Hi Paul,Thank you so much for your replies. Sorry I have been so long getting back to you. I am very interested of course in your account of how you recovered from FD. Mine came on whilst I was at college in the 80s, long before I heard of RSI, let alone FD. I used to find that exercises like Dohnanyi (where non-playing fingers are silently held down) helped a lot; but each day it was like building a sand castle from scratch. I realise now, of course, that in practising this way I was in a constant state of tension. In 2001 I met Carola Grindea and she totally changed my approach to the instrument. Unfortunately she died recently and the loss of her as a mentor is quite hard for me. At the moment I am using Peter Feuchtwanger's exercises, the first of which involves finger tapping as you described. Carola encouraged me to think less of fingers and more of arm and wrist, which does get me through a lot of Romantic repertoire. But the problem persists and I have made an appointment to see Prof Altenmueller in January. He is at the Hannover Institute (IMMM), as I never got this thing officially diagnosed. It is likely that a course of botox treatment will be necessary, along with retraining with Laurent Boullet in Berlin.
I am very interested in the exercises you mention. I don't have MusicWorks, but I think I could easily download it. I do have Sibelius though. If you would like to send me anything post to pianistwithoutpedals@yahoo.co.uk (which I just set up as an anon email address)
Paul
