This is What Pianists Get WRONG About Healthy Technique - With Penelope Roskell

Clark Lovell: I was playing Liszt's second piano concerto, which is big piece, a lot of octaves, and I don't have particularly large hands. And I was practicing for many hours a day and my hands started to hurt. And I think I may have mentioned it to my teacher and she just said, ⁓ that's good. It shows you're working well. And it got worse and it got to the point where I just couldn't play at all. So I was referred to specialist at the hospital. who just said, ⁓ you have tunicinavitis, you need an operation, when can you come in? I was completely shocked. ⁓ You know, I left that room just devastated because I thought, well, an operation, that means I'll never play again. There was no advice, there was no, you could try this or you could try that first. That was the approach in those days. So I went away and decided I was going to not have an operation and just see what I can do and work out for myself. And when your hands are cold, there's not much blood in your hands, right? And if you try and play the piano and play something fast, then you're fighting against a hand that's really short of blood and oxygen. What you want to be doing is bringing blood to the particular part of the body that you're going to be using most intensively. There is a tendency for musicians to think that healthy technique is something a bit cranky, it's something a bit weird, ⁓ it's something you only need to learn about if you've been injured. And... My experience and the experience I think I can safely say of everybody I have worked with is that when they've worked in this way and rethought and analyzed their technique, they all came back to me some months later and said, it's amazing, not only do I not have pain, but I'm playing so much. Hey, welcome back to the show everyone. I am so excited for today's episode and for our guest. This is someone that I got in contact with while I was doing research for just some things, some resources for musician unchained. ⁓ This person is an injury specialist, the president elect of the European Piano Teachers Association. She is a professor at Trinity Lobin Conservatoire in the United Kingdom. And also is the author of The Complete Pianist and the Essential Piano Techniques book series. And this is Penelope Roskelle. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much, Clark. It's lovely to be here. Lovely to be talking is very, very great to be talking to you. So Penelope, what I like to just start with, I was kind of alluding to this before we started recording, is that I just like to give people the reins and have them share why injury prevention injury recovery, what their own experiences with injury as a performing artist has been. So if you want to just kind of take it from there and tell me what your experience with injury has been as a pianist. Okay. I was about 20, I was at music college. I was playing Liszt's second piano concerto, which is a big piece, a lot of octaves, and I don't have particularly large hands. And I was practicing for many hours a day and my hands started to hurt and I think I may have mentioned it to my teacher and she just said, ⁓ that's good. It shows you're working well. ⁓ And it got worse and it got to the point where I just couldn't play at all. And this was many, many years ago. So ⁓ I was referred to a specialist at the hospital who just said, ⁓ you have tunicinavitis. You need an operation. can you come in? And I was completely shocked. ⁓ You know, I left that room just... devastated because I thought, well, an operation that means I'll never play again. There was no advice. There was no, you could try this or you could try that first. That was the approach in those days. So I went away and decided I was going to not have an operation and just see what I can do and work out for myself. And again, in those days, there was no help. Nobody knew much about these things. There was nobody to help me. So all I could do was just keep experimenting and trying different things. ⁓ I also tried several different techniques like yoga and Alexander technique and some Feldenkrais I think at that stage. ⁓ But I would go to classes and learn from these people but I would be left puzzling, but how can I relate that to my piano playing? How is it going to help me? So everybody just told me I needed to rest, so I did rest. And eventually it got better. ⁓ But if I overworked or tried to play something too demanding, then it would come back. So it took some years before I really felt safe from it. ⁓ But in that time, what I was doing was really ⁓ revising every aspect of my own technique. So I was trying things out for myself and I went through some down some rabbit holes, I have to say. Didn't always find the right solution straight away. And And then I was teaching as well at the time. ⁓ And so I would try these, anything that seemed to work for me, I would try it out on my students. And if it worked for them, then I'd think, ⁓ this is worth pursuing. And that's the way I went. It's just trial and error, working out what worked. And it wasn't, it was never just one solution. It was never, if I play with a lower wrist, if I do this, it's going to cure my problem. It wasn't, it was tweaking. It was changing little aspects of my technique to make that little bit better. And then once I'd made that discovery, then I'd move on and think, ⁓ but I can develop that further and change this and modify this ⁓ until gradually it all started to feel really comfortable. ⁓ And so I was then teaching a lot. was playing a lot, but I was also teaching. And I found that ⁓ I was using all these ideas in my teaching and students were finding them helpful. then musicians started coming to me. started running a musician's clinic with a specialist over here and ⁓ they'd come with problems. And at that stage, I did actually try to help quite a lot of different musicians, not just pianists. I wouldn't do that now because I think actually, you you should focus on what you really know best. You know, I can talk about how they're sitting or something, but I wouldn't dream of talking to a trumpeter about his technique. ⁓ I wouldn't interfere in that way because I don't know anything about it. ⁓ So then I started becoming known as somebody who could help people with injuries. So a lot of people started coming to me for that. I now ⁓ work in ⁓ the UK for an organization called the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine, which is the UK equivalent of PAMA, Performing Arts Medicine Association in the US. ⁓ And I run a clinic jointly with a medical doctor, a hand specialist. So people come to the clinic and they're seen by, they get an accurate diagnosis. We can talk about it from the medical point of view. And then I can look at them from the piano playing point of view. And so they're getting that much more rounded therapeutic approach. And that's what we find is really helpful to not only have medical help, some, also work with a hand therapist who maybe gives exercises and advises them on pain and things like that. So we often work three people together with the same person to rehabilitate them, help them get better. That's awesome. We find that's really the best approach because it's often... There are times when it's just a medical problem and there are times when it's just a very quick little tweak to their technique and they can be better in a couple of weeks. But there are other times when it's more complex and they need more in-depth help from different angles. Hey, real quick, sorry to interrupt the episode, but if you are a musician who's going through an injury right now and you feel like you could use some extra help... or some extra coping strategies to help you get through this really sucky, difficult experience, head to musicianunchained.com backslash let's hang to see if a coaching relationship will be right for you at this time in your recovery. Okay, enjoy the rest of the episode. Yeah, that's so interesting you mentioned that. What do you think as you have been doing those types of consultations ⁓ that contribute to like the more complex situations from pedagogical standpoint? I know in the past we were talking about like the ⁓ common pedagogical phrases that sometimes we can see teachers use that may be causing the wrong, I guess, mental construct of how to do something right on the piano. Does that make sense? Yeah. think, I mean, I can only really speak from the pianist's point of view. But there are quite a lot of misconceptions, myths almost, about how the best way to play the piano. ⁓ A lot of this stems actually from the late 19th century when we'd had some of the big, we had a list, we'd had the big romantic composers writing big pieces and everybody felt they needed to be able to play more loudly. Of course, they were playing now not just in a drawing room, but they were playing in a big hall, a concert hall. Pianos, they wanted to make a bigger sound. So one of the most famous set of technical exercises for piano is Hanon, Hanon exercises. Right. They're really pretty boring. ⁓ And he wrote these around this time. And he said, for instance, something like, lift each finger for each note and play precisely or play with precision. And I can't remember the exact quote. but he's definitely advising to lift the finger before playing each note. And if you just do it once you may think, ⁓ yes I can really push at that note and play it loudly. But it actually, firstly it produces a really harsh tone ⁓ and it causes huge ⁓ problems later on for many people. One thing, because I see so many a pianist with injuries, I see some common problems. I see some common statements that they make. one of the first things I ask a pianist when they come to me is what were you doing when the pain first started? ⁓ So one of the most common things is they say, ⁓ well I was, I had a deadline. I had to do a lot of work or maybe they were an accompanist or something like that. And they will have to play very long days without any breaks. or they had ⁓ a competition or a concert coming up where they had to work a lot so they were practicing more than usual. So was the amount of practice. But also very often they were saying they were practicing the sort of exercises that say you should lift your fingers and then just press them down. So that is one of the very common misconceptions amongst pianists. And the thing is about piano playing is the only thing that creates the sound is the movement from key surface down to the key bed. So that's the only movement we actually need to do is to do that. We don't need to do that. And if you're doing that, what you're doing is you're pulling this muscle and then to put it down again, you're having to pull with the flexor muscles. ⁓ interesting. And so you're getting co-contraction, know, they're pulling against each other. So after a bit, all the fingers get really tight and the wrist gets tight. So, ⁓ But that is still taught in many parts of the world and many, teachers teach in that way. ⁓ But I think it's a very dangerous approach. It causes a lot of injuries in my experience. I'm so glad you went there because it's kind of funny. I used hand and exercises as my, I guess the foundation of my piano techniques class and my undergraduate degree. Yeah, yeah, good. I'm sure so many people out there can share that sentiment. But ⁓ one of the things that I'm fascinated about in this position that I'm in is kind of this, I guess, habit or culture that we have around warming up as musicians. I think this is not just pianists. It's definitely trumpet players from my experience, but everybody. We think of warming up And I put that in quotations for all of that, all of you guys on audio. ⁓ Warming up is just doing those technical exercises. And sometimes those technical exercises aren't as facilitative of healthy playing as they could be for one. But then on the flip side, our bodies aren't even warmed up to do that yet, right? So how, as in your position, do you help pianists to kind of re-conceptualize what warming up is and doing it correctly? Kind of what you're talking about. Yeah. Most pianists don't warm up. Or if I go into a class at a university or a college and say, what do you do to warm up? They nearly always say scales and arpeggios. Fast. They start straight away with the fast scales and arpeggios. And the thing is that's not what an athlete would do. I often quote, ⁓ I, we have a very famous diver in the UK. name is Tom Daly and he won many awards in the Olympics. And I once happened to be in a swimming pool when he was practicing his diving and he came in and you know, there were three levels of diving and he started from the pool edge and did a dive, a few dives. And then he went up to the next level and did a couple of dives. Then he went to, and then finally he went up to the level that he's normally at. So he didn't just go into something incredibly challenging. He went into it gradually to warm himself up. And this is what we as musicians should be doing because what warming up means is that say for instance, you're coming in from the cold outside. So I'm going to be talking about hands, but it's really relevant to every part of the body really. So especially if you come in from the cold outside, you tend to have cold hands. And when your hands are cold, there's not much blood in your hands, right? And if you try and play the piano and play something fast, then you're fighting against a hand that's really short of blood and oxygen, right? ⁓ So what you want to be doing is bringing blood to the particular part of the body that you're going to be using most intensively, yeah? So for instance, with the, ⁓ on piano, I have a whole sequence of exercises that I teach all my students. and I teach them if I'm doing classes and things. They're in my complete pianist book. ⁓ And it only takes five minutes. So it's not onerous. It doesn't take up all your practice time. five minutes. But it's very much because it's piano based, it's very much loosening up the shoulders and the arms. So that it starts with just very simple arm swings. You do it standing up, you swing in different directions and so on. ⁓ then what we also, so we're just loosening up the shoulders. ⁓ Also opening up the chest because pianists tend to be playing like this, right? So we have to remember to open up our chest. So we do those sort of exercises. ⁓ And then we then do an exercise and also just, you know, yoga-based exercises for the neck and the shoulders. So, and yes, it's to develop the flow right the way through the arm into the fingers. ⁓ And then we finish with just an exercise where we just... ⁓ actually use the whole body we do it's sort of like a mini jog just to sort of get get the blood flowing more and and and because the other exercise is all about relaxation so we just get things going again. Yes after they've done the warm-ups I then suggest that they go to the piano but just do something very simple and gentle for the first minute or two and then they ease into something which is more challenging so if they want to go you know scales and up edges if that's their thing whatever it is whatever their exercise is ⁓ I tend not to just work on scales and arpeggios. I mean, on the piano, they're very restrictive. They actually really focus on these three fingers. They don't really work the other two fingers very much. They're very limited in what they teach. So I like to give students much more varied exercises, different sorts of movement to create different qualities of sound, different types of expression. So I've got a very... broad view of the concept of technique. It's all about the skills that we need as a musician to play the music in the way that we want to do. sorry to interrupt the episode yet again, but I wanted to tell you that if you are also a music educator of any kind and you feel like this is a conversation that needs to be had for your program, please reach out to me at clark at musicianonchain.com and we can talk about how we can collaborate together to bring these topics, to bring these strategies to your program to help your students stay as healthy. and as happy as they can while pursuing their passion. Keep on keeping on and continue watching the episode. Absolutely. And I'm glad you mentioned technique specifically. I guess that's what we were talking about. the thing that I have realized post-entry for me is that we as musicians kind of tend to shy away from like technical language, you know? Because the way you were describing things, ⁓ very anatomically based, very physiologically based, ⁓ kind of tactile, ⁓ I don't know what the word I'm looking for is, but in contrast, what I've noticed in my own education in music is that sometimes we use a lot of metaphor to describe technique, right? ⁓ Like think of yourself, I don't know, as, you're floating or things like that, very helpful at times. ⁓ But I've also found that it can lead to multiple interpretations and not always be physiologically accurate ⁓ and lead to some issues. ⁓ So how do you balance the two as a pedagogue? Okay, yeah, I think that's a very good question. I mean, in the last few years, so in 2020, I published this big book called The Complete Pianist, which is for advanced pianists, college students, professionals. But then the publisher asked me to write some books for children, which are these essential piano technique books. ⁓ And in that, I have used imagery. know, everything is based on imagery because that's how children learn. They learn through play, they learn through imagery. Absolutely. But I think these terms need to be backed up by some real understanding of how the body works and maybe also some scientific evidence. So in a way, what I've always been doing is starting with the understanding of how the body works, backed up by some scientific evidence. And then I think, well, how am I best going to describe that particular movement? And what does it remind me of? What does it feel like? ⁓ And then I will use an image to talk about it. So, I mean, just as an example, I have an image which is called jellyfish jumps. Now that may sound really silly and childish and actually kids love it, but I use it for adults too. And what we do just do is get this sort of feeling of this movement of a jellyfish in the sea, Now what that actually teaches is as the hand comes up, it's very, very soft like jelly because a lot of people play repeated chords and they get really, really tense like that. So what it's actually doing is teaching them to have the hand really, really soft between playing the chords. And then so they do it away from the piano first, and then they do it at the piano and gradually they do it faster and they do it with bigger intervals and so on. So we start with the understanding and the scientific basis for it ideally as well, if people understand that. Then we go to an image which will convey it very quickly and easily. And then we put that into practice at the instrument. That's the way I do it. I think, yes, some terms can be a bit wafty, you know, if we, and yeah, I agree that some people are a bit vague in their terminology. know, when you've written a 550 page book on piano playing, you cannot be vague. You had to be incredibly precise. I spent years and years writing this book and being absolutely precise in my language. I don't always use the same language as other pianists. That's one of the problems we have because we tend to use, you know, different schools use slightly different terminology. ⁓ But I think teachers should should really try to be as precise as they can in their language. Otherwise we waste a lot of time, as I say, going down rabbit holes, going down this misunderstanding things. I don't know how this relates to trumpet players, for instance, but that's my experience with pianists. Well, I mean, with trumpet players and a lot of wind players, ⁓ you you can't necessarily see the technique as well as you can with piano. So we tend to fall into the trap of only using those vague terms. ⁓ or non, when I say vague terms in this sense, I'm talking like avoiding the anatomical physiological explanations or the ⁓ really just like that physical education of what's going on. And then we use these ⁓ really effective in some ways, terminology. ⁓ Some schools of thought ⁓ think that the more you know about the body, complicated you make things. Which can lead to issues, you know, it's school of thought. I don't think students, particularly at the lower levels, need to understand any of the anatomy or any of the scientific basis behind everything. They just need to feel it and they need to experience it and to see that it improves the sound and it improves their playing. That's what they need to see. It's teachers who I feel really need to try and educate themselves more about the understanding of how the body works, some understanding of anatomy. They don't have to know the name of every single muscle in the body. It's what is practical for our instrument. No, that's so good right there because I agree with you. I I was a music education major in my undergrad and what I loved was developing pedagogy, And taking these complex ⁓ topics or complex techniques and being able to teach them in effective ways at different levels. But at the same time, the same foundation of knowledge has to be there with each level that we're at as teachers, right? So it has to be based in ⁓ an understanding of how our body interacts with the instrument and how, like what are the risk factors? and what are the solutions, you know? I think we're the only, one of the only fields, professional fields, where professionals can somewhat get away with not understanding how like their body reacts with the thing that's earning them money. You know I mean? Like if you think of somebody working in a factory, they need to know the risk factors of if they use that machine wrong, you know? or even a weightlifter or things like that. Yes. I think there is also in piano teaching the feeling that, ⁓ well, if you're not a very experienced piano teacher, that's okay. You can teach beginners. ⁓ But actually the way you teach the beginners is the most important thing you can do to them off with really good habits. And that's actually why I ended up creating these books. They're for beginners and intermediates. because they're actually giving the teacher the resources that they need to teach healthy technique from the beginning. So that none of these problems arise in the future. That's what's really in it. So in fact, it's the teachers and beginners who really need to understand these things almost more than anybody else. But that's unfortunately not always the case. That's why I created the Royal School Academy because we're training teachers to... understand this approach and to teach healthy technique from the beginning. That's all. I'm so glad you mentioned that. Roskello Academy, because that is your teaching studio, essentially, And please talk more about that. Yeah, it's an online organization. ⁓ I'm the founder, but we have a team working all together. ⁓ We produce, we provide resources for teaching ⁓ all levels of pianists. We do a lot of webinars, ⁓ which I run a lot of the webinars, but other people come in and talk about, I've got somebody coming in talking about how he uses healthy technique for jazz. Somebody, how they combine it with music learning theory. Somebody, other people are coming in and expanding it into other areas. ⁓ So it's very much a team effort, but based around the approach that I've learned through many decades of working in this field. ⁓ The thing I wanted to come back to is something we sort of touched on earlier. ⁓ Because I think sometimes ⁓ there is a tendency for musicians to think that healthy technique is something a bit cranky, it's something a bit weird. ⁓ it's something you only need to learn about if you've been injured. Yep. And my experience and the experience I think I can safely say of everybody I have worked with is that when they've worked in this way and, and rethought and analyze their technique and learned to play in a more coordinated, balanced way, using less effort, you know, all the healthy technique principles. They all came back to me some months later and said, it's amazing, not only do I not have pain, but I'm playing so much better. And that's, I think that's the message I really want to get across to musicians everywhere, that if your body is in balance and if you understand how to use it in the best possible way in relation to your instrument, the ergonomics, then you will play so much better. So it's not something we leave and only think about when we sadly get injured. we should be thinking about it and seeing that these principles actually really teach us to play well. It's good technique. Yeah. and simply. And it helps us play more musically because we're not stressed, we're not tense, we've got more freedom. So for instance, at the piano, you can get around the keyboard well, you can move fluently, you can get flowing phrases. You can do all the movements with ease. and so you're not feeling stressed. And then you can focus on the music. And the movements that you make are in tune with the musical. So the physical gestures need to be aligned with the musical gestures. I don't know whether that's the same with trumpet. But you know, say I'm doing a phrase that goes, you do do do do do. If I do a do do do do do do do, it's going to sound do do do do do do. You it's going to sound naughty, right? But if I do. a small little gesture that mirrors that phrase, then suddenly the music comes to life. Don't know what it's like on the trumpet, but that's how it's very, you can actually see the movements. You can hear them in the music on the piano. ⁓ Maybe it's not quite the same for wind and brass players, I'm not sure. I had an interesting conversation with a singing teacher once who ⁓ we were talking about the diaphragm. talking about misconceptions. I'd always been told that you could feel the diaphragm, that you can change what you do with the diaphragm. And she told me, no, you can't. And that was quite an eye-opener to me because I knew nothing about that. ⁓ Yeah, it's true. There are misconceptions, I think, in every aspect of playing. I think we just... Sometimes ⁓ there are traditions and we revere our teachers and often if we've been with a very, very fine performer as our teacher, we believe everything that teacher says ⁓ and we follow it implicitly. But that teacher may have become a fine instrumentalist despite what they've been taught and what they're teaching. I remember there's a lovely story about Horowitz, who the first time he saw a video of himself playing, he said, but that's all wrong. No way. And he'd just never seen what he was doing and never considered it. And what he was doing wasn't actually what he was telling other pianists to do. Really? Yeah, and I think there is often a mismatch. We say what people have been teaching for a hundred years, certainly in piano playing, this is very much the case, whereas it's not always actually what we're in fact doing ourselves at the instrument. I think you had mentioned in another ⁓ interview you had done that, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I just found this interesting that a lot of piano technique kind of has roots in harpsichord technique or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Which has different physical implications, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, the instruments are quite different ⁓ and the touch is different and You know, it's only when you got the forte piano or the piano forte where you got the contrast in dynamics. Sure. So before that, you know, the harpsichord, you didn't, you weren't using arm weight. You were really just using finger touch mostly. And it's when we had the instrument that had started to get a huge dynamic range that we really needed to change our approach to the technique. So rather than being mostly a finger touch, we had to use the stronger muscles to support what our arms were doing, especially if we wanted to play forte. ⁓ So ever since the development of the modern piano, people have been exploring the best way ⁓ to achieve ease and to really ⁓ minimize the amount of effort that we use at the instrument. So we're not pounding away using muscles that aren't designed to be used in that way. But we're actually using the body in the way that wants to be used and then it doesn't get injured. Absolutely. Absolutely. You also said, I think in that same interview that when I was doing my research for this conversation that we can't fully express our artistry unless we have the tools to do it. And I think that just is such a way to sum it up because we spend so much time and rightly so on the musical tools to express our artistry but not so much on the mechanics or the more holistic ways that ⁓ as we invest into those things it can influence our artistry in a beautiful way. How have you helped students kind of and the people that you've or they have come to you understand that principle? Well, you see, I, when I, when I was going through high school and ⁓ music college, I was asked to play lots of studies, lots of exercises. ⁓ And these were always completely independent of any pieces that I was working on. So there was a complete dissociation between my work on technique and the work on on musicianship. And you know there are teachers who are excellent at teaching the musicianship and they say ⁓ I don't even I don't teach technique as though that's something almost to be proud of I don't think I don't agree with that. ⁓ And there are some teachers who are excellent at technique perhaps but don't sort of blend the two together. And the way I always ⁓ teach everything is Every aspect of technique always has to be musically focused, from my point of view. So for instance, in these children's books, we'd start with a little exercise away from the piano, a game or something, and then we'd do some very simple exercises at the piano, and then we play a very simple piece. So they'd see the purpose of what they're doing physically and how it affects the sound. And in a way, that's also what I was doing in this book. Each section, I'd start with just explaining the movement and the type of coordination that we needed, then put it into practice in some simple exercises and then obviously more complex and then in real advanced pieces. And even now, I'm not interested in doing an exercise just for its own sake. What I want to know is what's going to do for me as a musician? What benefit is it going to give me? ⁓ And if it's not going to, then, you know, I don't want to bore myself. And I remember when I was at college, these Hannon exercises that are very famous amongst pianists and people either love them or hate them. And ⁓ there were two students who were at college at the same time as me. One has become very, very famous. And they both ⁓ played through this whole book of exercises every day before they started to practice. So they played it for an hour. Some people can do that and not suffer too much from it. Some people can actually end up with injuries and some people can end up playing very mechanically. And so I think as a teacher, you have to be very selective about which exercises and etudes you give so that they're never just completely divorced from the emotional quality of music. I said to one of these, said, I said to both of them, well, don't you get bored playing this book of exercises for an hour every day? They said, I know them from memory now. So I just play them and I read a novel while I'm... read a book while I'm doing it. Nice. But you know, I mean, that really encourages them to detach their brain and their feelings from what they're playing. I would never advise anybody to do that. I think technique, our mind, our physical body, and our emotions need to all come together. ⁓ And when we're practicing, shouldn't be separating them out into different compartments. We need to bring them together to produce this fantastic whole. And when you hear these amazing pianists these days who winning international competitions, you know, they do have it all, you know, and they're not just technicians, they're not just musicians who haven't quite worked it out technically. They've got that balance between them. And I think the... ⁓ the market is pretty high these days, certainly in piano playing. And that's what's expected. If you're going to really be a top-notch professional, you have to have highest musicianship and the skills to back it up and to be able to do it. And there's nothing more frustrating than knowing how you want a piece of music to sound, but not being able to get it. We've all experienced that. We've all that, We all feel that at times. I still feel it sometimes. Why is it not sounding how I'm hearing it in my head? Then I have to stop and think and maybe change the fingering or change the movements that I'm making. that whatever that quote was that you quoted of me, I really stand by that because I think that's fundamental to all playing and all teaching that the music comes first. and the technique is serving the music. And if it's not serving the music, then something's wrong. We need to rethink. Okay, last interruption, I promise you. Before we get to the rest of the episode, I just wanted to let you know that if you're a musician going through an injury and you need a community to help you get through it, if you need a sense of support, some people you can ask questions to, just gain, pick me up whenever you need it. The Musician Unchained support group formerly known as the Trust the Process podcast, injured musician support group on Facebook. The link is in the description below for you to join. You don't have to go through this alone. Keep on keeping on and enjoy the rest of the episode. Well, and you also talked about how... correct technique is healthy, you know, healthy technique, all that stuff helps you achieve that aim even better. Right? Right. Yeah, it does. And we sometimes don't want, don't think that as musicians on another hand, on another side of what you talked about. ⁓ I really liked how you talked about integrating, you know, our technique, our musicianship, our emotions, the mind. I'm in a performance psychology master's program right now. And I've had people talk about in music educational roles, how they, in trying to help their students like combat performance anxiety or the tension that comes from performance anxiety, which can also lead to injury. ⁓ They say, just don't care about, don't care about it. And like, we're teaching people to dissociate from a musical experience in order to have a musical experience. Maybe that works for some people, but for me, ⁓ I'm more interested in how can we strengthen the musician so that they can have the musical experience that they are hoping for and be totally integrated into it, right? Or embodied into it. That's another way to say it, you know? Yeah, yeah, I absolutely agree with you there. Yeah, we, that word integration is really important and, ⁓ you know, it's natural to get some adrenaline, you know, in the performance and that can go positively, it can go negatively and some performances are better than others for everybody, whatever level you're at. There are techniques that you can learn. I always teach some breathing techniques for my students, ⁓ but Actually, I do think what you're saying is absolutely right, that the most powerful thing is to get involved in the music. Because once you're involved in the music, you stop worrying about the technique, you stop worrying about the memory, which is a big thing for pianists. Sure. And you just actually relax more into it and everything starts to flow. ⁓ So I really work a lot on encouraging my students to be very much engaged in the music and also very much listening. to the sound that they're making and what's going on musically. And hearing the sounds in their head as well. Because when you're listening, you can't be worrying about what's coming next. You're in the moment. It's a very good way of being in the moment. Absolutely. And of course, nothing is an instant answer with performance anxiety. It's something you just keep having to work at and you just have to keep putting yourself out there. And build up experience. I always say to people, know, if you're doing something that's quite big, ⁓ start by practicing it on your own and then start by playing just to one person and then get a group of 10 people together and then do a small concert and then go and do your big concert. You you want to, you have to do things according to what feels right to you. ⁓ And to be kind to yourself. ⁓ Not to be too harsh on yourself. And I think I was working with a group from this week and one of them was asking exactly this question, you when she does a concert, everything gets nervous and she starts to play wrong notes. And then I did actually say, well, try not to think about the wrong notes, try not to aim for accuracy, just get involved in the music. And so there I say, don't get... overly fixated on playing all the right notes. I think that is important. ⁓ absolutely. Because in my experience, if you try and play all the right notes, you get tense and then you end up playing more wrong notes. That's my experience. ⁓ So you want to not care about a few wrong notes, but really care about the music. And actually... And then everything starts to settle and you can actually end up really getting involved in the performance and actually even enjoying it. Yeah. Imagine that, right? Imagine like enjoying your performance. What a concept. That's we're all aiming towards. And it happens sometimes and sometimes it doesn't. And everybody experiences that. Right. Absolutely. Well, Penelope, this has just been so. fun for me. This has been such a treat for me and I know that the things you've shared are going to help a lot of people, not just musicians who are going through an injury, pianists who are going through an injury, but also teachers of those pianists. And I have some band directors that listen to this podcast and all over the world. And so I'm just very grateful for your time today and your expertise. Just can I say one other thing about band directors and things. ⁓ Those people who are responsible for other musicians, please be kind to them. So many musicians say, I wasn't allowed a day off. I had to play for six hours at a stretch, especially pianists, don't get a break. Trumpeters, might have 40 bars break. rest, but we don't, you know, we're playing the whole time usually. It's true, good point. And so we as teachers, we as leaders, we as organizers of institutions and so on, we do have a responsibility to our musicians to help to look after them. Because when a student arrives at a music college, for instance, they probably don't know how to look after themselves. This is our responsibility as the leaders and the teachers ⁓ to actually help them to look after themselves. Yeah, I mean, even some research that has been done in performing arts health is that, I guess the perception or the beliefs of the, what was the population? I think it was music professors and music students at tertiary music institutions, so colleges. they felt like it was a split between the responsibility of the institution and the musician and the education and implementation of these types of things, of these type of healthy techniques, healthy holistic practices and stuff like that. So it's kind of a shared responsibility. So you and I were talking before we recorded that I like to ask my guests the final two questions as we wrap up. ⁓ It's kind of like the thing that ties the interview in a little bow. And they're pretty personally meaningful questions to me because of my own experiences with injury. ⁓ But if you had somebody who listened to this episode of Trust the Process, this podcast, and said, hey, I heard you on Trust the Process. I'm a trumpet player or a flautist or a pianist. And I'm going through an injury right now. What would it be one piece of advice you would give them? Firstly, not to give up playing altogether. It's really important to keep engaged in music. You know, it's probably a really essential part of who you are. So ⁓ you may, you may, so keep learning, keep studying. That may not be so much playing, but it might be listening to a lot of recording, studying, reading books, learning music away from the piano, whatever it is, whatever it might be. So keep engaged. believe that you will get better because most musicians do. ⁓ Search out the person who you think is going to be most helpful for you. And if your teacher doesn't have a particular expertise in this area, find somebody who has more expertise ⁓ that your teacher shouldn't feel unhappy about that because you're just seeking your second opinion. That's absolutely normal and fine. ⁓ And ⁓ be patient because you will have to build, you probably have to rest at the beginning and then gradually build it up very gradually. And that's really hard because it's very easy to suddenly think, ⁓ I'm feeling better today and overdo it. And then the next day, it's slipped again. So it's hard because you do have to be patient, but it will pay off. as I say, just keep exploring, trying different ways, keep an open mind. ⁓ You know, hopefully like most of the people I've experienced that worked with, they actually come out of it thinking, I've learned some really valuable lessons out of this. It was painful, but some of the lessons I've learned have been really useful. So try to make sure that this time is a time when you really are learning and exploring and learning something new. Beautiful, beautiful. We've kind of, or you have kind of alluded to this throughout the interview, but when it comes to your own experience with the injury, ⁓ I believe you said it was during your undergraduate or during your formative years. Formative years. Thinking of all the experience you've had since, if you had the power to go back in time and wave a magic wand and take that experience away and just kind of continue down the performing path. as if nothing had happened or choose to leave that experience there. What would you choose and why? ⁓ It's an interesting one. think I could answer it in both ways. ⁓ For the first 10 years after my injury, of course I would have said, my goodness, yes, I wish this had never happened. Sure. Because I had to be a bit more careful about how many concerts I took on, about what repertoire I chose and so on, just to be careful they didn't come back. ⁓ It did send me in a different direction. ⁓ And maybe at first I felt, ⁓ you know, I regretted not doing so many performances and ⁓ missed that. But I still do performances and I'm still playing, you know, every day and I'm still playing with my students and so on. But I ended up in a different path, which is ⁓ helping other people with injuries, writing books, ⁓ teaching teachers, trying to... change the world one step at a time. sounds a bit grand. know, but you know, I'm really trying to change things. ⁓ And so now I don't regret it at all. I wouldn't be where I am and doing what I'm doing, which I really, really enjoy doing if I hadn't had the injury. But at the time, of course, I deeply regretted it. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to be grateful for a difficult experience when you're in the middle of it. Very difficult. Yeah. I just love asking that question. First of all, because people answer in different ways. But for the musicians out there who feel like all hope is lost, I just really want them to hear from people who have gone through it and gone to the other side of it that you can make something beautiful out of it. Yeah. Most of the pianists I work with, They come out of it and they're playing really, really well and they can just continue in their career and get huge joy out of it. you you just got to keep your hope up because, and just keep plugging away at it ⁓ and you will get there. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Penelope, thank you so much for your time today. And it's been a real pleasure talking with you. to everybody out there in Podcastland. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Trust the Process, the official podcast of Musician Unchained. And if you are interested in Musician Unchained, head to MusicianUnchained.com. We've got a lot of resources there for you, including ⁓ performance coaching and things like that. ⁓ And then join our newsletter to keep up to date with all the happenings here on the show and Musician Unchained. Until next time. Keep on keepin' on. And thanks for tuning into this episode of Trust the Process, the official podcast of Musician Unchained, the newest coaching program dedicated to helping musicians navigate and overcome injury. Before you go, I have a few quick ways you can stay connected and support our growing community. If you found value in today's episode, consider making a donation to support our mission of empowering musicians worldwide. Every contribution helps us create more content and resources for you. So visit link number two below to support the mission. If you decide to donate, I'll send you my newest resource, the Injured Musician Toolkit, which is an ebook designed to give you tools to help you get through your injury. Subscribe to our newsletter to get exclusive insights, tips, sneak previews of episodes, and announcements straight to your inbox. Act now and I will send you a free gift. So sign up at www.musicianunchained.com forward slash newsletter. 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