The Inner Work of Playing Without Pain

My main activity in the musicians’ health space is helping people fix their piano technique. While this is an essential part of solving a piano-related pain or injury issue, it may not be enough on its own.       

As I’ve come to understand it, a complete injury recovery plan involves three distinct threads: piano playing, movement (including but not limited to exercise), and the nervous system. 

While it’s far from obvious how exactly to approach technique or movement, most injured pianists do pursue both of these routes. This article is about the missing piece: the role of nervous system stress in injury, and what to do about it. It’s a big subject, and admittedly not one I can comprehensively explain. However, my experience healing my own injury and subsequent experience helping other pianists have given me some insights worth sharing. 

Developing tendonitis during my undergrad degree made me think a lot about tension. I clearly had too much tension in my body while playing, but once I became aware of it, I also felt tense in other situations when there was no good reason for it. 

I was led to this realization through taking Alexander Technique lessons. Alexander Technique is a form of body alignment and movement retraining, but its reach goes far beyond that. It makes you generally more sensitive to what’s happening in the body. You notice physical impulses you were never aware of, like pulling your head down or contracting your shoulders. A natural byproduct of that awareness is to notice what situations and people trigger the impulse to contract.  

The reactions you notice may or may not make sense relative to the present moment. If a physical contraction is not triggered by something genuinely stressful in the moment, then there may be a deeper pattern at work below conscious awareness. 

There may also be high baseline levels of muscle tension and nervous system tension that you only notice after letting some of it go and feeling the difference. Humans’ adaptability to stress is both a blessing and a curse. It helps us survive in difficult conditions, but it also causes us to get used to unhealthy states of mind and body, accepting them as normal so that we can continue to function.  

These issues are not unique to musicians, of course, but there are some distinct ways that stress takes root in the bodies of musicians. 

At the heart of a lot of musicians’ internal struggles is pressure, and there is no shortage of pressure in the classical music world. Competitive education systems, scarce mainstream career opportunities, the tradition of genius worship, the daunting standards imposed by recordings – all these forces permeate the minds of aspiring musicians, who often take on a severe, intensely critical attitude toward their own playing.

There is nothing wrong with working hard to become the best we can be. The problem is when excellence feels like an absolute imperative; when failing to reach the ideal means “I’ll never make it in this profession” or “I’ll never be accepted into the community” or “I’m worth less as a human being.” People, musicians included, need to feel they are worthy of respect, love and belonging regardless of their level of achievement.

In the ongoing interplay between cultural forces and past programming, the past probably weighs heavier on the state of our nervous system. 

In a perfect world, a healthy childhood would leave us capable of maintaining self-worth through the inevitable ups and downs of a music career. But if the conditions of early life were stressful or lacking in some important way, we will tend to internalize the stress to an unhealthy degree. 

The psychological harm done by “stage parents” is widely recognized, but these dynamics exist on a continuum and they can show up in subtle ways. The necessity to excel can be communicated to a child without ever being stated out loud. 

If a parent is in delicate mental health or lacks a sense of meaning in their own life, the child might notice that Mom or Dad only seems happy when talking about their child’s talent or achievements. To the child in this situation, being exceptional becomes a way of fulfilling the parent’s needs and thus maintaining the stability of the family, a matter of existential importance. This sets up a pattern of performing at all cost, and that pattern will persist into adulthood until they uncover and dismantle it.  

In another scenario, It could simply be that the parents are overwhelmed with the business of living and don’t have enough emotional resources to go around. In that case, performing becomes a way for their child to get the attention and validation that is generally in short supply. 

If children feel valued simply for existing and are free to be themselves, they are more likely to become musicians who value themselves independently of their achievement. They can aspire as much as they want musically and professionally, but it won’t be accompanied by the existential weight.  

These are a few ways internal pressure takes root relative to music, but there are infinite other ways it could happen. I’m sure many people who have never touched a musical instrument could relate to what I’m describing.

Uncovering the roots of nervous system stress is a personal process – it needs to be approached with care and at the right time for each individual – but in the absence of major trauma, there is a lot we can do to recalibrate ourselves.  

Daily practice is the key. All musicians have some sort of practice habit, and we can use this to our advantage. The concept of practice can be expanded to include time at the instrument and away from it, all aimed at cultivating balance in the body-mind and a healthy relationship to the world.

Practicing away from the instrument can be many things: walks in the forest; brief pauses of 10 minutes where you stop, breathe, and check in with yourself; free journaling with a pen and paper; talking openly to whomever around you is a good listener; doing whatever random things you like that wake up creativity and joy; long sessions of relaxation in a sauna or bath; getting hands-on body work like massage or osteopathy. Different things work for different people, but everyone can find something that moves the needle. 

Practicing freedom, ease and flow across different settings and activities (or non-activities) teaches the body to find these states more quickly and naturally at the piano. The moment-by-moment awareness cultivated in the nonmusical practice will work its way into your time at the instrument. Practicing piano should feel like exploration, joyful physicality and creative problem solving.  

If you’ve experienced pain related to playing, there might be some fear of doing further damage when you go to the piano, which pushes the nervous system in the wrong direction. This makes it all the more important to have good technique strategies that you know will be part of the solution, not the problem. (If you need help with that, get in touch.) Healthy technique leads to confidence, and confidence reduces nervous system stress.

We can use physical means to access our mental and emotional selves, and we can use the mind in turn to influence the body. Ultimately, we are a unified system that can spiral upward and self reinforce once we get on the right path.