“It is 1994 and we are in the finals in the world’s biggest and most prestigious string quartet competition, Lord Menuhin is chairman of the jury and the legendary critic from The Strad magazine has us down as the favourite to win it all… We are playing Beethoven op. 59 no.3. We are all shitting-our-pants-nervous, individually and as a group. This is it… four years after deciding to be the greatest string quartet on the planet, I mean – why the heck not? If I can only get through that bloody triad passage in beginning of first movement then I can relax…but my arm hurts and I feel totally incapacitated and without any control from elbow down.
The passage does not work out.
I sweat like a pig and the pain, agony, and frustration are killing me. I am pushing my cello to respond and deliver, like a rider pushing his horse too hard. In the final movement, the furious fugue, the inevitable happens – my c-string breaks and it is just too close to the end to stop and change the string. Without the lowest string in this final movement with its passionate and furious ending, you have no chance – it’s like sprinting the final lap with undone shoelaces. My disappointment has no limits, and the pain is all-consuming in the green room afterwards. I throw my cello recklessly on a sofa and hide myself in the toilet.”
When I was ten years old and started to play the cello, I immediately fell in love with the instrument. Much later I realized that through playing the cello I got the attention from my Dad that I had been desperately looking for since before I could remember. So, I practised a lot – and I mean a lot. I’ve never since practised those 6-7 hours a day that were normal for me at age ten or twelve…
My first cello teacher, in a small village in southern Sweden, meant a lot to me. He came from the same region (some 1000 km north) that we had moved from in 1973, and he also had my grandfather’s dialect, height, and firmness of character. And I always missed my grandfather, the one person who has meant the most to me of them all.
So, I had many reasons to practise when I was not deep in the forest with my best friend building huts, imitating owls, and living a Huckleberry Finn life.
However, no one ever taught me any kind of practise technique and I was too young to understand the danger of sitting in a locked and fixed position for so many hours a day. When I was fifteen, I got diagnosed with so-called tennis elbow, or lateral epicondylitis. I am now fifty-four and this problem with my left arm has plagued my whole career.
I have been to naprapathy, chiropractors, physiotherapy, numerous acupuncturists, doctors, personal trainers. I have had MRI scans of my arm, cortisone injections, even considered invasive surgery with a hand-surgeon I consulted…I have tried it all, but the problem remained and for most of my career I just did not practise as much as I wished to or thought I should. I will never know the difference it has made, as this is how it happened.
I never really had problems with stage fright and nerves, but as I got older, I became more aware of my occasional arm pain and recurring problems. You do get more aware of everything as you get older. Soon, I found myself in a spiral of negative thoughts. During most of my performances, I had pain and an uncomfortable feeling in my left arm. It felt insecure and unstable, unreliable, and often I could not control it, but merely survive and hope that nothing disastrous would happen. A few times a year I would even get a cramp.
Those times were extraordinarily traumatizing, and the muscle memory in the hand and arm just does not forget easily and thus you are in a downward spiral. It is an awful feeling and the stress this creates is terrible. I often hear, even from my closest colleagues, that I am Mr Cool during concerts, but the truth is that I am often in a very bad place. But because of that bad place and the shame and taboo surrounding it, I developed my cool acting skills to perfection. Of course, it is not always like this, but it has been like this too often and has given me anxiety and a lot of suffering.
I have a close friend and colleague, a legendary Norwegian violinist who some five or six years ago developed tremendous problems in his left hand that made him stop playing for a year and even threatened to stop him completely. He tried everything without improvement, until he heard of a famous German doctor and his unique clinic specialized in musician’s injuries. My friend went there and was saved – six weeks later he was back at his job full time and is still in better shape now than ever.
I decided to write the same doctor and ask if it would be possible to come for a consultation. Three months later I picked up a friend’s cello at the local university in Hannover and stepped into the clinic.
You know how it is with certain people, even before you establish eye contact you feel trust, care, and an overwhelming credibility. “Sit down here in front of me and tell me everything, we have the whole afternoon…”. I was taken by the preciseness of the intimate questions and the absolute focus and presence. This doctor was clearly highly curious and talented and had honed his craft over many years and by treating many hundreds of patients and their various conditions – that level of care is an extraordinary thing to witness. Before the clinical examination, I played for him -and when was last time I got the cello out and played the Bach C-major prelude to my doctor, sitting just 1 metre in front of me? During the examination I could view my arm in the ultrasound screen: my arm, hand, muscles, veins, and tendons from inside. I could see with my own eyes in real-time how beautifully it all worked together, what was what and how one tiny motion affected everything. Amazing. Strength, nerves, and reflexes all in perfect condition, as it should be.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with you.”
I stared at him. So, why then? “Let us go back to my office and I will explain.”
I was diagnosed with Chronic Pain Syndrome, left forearm epicondylopathy.
I suffer from pain memories, and I now need to regain confidence and shift focus away from the pain. It is essential to reduce general stress and minimize fewer rewarding activities.
“Through all the festivals you have produced in your life, you have done enough for everyone else, audiences and students etc. Now, focus on yourself and do all and only what is good for you, that is your key.”
The mechanism of pain memory and pain formation is related to a negative emotional load of anxiety, frustration, anger, and even shame. My left arm has been the garbage bin for all the bad and negative in my life, and I am chasing a ghost when I try to treat inflammation that is simply not there. Sure, when I was young, I overworked my left arm out of enthusiasm for the cello and without solid practice technique. But over the years it became something else.
This visit in Germany was some six months ago and I now feel very different. I accept my pain which, from time to time, can be quite disturbing, but I do accept it and I do not freak out. My hand feels fine and strong, and even if my old problems creep in, I know nothing is wrong with me, and that the pain is not dangerous.
I do not fight this anymore; I accept it and have nothing to fear.
And by the way, because of our success at the London competition back in 1994, we got a string quartet residency at the University of Aberdeen and through that position we conquered the world!
With the dialect of missing
Longing
This is my sound
Behind every ensemble
there are two of us who needed each other
in cello’s body and soul