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Essential Tremor
Does anyone else have essential tremor and play? I do well on medication, but find myself tensing up my hands in order to be more accurate, and also playing too loudly many times. But when I am totally absorbed in the music, the tremor is better! Probably the brain circuits are too busy!
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5 Replies
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Me too! Most of times when I really get focus, the tremor decreases, but some days it just don’t let me practice.
I also find myself plucking so hard but I can see that is from the effort of touch the string and not the air haha.
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I have ET, under reasonable control with medication, but still not quiet when I play harp. My first harp had narrow string spacing and it was very difficult most days and impossible some days. I got a harp with wider string spacing and that helped. I notice that if I am frustrated with myself, the tremor gets much worse, so I do a lot of deep breathing and take breaks when I’m working on something especially challenging. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one – I always feel in general like I’m the only one with this disease. I volunteer at a children’s hospital with my dog and the patients are very curious about it.
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Hi there. I have tremors of my head and both arms. The right is manageable. The left is only quiet when it is holding onto something still or if my arm is by my side. The min. I raise my left the tremor starts. I have Approx. 3 -5 mins before I am forced to put it down. My head is constantly bobbling other than a broken cup or a few spastic jerks with a dish or heavy object, I was never bothered with the tremors. I think it bothered people who had to watch me. Then I started harp, great therapy on focusing and relaxing unless you are learning. The time to figure out the placement is already too long to keep my arm up. I did persist with great progress and found once I memorized the piece and was more fluent with it, I was able to keep my hands in motion (which is good) there are some impossible days There are many people like us here I think the hardest thing I had to get over was making videos people won’t understand All the beautiful harp people out their trying to get the perfect hand shape or flowing up and down the harp that my never be me well, I bit my bottom lip and videoed lol take 101 haha take 102 then I just went for it I am a great advocate for people to get use to making videos of their beginnings For me having the videos have a greater meaning and smiles too someday I will wake up and not remember how to play or shake so much that it will be impossible but I will have my visually imperfect recordings to say I tried, I managed and I did it Now I just wish that more people with CHALLENGES would come forward to encourage others that it’s okay , love and respect your achievements I do. When I can’t play songs any more I’ll just have the whole harp tuned pentatonic and go from there lol
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That’s the attitude. Thanks for posting Awe & Wonder video. It was sweet music! Somehow I couldn’t see how to do a thumbs up on it for you on this site. That is the song I want to attempt next. Right now I’m polishing up This is My Father’s World.
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🙂 This is not a direct reply to Noemi. I just joined the forum and I didn’t know how to just post a comment. I am stunned to see this conversation about ET! I don’t currently play the harp, but have been considering learning. However, a few months ago I developed ET in both hands and thought that I had to give up the idea of learning (at age 73) the harp! Now I see that others have this issue! The tremors are slight right now, and I don’t know if they will progress. Does anyone have suggestions, with ET in consideration, for harps that might be more suitable for someone with this condition, or is the type of harp irrelevant here? Thanks very much! –David
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