A technical question for Piano players...

[Beyond Within]

I cannot afford a teacher, so I am going about everything very carefully and slowly...

Lately I have been practicing octaves, At first I was playing them keeping my wrist perfectly aligned with the rest of my arm, not any left or right, but then I noticed that I had to strain in order reach some of the distances, it caused aching in the upper part of my hand (the surface on top with all the veins. When doing this the middle joint in the fingers would be above the top of my hand. So I decided to turn my wrist a little to the left. This solved all problems and has shown no pain or aching.

Is this ok? If not, how should I go about playing larger stretches?

Also, in some cases, when I am depressing the keys, especially when I am on the black keys with all the fingers, its impossible not to have the middle joints go above the back of my hand. Even though I make sure I never feel uncomferatable/pain I am not sure if these odd placements are bad technique or not.

[urtextmeister]

BW,

I have taken piano lessons for many years. I have studied with great teachers and not so great teachers and I have developed a certain amount of technique--enough to play most of the repertoire that I want to play. I can honestly say that 90 percent of what I have learned about technique has been learned through solitary experimentation in the practice room. Nobody can really teach you technique because nobody has your body. If you look at the Horowitz played, Jose Iturbi in old movies, they have very different physical approaches to the keyboard. What works for you works.
The only rules are: 1.no pain. Tiredness, but not pain. 2.The expression of the music is the ultimate goal.
I still stuggle with octaves because I was never a natural octave player. For me, there are different feelings for different octave passages. You need a certain rigidity to play bravura Liszt octaves, but sometimes a more pliable is appropriate. You have to experiment.
There are some books on technique. There are a couple hardcore books on technique. One is a book by Josef Lhevinne (sometimes spelled Levinne) and one by Gieseking/Leimer (it was really written by Leimer, but you might find it under the former).

[Beyond Within]

Thank you! I will keep approaching everything as I have been: slowly, and carefully.

The "no pain" thing seems to be very important: I read a study that 60% of orcheastra players feel pain when they play!

[Ellery]

You have to be very carefull whit this kind of things.Its true, you have to experiment to found a comfortable way to play. But you have to develop some skills before play more difficult things. Thats probably the reason to your pains. Maybe if you practice more other excercices. You can find usefull technich in books like Ejercicios Jornaleiros from Oscar Beringer, the daily pianist technic from Ettore Pozzolli (sorry, but I dont know the name in english. You have to remember that your like a sportman, you have to practice evereryday, by levels, at begining with the easy stuff and going hard and hard with the time, all comes in its right time. Disgracefully this probably take some years. Just be patient.