Carpal tunnel syndrome

Ron Torrella rontorrella@worldspy.net
Mon Feb 14 15:21 MST 2000



I'll just echo what others have said about not over-doing it while
tuning. I suffered with tendonitis (still do, to a much lessor degree),
several years ago, after I'd changed my tuning technique. Ironically, it
happened when I went from bash-n-crash tuning to something less forceful!
Instead of having problems with my thumping arm, I developed problems in
my *tuning* arm! That was because my muscles weren't used to the constant
strain of pulling all of that weight. It was a bit like using that
spring-thing people use to increase finger strength for 4-6 hours with
very little down time. Bad news.

After I backed off and started taking 5-10 minute breaks after 15-20
minutes of tuning for several months, I finally got away from the severe
inflammation (Oh, the pain!). I still tune for no longer than 20 minutes
without stopping to relax for a spell. So what if it takes me a whole two
hours to tune the darned piano! At least I'm a whole person when I'm
done!

My latest problem is a very sore spot at the top of my tuning arm on the
outboard side of that joint. There's a tendon or ligament (not sure
which) that's been getting very sore over the past two weeks. I've been
doing more tuning, over the past two years (averaging 2-3 a day at the U,
then another 2-3 a week on the outside), so it's possible that I'm just
developing one of those nasty RSIs. My colleague recently had
arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff that may have been the
result of many tunings. I have an appointment with my physician, later
this week, at which we're going to try to determine what's causing the
pain.

I would emphasize that taking frequent breaks is important, but that
finding a way to tune without unduly jarring your joints is also very
important. I'm a recent convert to the belief that it's not how *hard* a
pianist plays that puts a piano out of tune. It's the constant, loud
repetition (anywhere from forte, on up) that does the damage. Therefore,
I try to mimic what they're doing, only more. 8-10 blows, at forte, seem
to be yielding better results in setting a string/pin than 2-3 very
hard/loud blows. Try it, sometime.

Ron Torrella, RPT
Ypsilanti, MI
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