Cellist Aaron Kerr calls himself a "gun for hire." The
29-year-old musician and composer is in demand for gigs at weddings,
society functions, and corporate parties. He moonlights as a bookstore
clerk and is sometimes asked to play jazz tunes at the book chain’s
grand openings. He also plays bass guitar in a rock group and a folk-pop
band, writes classical music, and performs in an avant-garde string
trio. And he has a few cello students. To say that Kerr’s plate
is full is an understatement.
Then he became a dad. His son, Jackson, is almost two—and
he had a second child in August. Given the demands of being a parent,
Kerr has found it difficult to keep up with the instrument he has
been playing for 20 years.
"In order to enjoy being a parent, you just can’t
do everything you want to do, and one of those things for me has been
giving up practice time," says Kerr, who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
"When you take a break from playing your instrument and get back into
it, you have to spend a little bit of time relearning or re-remembering
what you knew."
Life events such as an illness or injury, a long vacation,
a new baby—even boredom—occasionally cause a player to set
aside the instrument. And you can feel downright rusty when you pick
it back up again. Is it possible to get your chops up after a hiatus?
Yes, as long as you keep your expectations in check and return to
it gradually, according to those who’ve struggled with the issue.
Easy Does
It
Whether a hiatus was dictated by injury or something
else, pushing yourself too hard, too fast upon returning to the instrument
risks new injury or re-injury, according
to Minnesota Orchestra associate principal cellist Janet
Horvath, a nationally recognized authority in the area of performing
artists’ medical problems. Horvath founded the Playing (Less)
Hurt conference series and has published articles in professional
journals, spoken at conferences, and presented master classes on the
topic. She is currently writing a book, Playing (Less Hurt): An Injury
Prevention Guide for Instrumental Musicians, based on her seminars.
In the 1970s, while studying cello at Indiana University,
Horvath experienced her first bout of tendinitis. She began feeling
a throbbing, aching, shooting pain that extended from
her left wrist to her elbow. It got to a point where she couldn’t
use a knife and fork, turn a doorknob, or hold a phone. "When I had
my injury I thought my life was over," she says. "I didn’t play—I
went cold turkey, for three months. In those days, very few medical
people really understood repetitive-strain injury."
With a better understanding of tendinitis, Horvath now
knows what to do when aches and pains arise. "I know the danger signs,"
she says. "I think of myself as an athlete, and I pace myself. I build
up gradually and take appropriate breaks. I am constantly aware of
my physical attitude to my instrument. I am careful to stretch before
I play, and when I’m away from the instrument. We forget how
athletic what we do is. Once we hurt ourselves, we’ve got to
be extremely careful about getting back to playing."
Horvath recommends starting with just five minutes a
day. While that may seem a ridiculously short practice session, she
says, "it’s a real safe way to start." It’s also important
to increase the number of times a day you practice for five minutes
before you increase the length of time. Say you do five minutes for
three or four days and you feel great. Then you can try two five-minute
periods a day, one at noon and one at dinnertime. After a couple days
of that, maybe do three periods a day before you graduate to ten-minute
sessions.
"I guarantee that if you go slowly like this, the risk
is really small that you’re going to have a relapse. If relapse
occurs, you pull back and start at your five minutes again," Horvath
says. "I also do maybe 15 minutes after a vacation, or after a couple
days off. Even then, a gradual return is essential. Your muscles just
get out of shape."
It’s easy to become depressed and feel devastated
over fear of losing your skills as a player, Horvath adds, but it’s
important to take the long-term view and a careful approach. "There
are a lot of us who have had injuries and have survived to have great,
successful, prominent positions and careers," she says. "There’s
a lot you can do studying music away from the instrument, especially
with memorization. You can listen to the music, you can talk about
the music, you can read about the music, you can go to concerts."
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Quantifying
Music's Countless Reps
To illustrate the physical work of playing music,
cellist Janet Horvath likes to count the bow strokes in certain
pieces and regale people with the numbers. In one 90-bar section
of an aria from Handel’s Messiah, for instance, a cellist’s
arm goes back and forth 720 times to play the eighth notes.
She also has counted the number of tremolo strokes in a Bruckner
symphony and the fingerings in a Mahler movement. And just for
laughs, she once counted the snare drum strokes in Ravel’s
"Bolero"—4,000 in 15 minutes.
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So return gradually and be smart in choosing repertoire
after a break, Horvath recommends. "For string players, it’s
choosing something that isn’t loud and passionate and intense
with lots of repeated notes. Do not start with Mahler or Bruckner
or Strauss, especially your first time back in the orchestra. If you
have a choice, choose a light program, something that isn’t going
to be pyrotechnical and loud and difficult but also something that
won’t require holding long notes forever."
Don’t feel you have to play for two hours the first
time you practice, Aaron Kerr concurs. "If you pick up that Brahms
concerto and you can’t play it, you get frustrated and you go,
‘I’m never going to play again.’ Well, of course you
can’t play it! You haven’t played in two months; you shouldn’t
be expected to play it. Start slow. That’s the big thing."
