Two months down the line, and I’m able to play for longish periods of time - and getting some pleasing sounds out of my flute. I find that my hands and lower arms, esp the left one, start to ache and hurt quite a lot, though. Is it a case of wrong posture, or more or less normal? I had a bad case of tennis elbow at the beginning of this year, probably due to excessive accordion practise, and would like not to repeat that injury.
I’ve not had time or cash to take a lesson yet, so could you give me any advice on hand & arm position till I find myself a teacher?
There’s a standing policy not to offer medical advice on these forums.
But it’s safe to say you should exercise caution, heed the warnings your body is giving you, and seek qualified medical advice if you feel you may be in trouble. There’s too much at stake to be careless!
Hard to answer about your posture or hold, but Denny’s answer about tension and learning to relax, is right on the money-how you hold the flute and how it works best for you is the answer, basically, for your anatomy. Do searches here on holding and posture, and you can read tomes about it-it’s been covered many times over, including pain too.
No, it’s not normal to hurt that much-and admitting that you are prone to excessive practice kind of tells the story-stop that! You’re probably not as old as me, but it seems that when you get older (post 40 and especially post 50-in my case), your body is much less forgiving and takes much more time to recuperate from injury, so if you’re getting near to that age mark, be very careful what you do and how you do it. I’ve had tendonitis for a good long while now, and it’s not getting a lot better, even though I don’t play a lot anymore.
And yes, by all means, go see your doctor about this-he’ll be the best to help you immediately. No doubt some warming up exercises and stretches may help too.
Thank y’all. I’ll try and take it easy. I found doctors fairly useless for this kind of thing, unfortunately.
I definitely do suffer from the unforgivingness of the body. Wish I’d done all this music practise in my younger years!
Yes, it’s always a tricky line, CT. I think advice on posture, postition, relaxation etc. is OK. It’s what musicians and teachers talk about anyway. “Eat oxycontin and push through it”, not so much.
If you could find a doctor with an interest in music medicine, or even sports medicine, you might have better luck. But easier said than done.
i remember a post a few months back about a flute player who plays for one of the big Irish trad bands (like the Chieftains, but obviously not the Chieftains); one commenter said something about how great a flute player he was and why wasn’t there more of his flute playing on their albums? then someone else replied, look at his posture, he’s in too much pain to play for than a few songs at a time…
I am a Physiotherapist in the UK and started playing flute a few years ago and initially had lots of pain which included …pain in the neck (literally but my wife says I am one ) shoulder and at one point I thought I needed glasses due to eye strain …Now as a climber I initially used the same approach to learning the instrument and this creates the same ‘input’ to the brain as if you were a few feet too far above the last piece of protection i.e unconscious fear…this causes the ANS and the SNS to push out adrenaline , sensitise nerve endings and increase muscle tension…Initially the flute holding and learning feels insecure and leads to all sorts of postural adjustments (not so sure if resting the flute head on the collar bone a la garry shannon and many others is a wise thing…) However, they probably get away with it due to enormous skill and lack of tension in the fingers which tends to reduce tone in the neck and shoulder…
It is very unlikely that a Dr will help any of this other than the obvious no brainer of stop doing what is causing your problem …
I agree totally with the assessment of the ageing body ! Tendon problems once established are difficult to shift and are not inflammatory problems in the main (hence why ‘anti’ drugs don’t work)…My experience is short periods of practice and becoming ‘body aware’ is the key to easing problems …initially trying too hard and ‘thinking’ too hard may be the main cause of problems … http://www.alexandercenter.com/pa/flutei.html Article here might be of interest and some other stuff of general interest here …http://bodymap.org/main/?cat=27
I accidently learned to play the whistle left-handed. When I picked up the simple flute, I played that left-handed too. I don’t remember any problems. In the beginning, I only played during TV commericals, so that may have helped. When I was given a silver flute holding the flute right-handed caused me a lot of pain/cramping and it took over a year til that got comfortable. The pain/cramping might have to do with the fingering too. I used the piper grip with the simple flute too which is much more relaxed to me.
And… it might be worth finding a flute teacher, and having one lesson on how to hold the flute.
There are so many different flute holds out there.
I know folk who have played a keyless flute for a long time, then they want to play a keyed flute, and find they can’t ever use the Bflat key because of their thumb position.
So you might find you could alleviate your pain and improve your playing with a lesson at the this early stage.
I know folk who have played a keyless flute for a long time, then they want to play a keyed flute, and find they can’t ever use the Bflat key because of their thumb position.
I’m less than two years into playing flute. I had awful pains at first, but just ‘played through them’. I suspect I shouldn’t have, so wouldn’t recommend it. But I don’t get pain playing now. (Well, actually, that’s not quite true - I do - but that’s to do with being on crutches. It’s not the flute playing that’s causing the pain.)
There are doctors who do know about this stuff. Once I brought my flute in to the chiro for him to see what I was doing when it hurt and he was able to show me what was causing it. In your case with the tennis elbow thing you should see a medical person who knows what actions cause the trouble. And bring your flute.
A great book for best posture and flute balance is The Physical Flute by Fiona Wilkinson. Here’s a link to Jennifer Cluff’s posture article which includes a fair amount from this book. http://www.jennifercluff.com/posture.htm
And again, thanks for all your responses - the links to articles are very useful. I am planning to find a teacher locally, but have been too busy with exhibitions recently…
In the meantime, I’m giving up coffee, dairy & wheat to see if that helps reduce some of the problems.
I had recurring wrist pains for a year and a half when I started.
They went away when I switched to a lighter, more ergonomic flute. I went from delrin to wood. I just don’t get the same pains anymore, even when playing all day, every day for a week at East Durham.
Second that. I had really sore wrists playing a blackwood flute with a silver barrel, I switched to a lighter cocus unlined flute and voila! pain gone.
Also, might be worth checking that your wrists aren’t bent or in a weird position. If you hold your flute then raise your left elbow, keep and eye on your wrist, you should be able to get it fairly straight - so that the back of your hand flows straight up from the wrist, see if this helps, obviously, if it doesn’t, stop … I am not a doctor
I also second about the Bb keys but the other way round. I trained on Boehm and now find that SS Bb’s are in totally the wrong place and moving my thumb to accommodate them gives me the aches…
While I was reading, and wondering if the mods will let your post stay, I was wondering if you were gonna mention Alexander. 
