Living Scores Learn

Improving the practice and performance of contemporary music

Physical difficulties

Avoiding pain
The playing techniques described above are sometimes very extreme for joints, skin and hands. Inconveniences I suffered from while practising the piece where:
  • Blisters on fingers and palm of the hand due to dampening the coils while hitting
  • nerve-blockage in the thumb resulting in having a “numb” thumb-top for over a month
  • stress related pain in the joints due to the shocks caused by dampening techniques
  • pain in the finger tops
  • blisters on the finger tops due to holding the hammer.
Some solutions that could avoid these pains:
  • using bicycle gloves, at least to dampen the coils
  • using Compeed plasters, which work as “second-skin” for finger tops and palm
  • never keep on playing if something starts to hurt
Playing position

This is naturally depending on the height of your resonance box. If the resonance box is similar to the one described above, two concert piano stools mounted to their highest position are ideal to support the box. These are also quite easy to find in any concert hall and save space in your car. Make sure the set-up is not mounted too high, because of playing convenience. If it’s too high, you tend to constantly overplay your muscles and it will be hard to make it through the piece. If it’s mounted too low, back problems will occur soon.

Independence of voice and hands

When practising and performing the piece, you will notice that what is written for the voice in the score, needs to be performed quite independently from what you are playing in the hands at that moment. This needs quite a lot of attention to obtain a natural-sounding result. I practiced these passages extremely slowly, at 1/4th of the original tempo. Then, I sped up little by little, always making sure the result sounded very natural. If the basis for this is constructed in a natural way, the end result will sound flowing and easy.