Old ailment, new instrument
Many serious pianists I have known over the past decades have had a bout of tendinitis. The tendons in their wrists or arms become inflamed after having forced themselves to practice more than their bodies would allow. They felt the pain coming on, yet continued to pound the ivories. The same thing has happened to me. Heed my warning - when your hands begin to hurt, you need to stop and, perhaps, reconsider your technique. This past year I had set as my goal to learn and perform Scriabin's Fifth Piano Sonata in its entirety. I had been working on the first 5 pages for years - decades - and had progressed through half of it by February, playing that much of it for a few friends then. With that fairly positive experience in my pocket, I soldiered on, realizing that the music which I had years ago considered light-years beyond my technical reach was indeed not that impossible once the structure was comprehended. Now it was just a matter of memorizing it and getting my fingers to hit