Impact of Changes in Playing Time on Playing-Related Musculoskeletal Pain in String Music Students

 Musician's Journal Club is a social media based discussion of scientific literature that impacts musician health, especially musculoskeletal health. Each week, we dissect an article and explore how it can make a difference in practice and performance. This week's article is a 2018 Medical Problems of Performing Artists article entitled Impact of Changes in Playing Time on Playing-Related Musculoskeletal Pain in String Music Students. This article moves beyond the established correlation between longer playing time and increased pain to specifically examine periods of increased playing time, such as an intensive music summer program.

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There is an established correlation between playing time and playing-related pain, which is similar to overuse injuries seen in a variety of other occupations. In short, the more time spent doing a taxing and repetitive motion, the higher the risk of pain and injury. However, this study sought to determine if there was an increased risk with sudden changes in playing time, in this case in an intensive music camp. Anecdotally, many musicians perceived sudden increases in playing to be risk factors for playing-related pain and injury, and the authors hypothesized that a significant increase in playing time may be a larger risk for playing-related pain than the high amount of playing time in general.

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Many situations in music performance may call for sudden increases in playing time. This study examined a music intensive camp, but other examples are the period before recitals, juries, and other large performances, audition seasons, and heavy concert seasons for a variety of performing ensembles. This study found that an increase in playing by seven hours per week (one hour per day) contributed to a 15% greater probability of increased pain intensity, and the hazard of a significant increase in playing time was 2.3 times higher in those who increased playing by 20 or more hours per week (approximately three hours per day) than those who did not.

Survey results showing that all respondents have experienced periods of significant increase in playing time, and close to half experience these periods regularly. The most common amount of increase was 8-14 hours per week. All respondents reported increase playing-related pain near major performance events, and 50% of respondents who had been diagnosed with a playing-related injury had that diagnosis occur near a time with increase playing.

Reflection

While I think my decision to focus on musculoskeletal health was correct, I think I am hitting a plateau in my project interaction because there is only so much interest in scientific articles that don't provide solutions. I have been trying to promote discussion that focuses on how to apply the results from a study to one's own life, and potential solutions to the problems presented, but the truth is that this is all educated guesswork. There is a huge lack of research in this area, especially on interventions and solutions, and there is only so much interest in reading scientific literature that supports the things that we as musicians kind of know to be true from experience. It is undoubtedly important to bring awareness to musculoskeletal health issues in musicians, but without solutions to present, the audience is somewhat limited.

My follower count this week grew by 6.2% to 138 followers. The three main posts for this week's article had a combined 27 likes and zero comments. The Instagram story surveys for this week averaged 20 views and 6.4 responses.