Adult piano learner with previous hand injury, do muscles heal themselves?
June 19, 2009 3:22 AM   Subscribe

My left hand was stabbed 5 years ago, knife pierced between the thumb and index finger at the palm all the way through the other side. It missed tendons and bones and my hand has been fine and fully functional except for some minor nerve problem it rather feels funny and ticklish around the cut.

I decided to learn the piano and I've been practicing for 1 year now and I had no problem until recently. I felt some pain and stopped practicing and it healed. Now I am scared to practice just in case I hurt my hand again.

Basically I am trying to find out if I should not keep my hopes up about playing the piano and will eventually have to give up or could it be possible that it is purely because I practiced wrong not necessarily due to my previous injury and things would be fine as long as I practice right?

I know this is not a very good question to ask over the internet, I suppose I am writing out of desperation, I will see a hand specialist soon but until then I'd like to know if muscles tend to heal themselves up or any good questions that you can think of that I should ask to the doctor or just any comments welcome...

Thanks
posted by neworder7 to Health & Fitness (2 answers total)
 
Best answer: I would speak to two people about this: first, a good doctor who knows about tendons, muscles, etc. They would know if the kind of stretching required for playing the piano is going to cause you any actual harm.

Secondly, I would recommend finding a GOOD piano teacher. One who talks about posture, the position of your wrists and how far to sit back from the piano, when to move your hand instead of stretching - especially this part - and one who knows that correct use of the thumb is the solution to 90% of technical problems with a piece. This kind of teacher may be more expensive, but is well worth the money.
posted by fearnothing at 4:11 AM on June 19, 2009


P.S. good luck with practising, don't give up because there WILL be good things you can play even if you need to be careful about picking the right ones, and if you want more detail on what to look for in a teacher then please memail me - I've had a good teacher for four years, but I wish I'd gone to him a lot earlier, you will do far better if you learn the right techniques from the start, and I've had to unlearn a lot of things.
posted by fearnothing at 4:18 AM on June 19, 2009


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