rsl12 My teacher would be happy to hear you say that! Here is a non-exhaustive list of things she has worked on with me over the past year:
- Keeping too much tension in my hands
- Keeping too much tension in my wrists
- Choosing non-ergonomic fingering
- Being inconsistent with fingering
- Contorting my hands and wrist at uncomfortable angles rather than lifting and repositioning
- Legato, legato, legato (said in the style of Steve Ballmer saying "developers")
- Not paying close enough attention to the score and playing wrong notes
- Looking at my hands too much when I should trust them to find the right keys by feel
- Moving my hand too far away from the keys when one hand has a rest
And so on.
With this piece specifically, I actually tried to learn it on my own a couple years ago. I am much better at reading sheet music now which helps with a chunky chord piece like this one. Additionally, my hands would get sore when I tried to play it before. We started this piece with me just playing one chord, then lifting my hand off the keys, dangle dangle at the wrist (releasing all tension in the hands and wrist), then finding the next chord and playing it, dangle dangle, etc.
Eventually I could stop with dangling my limp hand, but she was trying to get me to relax the hand between each chord. I still get nervous when the camera is rolling, but I can usually play it without stiff hands or jitters now.