 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Noverbuf
Date: 2010-03-23 14:04
I asked for help on this board before but I wish now I asked more/read about prevention of the health problems than about how to go over the break easily though these are related things in a way when you already got that tendonitis/tendovaginitis in your wrist.
The latter one is exactly what I got in my right wrist extensor that runs on the pinky side of the wrist.
After about 1 year of extensive and diligent practice and I practiced only about 1 and a half hour a day I developed:
- quite good speed for my music needs
- ease of going over the first break and ability to go over the second break though not as smoothly
- a range up to high G over the second break (and that's I think is all most of adult amatures will ever need)
and filally...
- the tendovaginitis in my right wrist extensor
Yes, it only took me one year to make a good progress and get the tendovaginitis.
A doctor specializing in hand problems looked at me with a grin and said that this is what I likely was going to experience when starting the clarinet at the age of 37. She wasn't suprised.
The moral is watch yourself and stop playing once you get any sensation like pain in wrists and hands. I think this is a common knowledge that adult beginners are particularly prone to this kind of RSI.
Children are OK - they can recover quicker and their tendons and muscles have much more fexibility and recovery potential.
Get the best clarinet you can afford with the best set-up, use only the best of reeds, take breaks often.
My tendovaginitis is not an extreme case, I can still play and experience the pain only after playing for awhile and it mostly goes away when I finish my practice session.
Nevertheless I had to stop playing because I now want to heal my wrist as I'm planning to return to clarinet later if possible.
The saxophone I learned to play before the clarinet wasn't a problem -there is no such thing as constant strain applied to your right hand wrist unless you play a soprano but clarinet is a good source of injury unless you are very cautious.
So again - take breaks often and regularly when you practice and don't push yourself/don't let your instructor push yourself. You'll most likely end up with some kind of RSI if you can't do something easily like going over the break and apply extra effort to speed up the learning process.
You better go slowly and save your tendons. The ability will come to you later but at a less/no cost.
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Author: salzo
Date: 2010-03-23 14:40
If you are having issues with your right hand, try playing with your right thumb on top of the rest, instead of below. Support clarinet with your knee.
Your right hand no longer has the responsibility of "holding" the instrument.
I hear see and read about people with these tendonitis issues, and I do not have experience with these issues,but it seems to me that removing the "work" of holding the instrument with your hands, might alleviate the hand problems.
i realize this is unorthodox, but this is how I play, and I do not encounter any more facility issues than playing the traditional way.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2010-03-23 15:57
Bummer,
I've had such right hand discomfort that it limited my playing and extended into many other things --like being able to type.
I've just about worn out an BG elastic neck strap in 26-months. It saved my playing.
It took about 3-months of using the strap --about as long as it took to get used to it to get my forearm to quit aching and to allow me to stop my practice sessions for some reason other than arm pain.
The clarinet neck strap tends to pull the horn toward your body, so the load on your thumb changes from "UP" toward your upper teeth to "AWAY" from your body. It is a lighter load on your thumb.
I worry that the kiddy tootlers are damaging their right forearms, but are resilient enough to be unaware of it.
Bob Phillips
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Author: JJAlbrecht
Date: 2010-03-23 16:05
My daughter, a current Freshman Clarinet Performance major, just got done with a course of PT to address a hyperextended right thumb, which has bothering her since she was in middle school. It was a stress/overuse injury caused by long practice sessions of the course of the years.
Jeff
“Everyone discovers their own way of destroying themselves, and some people choose the clarinet.” Kalman Opperman, 1919-2010
"A drummer is a musician's best friend."
Post Edited (2010-03-23 16:16)
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Author: Greenie
Date: 2010-07-17 21:44
I started learning to play clarinet two years ago, at age 56, and I have had difficulty with thumb distress too, because my enthusiasm led me to practice sometimes as much as two hours a day without stopping. I tried a neck strap for almost a year, but it it really did not much help my thumb, and screwed up my embouchure. I tried resting the instrument on my knees, but my torso is not long enough to make that feasible. Luckily, I have not had wrist distress too. Here is what I did.
I took a round of physical therapy, and medicated with Motrin, icing after every practice, and reducing my practice to no more than thirty minutes at a stretch for about a month. During that time, besides administering a lot of massage treatments, the therapist taught me to do strength training for my fingers with simple rubber bands (which I continue to do every morning) and had me wear a non-intrusive thumb supporter whenever I play or use my thumb for weight-bearing. The therapist also instructed me not to hold pens and pencils with my thumb & forefinger, so I have learned to use my other fingers for that. Also, I changed the adjustment on my thumb rest. The thumb brace is a REALLY BIG HELP and does not interfere with my fingering at all.
The rubber-band strength training consists of putting a thick rubber band around your thumb and fingers, and then rhythmically expanding all your fingers and thumb against the rubber band's resistance and then contracting them just enough that the rubber band doesn't fall off. The second rubber-band strength training consists of putting a lighter rubber band around your thumb and forefinger, and then rhythmically expanding them against the rubber band's resistance and contracting them. I do fifty of these strength-training drills at least once a day. They do seem to help!
Now I try to limit my practice to thirty (or 45 at most) minutes a session, and try to practice more than one session per day (not always possible, but on a weekend I have got up to five half-hour sessions spread out over one day!). Since I am a total beginner at musical learning, I do rhythm drills on a recorder (much lighter to hold) instead of my clarinet. I stop playing when my thumb starts to hurt, and if it does, I take a Motrin and ice it. But that usually only happens if I deviate from the above regimen.
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2010-07-17 22:02
Interesting...when I started with clarinet some five years ago, "That Thumb" was a major issue and I tried this and that. I got not only a sore thumb but also sore pinkies from reaching out.
Now, some years later, I stumble over this thread and think "hey, I haven't thought about my thumb in months". It just vanished, as a tired mouth vanishes once you get your "chops" in place.
One thing that helped me was a thumb rest cushion that didn't buffer against the thumb rest proper but rather against the clarinet body. The skin and muscles between clarinet body and thumb bones is rather thin, which will cause stress and pain, which in turn will cause cramps of all sorts. Remove the root pain, and "collateral pain" will vanish or diminish.
Get the Ridenour Thumb saddle or invest some cents into an easily home-made contraption.
--
Ben
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Author: Greenie
Date: 2010-07-17 22:03
Thanks for this encouraging report, Ben, and the recommended gear!
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Author: TianL
Date: 2010-07-18 03:13
if you have relatively small hands like me, you can also try Ridenour's Thumb Saddle. It works very well with small hands by keeping your right hand in a more natural position.
It takes a couple of days to get used to it, but to me it is very worth it.
It's also very cheap (like $10), so if you don't like, you won't feel too bad for trying it out
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Author: dansil
Date: 2010-07-18 05:02
perhaps a useful alternative to neck straps reducing the strain on the right thumb and wrist extensor tendons is to explore alternative thumb rests. The Ridenour Thumb Saddle was initially quite good for my aching and aged thumb but it didn't/doesn't reduce the leverage which the weight of the clarinet imposes on the thumb because it still puts the pressure on the small bone furthest from the palm.
However the Kooiman thumb rest is fantastic. The Etude model (now up to version 2) and made of plastic is far cheaper than the Maestro (metal) model (which I haven't tried) and places the weight of the clarinet either on the joint between the two thumb bones (phalanges) or onto the thumb bone (proximal phalanx) closest to the palm. Thus the lever being pressed on by the weight of the clarinet is shorter and therefore the thumb extensor tendons don't need to work anywhere as hard as with the old fashioned thumb rests which come with every clarinet. It takes a little while to get used to the Kooiman rest but after a little while it feels "natural" and one feels "naked" when playing a clarinet without this rest!
Some people have complained that their Kooiman thumb rests have broken very easily but I've used one of the original Etude models and two of the Etude 2 models (which have some minor differences. The one downside I have experienced with both models is that the screws provided with the Kooiman have a much more open or coarse thread and are slightly wider than the usual screws used in thumb rests. This means that if they are used instead of the screws from the clarinet's original thumb rest they are quite hard to screw into the original holes and these holes really ought to be drilled a fraction wider. Of course this is most probably too daunting for most clarinetists (it is for me!).
The Kooiman rests are secured to the clarinet by a base plate which is screwed onto the clarinet after the original thumb rest is removed. The holes in the base plate align reasonably well with the holes used to secure most clarinet thumb rests (not the Ridenour unfortunately). The thumb rest slides onto the base plate and is secured with a ratchet mechanism which allows for a certain amount of vertical adjustment up and down the clarinet for personal variations.
But the holes in the base plate are just a little too large for the screws used with the clarinet's original thumb rest to get an adequate grip and so if one tries to use the original screws they just pull through the holes in the base plate! Personally I think that Kooiman needs to rethink the design of the base plate and make it in a thin but strong metal metal with various alternative hole placements to make it work better with a wider variety of clarinets and to allow the clarinet's original thumb rest screws to be used.
Most of the above has only an indirect relationship to the original posting but some may find it useful.
a family doctor in Castlemaine, rural Victoria, Australia for the past 30+ years, also a plucked string musician (mandolin, classical guitar) for far too long before discovering the clarinet - what a missed opportunity!
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2010-07-18 11:59
If the weight of the clarinet is a problem and slings/neck straps aren't working (and they don't take all the weight off your right thumb), there's ALWAYS the Quodlibet Fhred which I can thoroughly recommend.
Even though I don't use one myself, I have seen the benefits they offer players who thought they would have to stop playing. Far more benefits from these than slings/straps can offer. http://www.quodlibet.com/Index.php
Spread the word - these are the future!
(I'm not afflilated with Quodlibet at all)
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Wicked Good ★2017
Date: 2010-07-18 12:54
I adore the Fhred, but can only use it in larger groups where I'm not moving my instrument at all. If I play in a chamber group where I have to cue others, often the Fhred loses its "footing" on the chair. That's my issue, not the Fhred's.
I've mostly just reverted to resting the bell on my right knee. That doesn't work so well for the A clarinet (its bell rests between my knees), but using a Thumb Saddle helps.
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Author: davetrow
Date: 2010-07-19 02:34
For me the problem with the standard thumb position on the clarinet is a combination of being too low (thumb opposing middle finger rather than first finger) and too "tight" (hand not open enough, the problem that the Ridenour saddle addresses).
Dansil, I can't tell from looking at the Kooiman Etude if it can be adjusted high enough to put my thumb across from my first finger or not. Can it? It seems pretty clear that the Maestro can.
Dave Trowbridge
Boulder Creek, CA
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Author: dansil
Date: 2010-07-19 03:34
The base plate of the Kooiman Etude 2 thumb rest has three pairs of holes for screws thereby allowing for adjustment of the thumb rest up or down the clarinet. If these don't provide sufficient range of movement (and I suspect they provide as much as an ordinary adjustable thumb rest provides) other options would be to drill extra holes in the base plate OR to drill extra holes in the clarinet itself, a much more risky operation unless you're a skilled woodwind technician.
Cheers, Danny Silver
=============
a family doctor in Castlemaine, rural Victoria, Australia for the past 30+ years, also a plucked string musician (mandolin, classical guitar) for far too long before discovering the clarinet - what a missed opportunity!
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Author: Beckiboo
Date: 2010-10-30 23:58
Thanks for the info, Ben.
"Get the Ridenour Thumb saddle or invest some cents into an easily home-made contraption."
DD plays clarinet, and was lucky enough to get a Buffet from my Dad, who played professionally. We had it re-corked, and new pads applied, and a general all-over fix-up. Part of what was "fixed" was that whatever my Dad had put over the screws that attach the thumb rest was gone. After playing for about 45 minutes, dd's thumb was quite red and sore.
She will make the home-made thumb rest, to provide a cushion over the thumb rest screws. And I will be happy knowing it will not damage the instrument!
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Author: BartHx
Date: 2010-10-31 20:13
I played through college and then put my horn aside for about forty years. When I picked it up again, I was playing up to two hours at a time. I began to notice a sore double jointed thumb. I got a neck strap and started using it as soon as I noticed any soreness in my thumb. I have gotten to the point that the strap is in my case, but I rarely need to use it.
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