing-  Unless you are the mythical creature known as the musician who was just "born with it", you have undoubtedly spent hundreds, most likely thousands, of hours practicing.  Sadly this is the source of most hand injuries for musicians.  I have been blessed to have had only sporadic and never chronic injuries in my hands.  Both my chops and my hand health improved as I developed my personal technique philosophy.  See my post Want Good Technique in Music? Procrastinate and Be Lazy.  Remember that if it hurts, you are doing something wrong.  "No pain, no gain" when it comes to practice gets you nowhere except the doctor's office.

Not only am I a guilty participant in all five of these dangerous activities, but this list actually sounds like my version of a great day: surf the web, play some music, make some good food, build something, and maybe ride a bike.  Sometimes it's better to be dumb and happy.  What do you avoid for the sake of your hands?

Want Good Technique in Music? Procrastinate and Be Lazy

Photo by Photo Extremist

Okay, I've got your attention.  Let me first clarify what I don't mean.  I don't mean that you do nothing to have good technique.  I don't mean that you should be lazy and not practice, nor do I suggest that you wait until the day of the gig to practice your scales and arpeggios. 

What I'm talking about is efficiency.  The physical requirements to play well vary from instrument to instrument.  However, I feel there are some fundamentals that are common to all.

Let's start with laziness.  I tell my students that I want them to be as lazy as possible while still getting the job done.  Of course, this raises a few eyebrows, especially from those younger students whose parents are sitting in for the lesson. 

To make it more apparent, let's say the opposite;  I want you to put way more effort into every physical motion than you need. This is absurd, of course.  But many musicians have hang-ups caused by confusing desire, emotion, and even character development with having good technique.  The life-long challenge of learning to play an instrument requires an incredible total amount of energy, hours per day if done right.  So, of course it's easy to be confused and try way too hard to get the physical job done on your instrument.

There is a maximum amount of energy that can be applied into any given motion or act.  Either the instrument, your body, or physics will dictate what the threshold is, but at some point over extending oneself will result in poor technique, tension, pain, and the opposite result you want.(This is similar to point #8 I made in my post 10 Life Lessons Learned in Music.) 

I was told a sad story once by a musician who has suffered a great deal of physical pain.  He said that when he was young, he took the notion that "no pain, no gain" could apply to practicing his instrument.  He thought that when it hurt, he was making progress.  Please don't make this mistake.  If it hurts, stop!  You must find an easier way to get the job done.

Physical laziness in relative terms is a good thing on your instrument.  As artists we must continually hone our skills, refine our methods, and cut out all of the wasted movement.

Now, to contradict myself, let me say that staying perfectly still, motionless except for the one little finger tugging on a string isn't what I mean.  There needs to be a dynamic stability, a robust collection of movements that can be sustained indefinitely.  Patterns that emerge often include circular motions, and repetitions that include large muscles and joints.  In other words, use the big muscles to do most of the work, and the let the small ones affect the finesse and nuance. 

Where does procrastination come in to play?  It has to do with that dynamic stability I mentioned.  It has been said that we humans as two-legged walkers are some of the most efficient travelers on earth.  One of the only more efficient movers is a bicyclist.  I admire people who get up and jog every day.  But in my estimation, people are not operating at optimal metabolic levels when they jog.  We seem to have a much more efficient gate when walking quickly.  Sprinting is a pace which can only be sustained for a short time but is incredibly powerful.  Combined with adequate rest, people can do quite a bit of walking with intermittent sprints.  I imagine hunter/gatherers mimic this pace quite often in pursuit of wild game.

What's all this got do with music?  This pattern of alternating motions that are slow/fast, light/hard, relaxed/energetic etc., seems to be the most stable and sustainable forms of good technique.   Even when we sleep there is a natural alternation between stillness and rolling over.  According to the Center for Sleep Disorders ,

"normal changes in body position occur every 5 to 10 minutes."

It is said that when you wake up with a crick in your neck, often it is because you slept so soundly you didn't move all night.  Somehow when prolonged, this constant position stresses the body.

As a pianist, I've seen some masochistic destruction from players demanding a continuous downward pressure with their hands in order to connect with the bottom of the key-bed.  I've heard that Keith Jarrett injures himself during every performance.  The constant tension is analogous to jogging for hours on end.  Something's going to give.  I don't want to be overly simplistic, and I imagine he would vehemently disagree, but could Jarrett's struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome have anything to do with the continuous tension in his body?

The overly restricted musician, the one I described earlier that's motionless except for a finger or two is analogous to the sleeper that never rolls over.  Again, a dynamic stability must be achieved in order to have a robust, sustainable technique. 

The procrastination comes into play during the act of relatively slow/light/relaxed motions preceding an explosive attack at the very last moment before the key is to be struck, the string plucked, or the cymbal hit etc.  Of course, the exact nature of this motion depends on your instrument and even your body, and most of the cycles are occurring within a time frame of a second or less.   

These thoughts about laziness and procrastination are by no means a substitute for proper instruction, and you've got to remember that this, like most things in music, is very context dependent.  Don't get stuck with some dogmatic belief about how your technique is supposed to be. 

However, the concepts seem to apply to most instruments.  Be on the look out for ways to reduce wasted movements and expenditures of energy from you technique, but at the same time incorporate pointed, energetic movements that contrast an otherwise slow, relaxed and rounded motion.