u/Interesting_Help_582

Hey yall. I have been playing classically for 20 years. I am currently getting my degree in performance, so I practice multiple hours a day. Growing up, my technique was BAD. I wasn’t advised properly by my teacher about arm wrist and elbow movement. Over the last two years, I started experiencing some tendonitis pain and stiffness in both hands on thumb and pinky side of the wrist and arm. My first year in school was hugely transformative, my technique has improved drastically and I can play much more advanced repertoire with much less discomfort. My question is this, for anyone who has dealt with tendonitis. How much do I need to scale back when I have a flare up? Because it still happens. There is a lot of conflicting research on tendonitis, but the most promising articles I’ve read all say that you shouldn’t avoid pain entirely. Tendons are not muscles and complete rest is actually bad for degeneration. So my plan is to continue to play every day, but properly. Lately, I will play and not experience pain while playing, but then later or the next day I will feel sore. This has been happening every day for the past month. If anyone has experience, please let me know what you would do. I have big repertoire to study over the summer (Chopin etudes, schumman, bach, mozart, rachmaninoff) and please nobody give me the bleak outlook comment where I feel like I need to give up and that there’s nothing I can do . I also feel like this subreddit is quick to assume folks are playing pieces far beyond their level. I promise, my rep is well within my abilities, so please keep this in mind before commenting 😅 I work very closely with my instructor. Just looking for folks who’ve dealt with something similar!! Thanks.