Stop Right Now! Your Health Is At Risk!

*Disclaimer: The following post is solely based off of my own personal experiences and is suited for educational purposes only. This does not substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a medical professional or healthcare provider if you are in need of medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment. We are not liable for any risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.

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Stop what you're doing and take a moment to check this out!

No matter what instrument you're playing, no matter how hard the material, we need to talk about something incredibly important.

We need to take a moment and talk about how to avoid injuries.

Think about it. Playing music isn't just a mental task. It's a very physical task as well. Think about all the keys you're pressing down. Think about

the strings you're pressing on. Think about the movements in your wrists as you're playing a drum. Whatever it is, there's physical movement at play.

Now, while these physical movements may not be affecting large portions of your body for most instrumentalists, you still have a lot of tiny muscles and tendons that are working together in order to help you play a note.

It's very easy to forget about all these little muscles and tendons at work, but believe me, it's important to remember about them.

The worst thing that could happen is getting an injury and then never being able to touch your instrument again because you're in too much pain.

Music is a very enjoyable experience, and I want you to be able to enjoy playing music for a very long time. So let's get into how it is that we do this.

RELAX.

As a musician, you're probably going to hear this word A LOT, and for good reason.

Relaxing is the best way you're going to be able to avoid injuries.

So, what do I mean by this? Does this mean we're going to go on vacation?

Well, not exactly.

First and foremost, before we even start thinking about picking up our instrument, a great way to aid ourselves towards relaxation is by giving your muscles a good stretch. Just the same way that pro-athletes stretch before doing something physical, musicians (and yes, you music students too), should probably stretch out as well. This helps get the blood flowing, and helps with mobility.

Depending on your instrument you may choose to do different stretches, but in general, a few good hand and wrist stretches are a good place to start. I also recommend some good arm stretches for percussionists as well. Whatever stretch helps you the most, do it.

Okay. So now that we're all stretched out, now what? Are we done?

No. Not quite.

Now you can pick up your instrument, but before we start playing, try working on some warm-ups before you start diving into your actual music.

Just like stretching helps get the blood flowing and helps us with our mobility, warm-ups help us in the same way--only this time, using your instrument.

Whatever easy exercises your instructor recommends, go through those. They don't have to be wild, hard things. They could be simple scales, simple rhythms to focus on your technique, a simple song. Whatever it is, so long as you get a nice warm-up in. Warm-ups help get us focused to do our task, remind us about proper technique, and is just one more extra step towards helping us prevent injuries.

Okay. Now that we're all warmed-up and ready to go, let's start getting into our actual music.

You're doing great! You're getting into it. However; all of a sudden, you're practicing and come to a very difficult part. This is a part that you're STRUGGLING with. STOP.

Take note of the part of your body that is tensing up. Chances are, your muscles are probably tensing up somewhere in your body. For whatever reason, we subconsciously start to clench down on our instrument, or voice when we can't get things right. We start to get frustrated, anxious, irritated, etc. when things start going south.

Each instrument and each musician is going to experience different things. Whether it's biting down harder on a mouthpiece, extremely tight lips, tight jaws, gripping a neck or stick way too hard, whatever it is; pay

attention to where you're experiencing that tension. This is what you need to start practicing releasing. Release that tension in your body.

Need to stretch again? Do it.

Need to take a small break? Do it.

Need some water? I highly encourage it--especially considering how water can get oxygen to your muscles!

Do whatever it is that will help you to release that tension.

I find that usually after a small break, I can come back to the material with a refreshed mind, and believe it or not, it oddly works, and sometimes things just start clicking!

Now what if even after all that, you're still struggling with it even after you took a break?

One of the biggest tips I can give to anyone is this: If the passage is too hard, slow down your tempo until you can get it down comfortably, then slowly speed your tempo back up, gradually back to your target speed.

Remember, your body is doing a lot while practicing a piece of music. You're physically doing something. You're telling your body to press down keys or make incredibly precise movements; all while trying to make sense of the musical symbols in front of you.

It's a lot to process!

Slow it down until you can get it right. I cannot stress that enough. That will help your brain process things a lot better, and at the same time, you're training and/or re-training your body to relax and lose that tension you were having at a faster tempo.

I personally like slowing my tempo down to 60 beats per minute (bpm) if not SLOWER and then slowly build it back up to my target tempo, 5-10 bpm at a time.

Even if you're still struggling with getting it back up to speed, sometimes you need to just step away from practicing and revisit that part the next day. Similar to how taking a small 10 minute break can help refresh the mind. Sometimes we need a bit longer than that. Sometimes a good night's rest can really do wonders, and the next day you practice it; all of a sudden the magic happens. So try not to be too hard on yourself.

Lastly, this one in particular is for instrumentalists who don't need to use air while playing their instruments (sorry brass and woodwinds).

BREATHE.

"Haha, what do you mean, breathe? I breathe all the time?"

Here's the thing, a large majority of people stop breathing when they start playing difficult passages, believe it or not. Well, for those of us who don't play wind instruments, sometimes we do have the tendency of holding our breaths. It sounds silly, but trust me, it happens more often than you think.

Remember how I said I encouraged you to take water breaks cause it gets oxygen to the body? Not breathing while playing reduces the amount of oxygen getting to our muscles. When this happens, we end up tensing up.

Think about how your muscles tense up when you run for a very long time. Your body naturally craves oxygen in order to release that muscle tension; which leads to you breathing a lot harder. Similar to when we're holding our breaths.

This is why I say, taking a water break is important, but again, also remembering to breathe while you're playing is going to ease that tension quite a lot.

Now, I've got to admit that I'm sometimes guilty of forgetting to breathe, and when you start to practice learning how to breathe during difficult passages; it's going to feel a little weird. I say this because you'll find that you're not used to doing it.

What I find that helps me the most is practicing breathing in time with my tempo. Let's say your tempo is 120 bpm. I like breathing with half the value of my tempo, so for this, I would practice breathing at 60 bpm. If my tempo was 200 bpm, my breathing rate would be at 100 bpm, and so on. Hopefully you get the idea. Of course, that's what works for me, but if you find a system that works for you that’s even better? Go for it! So long as you're breathing.

Once you start getting used to it, not only will you relax a lot more, but you'll also find that you actually end up sounding a lot better. The tension gets released and all of a sudden, your sound actually opens up. It’s surprising, but it’s really true–even for those of you who play percussion.

What’s better than avoiding injuries all while making a better sound? Try it out for yourselves and see the difference!

Now, of course, if you do end up suffering an injury, I can’t stress it enough that you do need to seek medical attention and follow their advice. Hopefully though, some of these tips will help you avoid some of those injuries so that you can keep playing music for a very long time. I also encourage you to ask your physician questions in regards to ways to avoid instrumental injuries so that they can go more in depth with you a lot more than I can, and tailor the right stretches for you.

So, with all this in mind, I leave you with this question of the day:

Do you tense up when you play and have you tried any of these suggestions before? Let me know!