It's always darkest before the dawn

So I have been furiously (though not actually) adhering to my practice sessions with a will. The past couple of days I had had to retool a couple of things because my hands were getting tired. I was ignoring some of the Hanon Insanity and rolling my wrists when going up to the black keys on scales, otherwise the tendon between my right ring finger and pinky were going to start muttering unhappily.

Long story short, four hours per day every day is a little crazy at least with current techniques. While lifting my fingers and hammering through Hanon has created a boost in strength, it is simply too intense to sustain. It was starting to make my thumb pads a little sore. And while the soreness was always gone the next day, nevertheless, it wasn't good. I thought back and realized that practicing with lightness and fluidity took longer, but got me to the same place technique wise. I was still building finger strength. As one person put it, "You can't cram the piano". More is not necessarily better. This one British concert pianist was encouraging people to use six hours of their free time in order to learn it, but I would advise using those hours for a variety of things: theory, note learning, slooooow practice, ear training. I was getting a little frustrated also because I want to compose things and learn about structure and build on some of my improvisations, and have the time to do so. I was afraid to ease up even though as an athlete, I always knew intuitively to rest after a session and allow my muscles and brain to recuperate.

Hanon has proved useful, but I am going to ignore the earlier advice and use my wrists more keeping my fingers lower. As one person said, raising your fingers simply slows you down and gives you more distance to cover and makes for awkward hand positions that are less efficient and cause more potential strain. Or else I could just tread more lightly (mf or mp). I get that slowly you build strength and that when you up the tempo, you play more lightly. "No pain, no gain" is a BAD mantra to apply to piano practice. :S

This one professional musician even went so far as to recommend only practicing four days a week for those with busy schedules. I am seriously considering five days with rest days interspersed. So, something like Mon, Tues, Rest, Thurs, Fri, Rest, Sun, Mon, Rest…et cetera. On the rest days, I can just study theory. Hmm. I am still not sure. Or else I could scale it back to two hours daily and take off one day in the middle of the week, possibly Wednesday. The thing is, when I get in front of the keyboard, I tend to get sucked in and just keep on going. I'll break up the time into segments where I work on one thing and then another and time whizzes by. I do realize that quality is preferable and some folks argue that beyond two-three hours, you're facing diminishing returns both mentally and physically. Then I think back to people who say that you should practice for 30-60 mins daily. :S I was supposed to take today off in order to rest, but I did wind up doing 30 mins of light arpeggios and simple Bach. Keeping me away is a challenge! This one guy also recommended working on passages/new tunes first when you are fresh mentally and working on scales etc later and switching it up.

I am simply going to have to sleep on it and think to myself about what is the best schedule, intuitively, for me. Is my goal to become a piano demon or to write and learn music and become more proficient?