Alexander Technique Musicians
Welcome, Musicians!
Frank Pierce Jones wrote in Collected Writings on the Alexander Technique:
“There are musicians—some say there were more of them in the past—who get as much pleasure from a performance as they give, who always perform easily and well, and who use themselves so efficiently that their professional lives and their natural lives coincide. There are others, however, with equal talent and training, to whom performance and even practice are exhausting, and whose professional lives are cut short because they lose the mastery of the skills they have acquired. They put forth more effort in solving technical problems than the results warrant, and ultimately discover that they have used up their reserves of energy. If they understood the use of themselves as well as they understand the use of their instruments, such breakdowns would be far less frequent.
In practice and performance, however, a musician’s attention is given almost exclusively to what he is doing with his hands or his feet or his vocal organs, and to the sounds they are producing. Of what he is doing with the rest of his body, he usually knows very little. In attacking a difficult problem of technique, the average performer uses two approaches: He “tries hard” to master it, using all the skill at his command; if his trying builds up too much tension and fatigues him, he “relaxes.” In both cases he is working on a trial-and-error basis. He has no way of knowing exactly how much tension is needed, or how to limit it to the time and place where it is wanted.”
The Alexander Technique is useful for everyone but especially valuable for musicians.
If you slump in front of you computer, you may ‘just’ cause yourself discomfort, pain or worse. If you slump at your instrument, whether sitting or standing, you may be causing additional difficulties.
When slumping we may not be getting the best sound vocally or instrumentally. The combination of our misuse plus the demands of repetitive movements, or producing a certain volume at a certain speed can tax the body. At the very least pain can cause playing music less pleasurable. At the most pain can change your relationships and end a musical career.
Slumping is compressing. Some muscles may need to tighten, while others are too relaxed. Nerves may not be operating optimally. Our misuse usually occurs both in playing and non playing situations. Our bodies may finally rebel. This was my story.
The Alexander Technique teaches us to play or sing with less. We start by sitting or standing with less tension. We move towards using only the amount of tension required to sit or stand, and only the amount of effort needed to play. It’s usually a great change from how we normally go through our musical and non-musical lives. Let the Alexander Technique help you play with more technique, control, freedom, joy and ease.
Mark Josefsberg-Alexander Technique NYC
Mark@MarkJosefsberg.com
(269) P-O-S-T-U-R-E
or (917) 709-4648
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