 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Wonkak Kim
Date: 2003-12-12 05:05
Hi,
I have been practicing quite a lot recently (4-7hours/day) and I feel sharp pain in my stomach and elbow. I think the pain is mostly at muscles. Do you think this can get serious or is it just natural? I hope this is the sign that my ability to practice longer is increasing. Should I take little break and see doctor? Thanks.
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Author: EEBaum
Date: 2003-12-12 05:33
I'd cut down on practice a bit, unless you have gradually worked your way up to that much time. So much practice is likely to wear you out, especially if you're cramming for a concert or audition. Pace yourself.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2003-12-12 05:34
I'd check with a doc, but you're probably just overworking the diaphragm and your joints holding up the clarinet. Probably nothing any more serious than just really working out a muscle, but check with a doc if you wanna see if its safe to continue at this rate.
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2003-12-12 07:09
Wonkak Kim- BE CAREFUL! You should not be experiencing pain because of practising. I also practised a lot as a student. I used to have the attitude of "no pain- no gain", but I now believe that to be completely wrong. Your body may be able to deal with the pain right now, but eventually it will decide that it has had enough. This happened to me last year, and I thought that I might have to stop playing clarinet altogether.
Here's what I would suggest:
1. Quality of practise is more important that quantity. 7 hours is a LOT of time to practise in one day. I don't believe that you can really be doing quality practise for that amount of time. Cut down on your physical practise time, and really utilise the hours that you set aside for practising. (I'd say that 4 hours is more than enough)
2. Spend some time doing mental practising, i.e. playing though the music in your mind. This can be as benificial, sometimes evenbetter, than normal practising. Going through the music in your head, and imagining yourself playing it the way you want to will change the way that you play. It's also been proven that imagining yourself playing sends the same neuro-muscular signals to your body as actually playing.
3. Spend more time listening to music and thinking about it. Study the scores of the pieces you are learning. Listen to various recordings. Listen other works by the same composers. Attend concerts.
4. Build some kind of sport or movement into your practise routine. It is not good for your body to sit or stand in the same position for so many hours per day. Try do do some kind of movement (eg. jogging, swimming, dancing, yoga, whatever you enjoy) every day.
5. Try some kind of body work to get a better awareness of your posture while playing. Alexander Technique, Pilates, Feldenkrais and Yoga are some examples.
6. Try to avaoid practising for longer than an hour at a time. And take a proper break between these practise sessions. It would also be good to spend a few minutes every half hour or so to just put the instrument down and do soem stretching, especially of the muscles that are currently giving you pain. You might feel that you are wasting these 2 minutes when you could be practising, but you will see that you will be able to concentrate much better in the next half hour, and the quality of your practise will be much better.
7. Set goals for yourself, for the year, for the month, from week to week, even daily. Figure out the best way to practise to achieve these goals. This should help to find the best way to use your practise time, and not spend hours doing mindless practising.
8. Spend time doing things other than music. I presume that if you are practising so much, then you want to make a professional career as a musician. The more experience you have of this wonderful life, the more you will have to say in your music. Brahms used to go out for a walk every morning before sitting down to compose. Mozart used to love playing Billiards. Bach had loads of kids...
I see so many of my colleagues having physical problems from playing. And I've had big problems myself, which I am starting to overcome now. It's better to start as early as possible to avoid these problems affecting you in the future. It's really not necessary to practise 7 hours a day. If you practise well, you can achieve as much, or even more in 4 hours.
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Author: deepriver27
Date: 2003-12-12 22:03
I just started with a new teacher who says pretty much the same thing liquorice says about pain -
Pain is something that definitely requires a response in terms of changing how you do things. He was explaining this to me in the context of changing to double lip embrochure, which is a whole different topic -
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Author: Micaela
Date: 2003-12-13 20:05
Try using a neck strap. I know that they're dorky but they make everything feel a great deal lighter, especially if you're playing a lot of A clarinet (after a few hours, it really does feel heavier).
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Author: Robyn
Date: 2003-12-14 04:23
Make sure your neckstrap is elastic though. I switched from elastic to non-elastic for awhile, but it made my wrist hurt more than it had before. So I went back to elastic. (and I don't care how dorky it looks, I play so much better because my hands aren't tightening up when trying to hold the clarinet)
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