Steinway heavy touch

[David Love]

Though I don't have a medical degree either, I can tell you that I do have
several pianists with repetitive stress type injuries, carpal tunnel and
the like.  All of them have stated that heavy actions exacerbate the
problem and I have modified the touch weight on their pianos to reduce the
weight accordingly.  

David Love
davidlovepianos@earthlink.net


> [Original Message]
> From: Richard Brekne <Richard.Brekne@grieg.uib.no>
> To: Pianotech <pianotech@ptg.org>
> Date: 6/16/2003 7:29:22 AM
> Subject: Re: Steinway heavy touch
>
>
>
> "David M. Porritt" wrote:
>
> > No, I don't have a medical degree and I don't have any data to
> > support this warning (no "claim" is made).
>
> I wasnt looking for you to put a medical degree on the table.. just some
> documentation that any particular level of piano action weight could
> cause injury. I see that is lacking.
>
> > I have, however, seen
> > very talented pianists have to drop out of graduate programs here
> > because of repetitive stress injuries.  It's not much of a logical
> > leap to realize that since "stress" is involved in these injuries an
> > abnormally heavy action will introduce higher stress.
>
> Repetitive stress injuries have to do with repeated movement, not weight.
> Typists and those who use computer keyboards are amoung those who suffer
> most from this syndrom in the world. It is just as likely to develope
> from a light touch as it is from a heavy touch. Actually... methods for
> drilling in scales come far more under fire as being a source of this
> problem then anything else related to keyboards.
>
> > I can think of
> > two people immediately, to whom this happened.  One had to drop out
> > for a year to recover, the other had abandon the piano and pursue
> > other interests.  If this happens to people I don't want them to be
> > able to say that I contributed to their injury by giving them the
> > heavy action they asked for.  I just think that's common sense and
> > even common courtesy.
>
> I think common sense would be to find out what really causes something
> before attributing the blame to something you just think probably makes
> most sense to your own mind set. Repetive stress can be very often
> countered by proper warm ups, excericising, and stretching. Theres all
> kinds of good advice out there for musicians. Heres a place to start :
>
> http://eeshop.unl.edu/rsi.html
>
>
> --
> Richard Brekne
> RPT, N.P.T.F.
> UiB, Bergen, Norway
> mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no
> http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
> http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html
>
>
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