Pain And Practice

I am struggling to deal with significant pain in the base of my thumbs, without giving up playing for an extensive period of time, and it has led me to a way of practicing that I thought might be of interest to others. The basic idea is have practice sessions that are purely experiments: that is, there is no objective other than to try to observe and understand what happens; there is no direct attempt to improve, to achieve some desired result or play a specific piece. The whole focus is to generate data and understanding that can later be applied, but this is not to be interpreted as only logical data; I believe that a large part of the benefit comes from the brain absorbing the information "unconsciously" and subsequently using it in normal playing. In principle, the experiment can be anything that seems useful or interesting, but I consciously try to create experiments around one or more of Alan's principles or lessons. It's probably best explained with an example. It seemed clear that the pain in my thumbs was caused by stress and an imperfect application of the skeletal approach, and I remembered an image Alan used of the hand hovering over the keys while the fingers actively created the sound. Unfortunately I still have too much stress in my hands and arms to achieve that so I carried out the following set of "experiments", again motivated by elements of the DVD and book. I selected a very short passage that had caused me so much pain that I flinched every time I tried to play it (and I therefore had stopped playing it). I then positioned my hand over the keyboard and let it flop down to just touch the keyboard. I emphasize that it was far looser than any normal playing would allow. I tried to let every part of my arm, wrist and hand go loose, except what I needed to keep my arm in position. I then tried to have the tips of my fingers play the notes, including the thumb-under motion that was causing the pain. This was such a relaxed gentle motion that it caused no pain, and I repeated it many times, partly to check that, and partly because I wanted my brain to register this floppy relaxed motion as the base. However, I was not striking the notes correctly much of the time. Then came the experimental part. This starting position had several wrong characteristics: there was no real arch; my fingers had insufficient "activity" in them and my wrist was too high (amongst others). I then tried to incrementally change a part of the position to make it conform better to the desired position: for example, put more activity into the fingers. However, the crucial point was to reverse such a change if I felt stress returning and was unable to let it go. So the rule was NO STRESS is more important than clear notes, legato or anything else. I was aided in this because pain returned when the stress became too high. I conducted a whole series of experiments over the course of 30 minutes, having to go forwards and backwards many times from my original floppy position towards a normal way of playing, and observing what happened to the feelings in my body and to the sounds. Finally I found myself playing the notes with no pain and far less stress than ever before. At that point I stopped, so that I ended the session at a good point. When I later tried to play the passage normally, some of the old habits and stress crept back in, but there was a notable improvement, and little pain. I therefore have to go back and do some more "experiments", either because I haven't found the correct position and movements or because I had found them but they are not yet anchored in my brain. In the absence of a physically present teacher, I try to guide my experiments with my best understanding of Alan's approach, which is a vast improvement over my prior random experiments, and regarding the sessions as experiments both sharpens my focus on what is happening and removes the pressure to get it right, and sometimes gives me a better grasp of the material in the DVD or book.

This is a brilliant description of a self-administered Piano Awareness Through Movement lesson. You did everything exactly as a good Feldenkrais teacher would have guided you, IF he or she was intelligent enough to make the connection between generic Awareness Through Movement lessons and the specific demands and constraints of the hand on the piano. BRAVO! None of the things you described as wrong characteristics were wrong in this context. I teach a high arch in order to get it functioning, to get pianists to stand up and avail themselves of their hands' innate power. But in your situation you did exactly the right thing in NOT standing up. Standing up would have evoked pain; it would have been counterproductive. Instead you put yourself in a stress-free state and explored the inner nuts & bolts of standing up. What has to activate to eventually lead to standing up? The stress-free environment is the ideal environment in which to learn such things. The same goes for the "insufficient activity" of your fingers. It was precisely this cessation of their normal activity, which I suspect is chronically associated with stress, which allowed your highly intelligent BRAIN to begin learning a completely new form of activity, one in which all skeletal alignments conspired to make everything work with a minimum of stress. As for the high wrist, I put my wrist wherever I need to. SOMETIMES I will lower a wrist because I see an anomaly: under the wrist the fingers are doing something weird and I know by lowering the wrist I can get them to improve. But other times I leave the wrist up there, because this position is ALLOWING something nice to happen in the fingers that wouldn't otherwise. Welcome to the forum, you've made quite an impressive entrance! All the best, AFF

I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with the kind of experiments you're doing. However, I do find this passage rather worrying: "that had caused me so much pain that I flinched every time I tried to play" While your experiments sound like a very good idea, I think that if the problems are so extreme, I'd really want to complement experimentation with a rational understanding of what is causing them. If not, there's always the danger that what works in your low effort experiments, will not necessarily be feasible to carry across into regular playing. In my own playing, I've recently discovered that a number of ingrained intentions have been stopping the instincts from developing to the full. Understanding a number of mechanical concepts (the implications of which would have appeared highly counterintuitive, if taken out of the rational context) has made my experimental work vastly more productive and focussed. It's helps to ensure that you are fully engaged in ongoing trial and improvement, not merely trial and error. In particular, my instincts have improved exponentially- since I've understood why 'correcting' the finger's movement into the exact path of the key can lead to straining, whereas pulling in the finger's natural path absorbs impact and gives efficient transfer of energy. If you're talking about a level of pain that is as extreme as your description suggests, I'd seriously consider putting such passages aside entirely until you've worked up comfort in a number of basic exercises. Experiments are extremely useful and I'd definitely continue in them, but if you're experiencing severe pains, I'd also want to uncover the reason for it more consciously. In my own case, no amount of trust in my subconscious ever allowed my hand to operate anywhere near to its potential- until I consciously uncovered the fact that the finger can use it's most natural grasping action, if you ensure that the fingertip stays on the same part of the key and that the arm is free to move in response to the finger's pull. My subconscious simply couldn't weigh up the seeming contradiction between the finger's natural path and the path of the key. No matter how much I learned better movements, my subconconcious often kept returning to aiming too directly in the path of the key. I honestly can't believe how much progress this realisation has led to in a tiny space of time. To break with a long-standing habit (which i think would always begin to interfere to at least some extent- in the very instant i switched to 'just play' mode), I had to understand the erroneous conscious thoughts that led it to form in the first place and replace them with better ones. I definitely don't want to discourage your experiments, but I wouldn't expect miracles from experimentation alone. A sense of conscious purpose behind what you do can be invaluable.

My sense is that TWR's experiments are being done very consciously. He is very far from leaving the impression that he's just fooling around. I am even inclined to think that if he added some of the conscious intentions you cite, it work negatively for him. Different people have different learning styles. And I really admired that, in the face of really severe pain he didn't just say the standard, "Oh I'd better give it a rest for awhile," but instead found a way to really capitalize on the setback, and ended up freeing himself from the pain to some extent. Onward and upward! AFF

Thank you for your concern and taking the trouble to reply. Your advice is well taken. I have consulted a doctor who essentially said that rest is the only cure, and it may take many months. I am 68 years old and "many months" is a big slice out of my expected playing life, so I am gingerly trying to find another solution. I currently have the rule - if any major pain stop for the remainder of that day, and if more than one or two twinges, then stop for a few hours (and try to understand what was causing them). I do have a question that connects my problem with your thoughts on natural movement of the fingers - what about the thumb? It is very germane to my situation because the only natural movement I can make with the thumb when playing an octave includes striking the key with a "non-skeletal" movement: i.e. it has a significant component at an angle to the line of the thumb bones. This requires my tendon to activate and irritation sets in. I wonder whether you have had any thoughts about the thumb, especially with respect to the problem above.

Thank you for your concern and taking the trouble to reply. Your advice is well taken. I have consulted a doctor who essentially said that rest is the only cure, and it may take many months. I am 68 years old and "many months" is a big slice out of my expected playing life, so I am gingerly trying to find another solution. I currently have the rule - if any major pain stop for the remainder of that day, and if more than one or two twinges, then stop for a few hours (and try to understand what was causing them). I do have a question that connects my problem with your thoughts on natural movement of the fingers - what about the thumb? It is very germane to my situation because the only natural movement I can make with the thumb when playing an octave includes striking the key with a "non-skeletal" movement: i.e. it has a significant component at an angle to the line of the thumb bones. This requires my tendon to activate and irritation sets in. I wonder whether you have had any thoughts about the thumb, especially with respect to the problem above. Ah, I see. As you're a little older (sorry- no offence intended!) there may be issues that go beyond technique itself. My inclination was to think that I'd be very worried if someone in the their twenties, say, were to experience major pains in their normal way of moving. In that kind of situation, I'd be worried, not by sensitively conducted experiments to relieve discomfort, but by the fact that notable pains were occurring to start with. In such a case,I'd definitely want them to know exactly what drastic mistakes in the thinking might have left them in a position of causing themself such pain in the first place and for them to have a clear rationale to guide any changes. However, it could well be that there are physical issues here, rather than necessarily major technical issues. With that in mind, I think your personal experiments will be even more important. What might be a very healthy way of activating a muscle for a twenty-year old could have issues with your joints, that only you would be in a position to detect. Personally, I'm lucky enough to have the easy ride of teaching those who are 18 or younger. To be honest, I wouldn't like to risk trying to give any specific advice, as I think that your own perception-based experiments probably are indeed far better than trying to adopt standardised advice. In your situation, I think that avoidance of pain or even slight discomfort certainly should be one of the major factor in your feedback loop.

I wanted to make a separate post on the use of conscious analysis and unconscious learning, because I think it is fundamental to all learning, in schools for example as well as at the piano. Ironically I very recently attended a debate between a classical guitarist and a jazz guitarist who was strongly advocating a major shift to learning music by dropping goals and fears and "getting in touch with the music". The classicist's reply was "I don't think anyone can play a Rachmaninov Piano Concerto simply by 'getting in touch with it!' ." Despite the clever reply, I do think there is a real issue. What is the appropriate balance between a conscious, studied path of learning and a more subconscious absorptive path? I am convinced of two things: either extreme is suboptimal and most learning is too biased towards the rational end of the spectrum. Learning math at school is a wonderful/terrible example showing the consequences of this bias. I would also observe that most of what we learn as young children is done subconsciously and by experiment. Clearly we are capable of of learning very complex behaviors by this method. However your point is well taken: to go beyond a purely childish level of activity usually requires conscious analysis and study. As a novice at the piano I am hesitant to express any strong views, but the following seems plausible: since the brain MUST use pre-stored patterns of muscular activity to play any nontrivial piece and since it naturally gears up many unwanted and interfering muscles when faced with a complex physical task most of the pre-stored patterns will contain these unwanted elements, and EVEN IF, in the moment, the pianist is consciously trying to avoid these side-effects the unconscious brain will add them into the mix. To overcome this pianists need to follow your path and try to consciously analyze what is happening and how to avoid it, but we are still left with a problem: the bulk of our stored patterns have the defects built in, and it will take a long time for any new patterns to achieve this depth of penetration in the brain and override the old patterns. Now comes my unsubstantiated leap: I believe that the "unconscious learning" approach can often achieve this new learning more quickly and effectively than simply applying the standard learning techniques using the new analysis. I have two small pieces of evidence for this: a non-statistically valid set of observations of people who have made breakthroughs using the subconscious approach, and the established understanding that the brain "remembers" better if the act of memorizing occurs in a higher emotional state: e.g. fear or delight. So the trick to overriding old bad habits quickly is to find ways to add emotional experience to the new ways. Immersing oneself "in the moment" might be a way of achieving that heightened emotional state, and allowing that heightened state direct access to stored memory without the intervention of the logical brain might also help. At the rate at which we are newly discovering how the brain works, there is real hope that in the next 10 - 20 years we will have enough knowledge to guide our learning with much greater finesse. Till then I will depend on people like you and Alan to guide my experiments.

Interesting points. It's a very interesting topic. "I am convinced of two things: either extreme is suboptimal and most learning is too biased towards the rational end of the spectrum. Learning math at school is a wonderful/terrible example showing the consequences of this bias." To be honest, I'd say the very opposite for maths. Times tables are an example of programming the subconscious, instead of training simple rational thought processes. Why on earth do kids have to recite the 10x table by rote? Are we taking them for imbeciles? Do they really have to memorise a deranged quasi-religious chant, rather than understand how to add a zero on the end of a number? While far from a mathematical whizz, I remember being totally mystified by this as a child, preferring to use my own rational processes to derive most multiplications. That said, having always refused to learn times tables, I could never recall what 7x8 was and was always a little slow to work that particular one out... "and EVEN IF, in the moment, the pianist is consciously trying to avoid these side-effects the unconscious brain will add them into the mix." Ah, but avoidance would never be a productive conscious thought process. Useful conscious thought definitely needs to be viewed in terms of the positive that is required, not in terms of avoidance. That often leads to additional compensations, rather than true correction. Recently, I finally uncovered the subconscious tendency to deform my finger's natural path, so as to move squarely through the key. I didn't fix that by thinking- don't do that. But the conscious understanding of how to make it possible to integrate the more natural finger action into moving the key (without slipping or pulling my arm all over the place) has almost completely reprogrammed that habit already. I don't believe that my subconscious could ever had removed the habit, had I not both identified it and found the alternative as a positive. My finger could already do natural pulls. But only the conscious made it possible to integrate that into a consistently sustainable action, without conflicting habits interfering. i believe that some people say that you can never truly 'forget' a habit entirely. However i do believe that the conscious can provide you with a viable positive, that is strong and clear enough to negate the possibility of an old subconscious habit having the chance to present itself. The subconscious cannot make real decisions. So in the case of two contradictory issues i think it can be asking for a lot to hope for the subconscious to sort it out for itself. Without running it through the conscious there was a constant conflict. "Now comes my unsubstantiated leap: I believe that the "unconscious learning" approach can often achieve this new learning more quickly and effectively than simply applying the standard learning techniques using the new analysis. I have two small pieces of evidence for this: a non-statistically valid set of observations of people who have made breakthroughs using the subconscious approach, and the established understanding that the brain "remembers" better if the act of memorizing occurs in a higher emotional state: e.g. fear or delight." I've heard about this. Certainly very interesting. My problem would be that the more heightened my emotional state, the more erratic my movements would have been. I think that can make good sense from a clean slate, but many habits are integrally linked to the intent to convey emotion- perhaps for the very reasons you state. Once bad habits are ingrained, I think that emotion can be the very thing that makes the hardest to rewrite. Emotion is frequently what makes people dig hard into the keys, in a attempt to squeeze more sound out. "So the trick to overriding old bad habits quickly is to find ways to add emotional experience to the new ways. Immersing oneself "in the moment" might be a way of achieving that heightened emotional state, and allowing that heightened state direct access to stored memory without the intervention of the logical brain might also help." True, but how do you know that it's a good memory to store, if it's done with heightened emotions, rather than understanding of how to move efficiently? I think it's problematic. I can see this being hugely beneficial for memorising something external. But when movements are influenced so strongly by heightened emotional states, I'm not too sure if this should be starting point. I almost think that the colder you start off for certain components the better. Then you can begin to apply emotion on top of an efficient action, without the worry of abandoning it. Ask a very young kid to convey anger on a piano, and you can generally rest assured that he'll properly bang the thing with about the worst technique you can imagine! To play loud healthily requires substantial abstraction from corresponding emotions. Only having learned a type of movement, can you then be in a position to begin associating fury, without resort to the kind of seizures that fury might usually conjure up. Think of the type of training ninjas and Samurais etc. go through. It's much more about control, not about allowing the characteristic responses that strong emotion bring to take over. Very difficult to balance these things up, I think.

What a thoughtful response! I won't do a point by point analysis, partly because I agree with many of your statements, and I haven't got across my main thought. Let's deal with math first, because it is easier. You did not put your rote learned math into your subconscious, you put it into your "good old" usual memory. You replaced a calculation by a result and stored it as a typical memory to be pulled out when needed. If you pulled it out as part of a logical analysis your subconscious played no role. But this doesn't get to the heart of our discussion. The focus is not on where something is stored, but on how it got there and how strong was the recall path. Here is the distinction I am trying to make, whether we use the words unconscious, subconscious, intuitive or whatever. Having analyzed a problem - say playing a legato passage - and having formulated an approach to solving it - by overholding, say - the question then arises as to how to get into your memories the physical movements, muscle patterns etc that will enable you play the legato passage in the required way. I use "memories" to emphasize the complexity of the signals, pathways and destinations of the inputs to the brain. Clearly, much of this input does not involve the pre-frontal cortex and its role in analyzing, organizing and deciding. It happens in parallel channels without conscious direction. However, let's say that the (simplified) solution is to practice exaggerating holding down each note until the next note has been struck. You can go about this in two different ways (or blend the two). 1. The pre-frontal cortex figures out a sequence of steps for your hands, fingers and muscles to make, and gives high-level guidance to the rest of your brain, your nervous system and your muscles as to how to proceed. 2. By guided experimentation you generate a large variety of inputs (though all of them within the overholding general solution) from your hands to your brain and let the brain select the best movements. Exactly how it does this I do not know, but we know it is a multi-path, multiprocessor approach with some sort of voting and pattern recognition happening, including the prefrontal cortex in a less dominant role. Probably the major distinction between the two approaches is the role of the prefrontal cortex: how dominant is it. The problem with approach number one is how limited it is. The more you push through the prefrontal cortex the slower are the results, and the less complex the analysis. It doesn't utilize the amazing power of the other subsystems. So the trick is to give each part of the brain its correct role. Our western approach to most problems over emphasizes the role of the prefrontal cortex. Very few students leave school with any FEEL for math, but all of the best mathematicians are intuitive and creative, and often solve problems then add the step by step proof later. Clearly they have highly developed technique and logical reasoning, but those alone would not solve many of the hard problems in math today. (Most people don't seem to realize that there IS any FEEL in serious math!). So now I think we can arrive at a violent AGREEMENT. Before we can improve a piece of our technique we have to analyze the problem, formulate a solution, and plan a way to develop the new technique. But sooner or later that broad plan of attack has to be broken down into thousands of micro-adjustments and integrated back into smooth movements. THIS cannot be done by the prefrontal cortex nor is there any part of the brain that can prejudge exactly what these adjustments should be. It only works as a sensory feedback loop, with an enormous number of interconnections. The issue can be stated as follows: is the prefrontal cortex (or any other part of the brain) getting in the way of this beautifully tuned system, eliminating inputs, forcing closure of certain paths, overriding signals and causing irrelevant muscles to fire etc. I believe that the answer is almost always yes, and we need to cultivate habits and practice sessions that allow the core system to do its job with the least interference, thereby allowing the brain to store purer memories than otherwise. Yes, these purer memories will contain their own problems, and unless used wisely may be worse than prior memories, but if generated wisely they can do the one thing that the prefrontal cortex can never do: find a solution in a hugely complex solution space, which (solution) though approximate has desirable qualities not otherwise found. Many of Alan's ATM's in "Honing ...", are aimed at allowing the brain to experience patterns that would be shut out in the normal course of practice. Because of his studies, we have faith that these new patterns are useful. Probably some of mine are not. I apologize for such a verbose explanation with such a simple result.

No apologies needed, this is all brilliant. Moshe Feldenkrais called his method, "learning how to learn," and it largely involves shifting from your approach #1 to your approach #2. Your description of this paints a really telling picture of just what happens in a good ATM (Awareness Through Movement) or FI (Functional Integration) lesson. My hat's off to you! AFF