Problems with right hand. Maybe video might clarify problem?

Mr. Fraser I now know the term for the condition of my wrists. It's called Carpal Instability. It specifically puts my bones out of alignment in the hand causing the soreness that I get.

This is really interesting. I am pretty sure I could address the problem with a combination of Feldenkrais and piano lessons, but it is certainly something that can't and shouldn't be addressed on the forum. I wish you luck in developing a technique that not only prevents further deterioration but which remedies the condition. All best, AFF

I believe that through lots of hard work and PE I have made improvement. I no longer have the pains that I did or the annoying limitations and tightness. The only problem that remains is that I often have to sit at the piano and figure out the positioning of my hands carefully (as well as deciding musically what is to be done without noodling idly on the piano). It's made me more aware of my tone and phrasing but I know I still have a way to go before I can "take" a piece with virtuosity and elan. But I guess that is a lifetime of work. Mozart k 332 ( i understand there is still alot to be done musically)

Your hands are much better and fingers moving a lot more to create sound - all good! But you still wave your wrist around (except when it is very fast and demanding). The trouble is, your wrist movements have absolutely nothing to do with the musical shape. They are almost exclusively single note "relaxation moves" to "warm up the tone" or something. The tone will be warm when your wrist participates in shaping musical phrases, not when it works against the phrase. Every one of your wrist movements is an isolated phenomenon and bears no relation to the phrase. Rounding out the last note of a phrase does not count as shaping the phrase. Therefore those moves are actually working the phrase... Respectfully, AFF

Just a few thoughts on how he could improve the wrist issue- as I used to have an even more severe version of the same thing. I think it's all grounded in instability. A sense of the wrist drifting up helps to make up for a feeling of imbalance. If you just stop doing it, the wrist tends to have a hard time feeling comfortable and easily ends up clenching, rather than finding an easy balance. The thing I notice is that everything keeps getting bunched up forward. From there relaxing would make you very unstable, staying in the same place causes tension and only drifting further forward and up can bring any real sense of relief. I think the chain concept is the issue here. Only by lengthening the arm back (so as to pull the wrist back in to a stable feeling of being suspended in alignment) can that urge to keep drifting forward and up be countered. when something gets bunched forward, rather than allow it to keep going, it's a matter of creating length in the arm by pulling it directly back into a sustainable balance (rather than simply flopping it down, before starting another upward drift). From there, any upward drifts can be done slowly and subtly to fit the phrase- as they are no longer a necessity that compensates for instability but something that you have choice over. My habits are still strong enough that if I forget the lengthening of the arm, it's very hard to move the arm steadily.

If you fully, consciously and intentionally created an arm choreography that would exactly map onto the phrase contour you wish to sculpt, you would not have to remember to lengthen your arm. Andrew, you keep having to give yourself physical directives for one simple reason: you don't give yourself precise and exacting enough directives. You know enough about the physical. All your knowledge does not serve you as long as you do not put it at the service of more sophisticated musical demands. In fact, your knowledge has now become a problem because you are obsessed with as an end in itself, instead of using it to a higher purpose. Respectfully submitted, AFF

I do see where you're coming from, but I'm sure there's a powerful physical habit that prevents it. The reason I'm sure is because I experience no issue with my left but only with my right arm. Recently, I've relearned the richardson transcription of vocalise that gilels played. the left hand felt very different from before. It flowed smoothly and easily- merely as a subconscious response to my intent. There was no difficulty in finding a choreography that both flowed and kept my wrist aligned. however, time after time I'll look at my right hand and see the wrist bunching forward and spoiling the connection- no matter how much I plan and prepare. the feel simply won't stick with the ease as the left. As I type this right now I feel as if my right shoulder is some two inches in front of my left. If I try to level them, the right is still notably held forward. at the moment, as soon as I forget about lengthening the right arm, I'll notice that my right wrist is bunched forward and so is the shoulder. It's the fact that my left never encounters the same problem that tells me that there's not a simpler solution yet, other than conscious focus on creating length from the shoulder. There is definite improvement from this focus and my wrist currently aligns better than ever before. However, I cannot afford to leave it to it's own devices, or it severely deteriorates rapidly. At present, the stronger my musical intent, the worse my habit becomes. It's when I forget the physical and just play that it gets to be the worst. When I think only of sound and film myself, the habits are at their very worst. My left hand is a totally different story, however.

Just to add to that, this is exactly where I completely bow down to the abstract nature of feldenkrais. I understand rationally that getting bunched forward in both shoulder and wrist is my problem. The rational understanding is helping- but it is not enough to solve the problem just like that. My body just doesn't"feel" how to maintain the correction. Right now, I've done many feldenkrais exercises and usually feel way more balanced when I finish. However, my right shoulder always returns to being held massively forward and screwing my balance up again. Right now, I'm standing at a bus stop and feeling as if I'd like a whole tug of war team to tie a rope around my right arm and yank it back around my body, to match where my left arm hangs by mere nature. If that sounds defeatist, I'm actually pleased by my improvements. However, I'm increasingly aware of a notable physical imbalance that places a huge barrier between just thinking and doing. I have a long way to go before musical intentions will automatically produce the motions that would be optimal.

Thank you for your really cogent description. I really see that something else is at work here. Please forgive my misguided attempt to get you out of a musical habit that obviously is not the problem here. And there are eerie echoes in your post of something I myself am dealing with - Sam Slutsky, my Tai Chi teacher, at our last sessions, noticed I still hadn't really gotten out of my "Baroque" habits of over-moving in the Tai Chi form. But this time, while I was trying to loosen up my right shoulder from clamping down in a simple right hand push forward, a quite strong pain actually developed in and around the shoulder. Sam had to give me a deep-reaching and painful Chinese medicine massage to address it - an unusual experience but seemingly necessary to address a physical habit strong enough to withstand my years of Feldenkrais and work at the piano along the lines of what I've learned from Kemal and Phil Cohen! AFF

You know by now that I am more of a "Zen" guy, so you won't be surprised about what I'm going to say now. If you are 100% sure that your analysis is correct, then this would suggest you have to think of some action were the arm lengthening movement is the only way to do that action. I'm sure you have enough potential for abstraction to think of an exercise. Might be something in the gym, for example, as simple as one arm push-ups or something. Most importantly: practise the required movement in something that has NOTHING to do with piano playing. Very often, I require from my students that they do not touch the piano at all while solving this kind of things. Another element in doing such exercises away from the piano is that you have to "heat the kettle until the water really boils". It could also be, that the perceived requirement (the need) to "lengthen" the arm is actually the result of something else. Very often the right hand can learn from the left hand; I said that before on this forum. It may be something like level of pronation, supination, pinkie side or thumb weaknesses, lack of "grip" sensation in certain fingers, etc. that causes this. For example, I had this girl as a student who broke a bone on the pinkie-side of her right hand a couple of years ago. Until I started asking questions about what had ever happened to that hand, we were not able to solve her problems properly; her body had "learned" to avoid the sharp pain such old fractures can cause sometimes. A little more pronation in the right hand solved all her problems. Besides, I had her practise "forearm rotation in a Taubman fashion" (which is actually the study of angles) for six weeks in a row, VERY slowly, prohibiting playing. Paul