Monthly Archives: May 2016

Skill and Coordination (They’re Not Necessarily the Same Thing)

One of the aims of the Alexander Technique is to improve coordination.

And I would say more specifically for musicians, the aim of the Technique is to improve the quality of  overall  coordination that you use to implement your music making skills.

A misapprehension that many musicians have is that skill and coordination are one and the same thing.

Though they are certainly closely related, they’re not exactly  one and the same.

How so?

Allow me to clarify by offering my  working definitions of the two terms.

Your skill is your ability to carry out your desired task (for our purposes, playing music). It is manifested in tangible, sonic results: pitch, time, articulation, tone color, technical control, expression, etc.

Your coordination is what you do with your entire self  to carry out your skill. It is manifested in muscular effort, or more specifically, the quality of movement you apply to the task. (This includes balance, posture, breathing….everything you do!)

So it is possible to be a highly skilled musician (and yes, this does mean having highly cultivated  fine  motor coordination skills), yet have less than optimal overall, gross  motor coordination.

You can witness this in many instances, if you take time to notice.

Some musicians make it look easy, don’t they?

Truth be told, for most of these musicians, it is  easy. They typically appear effortless because their efforts are so singularly integrated into the skill of their performance. Virtually nothing they do interferes with their artistic intentions, with their desire of self-expression, nor with the acoustic and physiologic components involved in playing.

(I look upon classical pianist Artur Rubinstein as a glowing example: free neck, strong and flexible back and arms, moving easily, fluidly and naturally with the music. It is this beautiful, efficient coordination that is at the service of his skills.)

And I think we’ve all seen/heard virtuosic musicians who look like they’re fighting an imaginary foe as they play music: head compressed into the neck, raised (stiff) shoulders, rigid ribs and back, hard narrowed gaze, noisy breathing.

Yet they still deliver the goods. They still play devastatingly beautiful music. (No, I won’t point my finger at any one musician here, as a gesture of respect. But I so easily could!)

So should these musicians even bother with improving their overall coordination? Should you?

Yes. And for three main reasons:

1. Your overall coordination impacts your skill. When you are working in a less than optimally coordinated way, you are interfering with your brain/body’s ability to carry out your skill in the most efficient manner. In essence, you’re working against your human design, and not in accordance with it.  You might be able to do so. But you do so despite of, not because  of, your coordination. Improving your overall coordination invites greater skill. Or, as F.M. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technque) said, your improved coordination creates “the ideal conditions” for your skill to manifest itself through your bodily mechanism.

2. By improving your overall coordination, you reduce your risk of injury (and fatigue). This is why many musicians seek my help as an Alexander teacher in the first place. I have volumes of stories of very highly skilled musicians I’ve encountered who have career-threatening health issues that are related to the poor coordination they apply to their skill. As their coordination improves, so does their health, comfort, endurance and satisfaction.

3. By improving your overall coordination, you open yourself up to other expressive possibilities. This is the hidden gem of all this. As you improve your overall coordination, you also discover different ways to experience the music you play. You become less stereotyped (less “stuck”) in your interpretive choices, which, believe it or not, are highly conditioned by your bodily reactions. (This is especially true for improvising musicians!)

Our tendency as musicians is to sometimes become overly concerned with the parts that seem most pertinent to playing our instruments at the expense of neglecting the rest of ourselves. (For example, a flutist thinking perhaps too  much about the formation of the embouchure at the expense of not noticing neck and shoulder strain.)

If this sounds even remotely familiar to you, consider including  the quality of how you “use” your entire self (your overall coordination) into the consciousness of  playing your instrument.

Let your head be poised freely atop your spine (and of course, let your jaw be free). Let your shoulders release and widen. Soften your gaze. Let you knees unlock. If you’re standing, let your ankles be free and mobile (feet, too!) as you permit the ground to support you. Let your breathing be elastic, easy, reflexive and expansive.

Think balance, mobility and expansion, instead of position or  posture. A nice, lively, upward organization of your whole organism is the wish. Notice how these things impact your skill.

And of course, if you need any help in this area, consider finding a skilled Alexander Technique teacher. Allow your coordination to support your skill, and your expression.

Is Improvisation Really Just “Spontaneous Composition”?

Screen Shot 2016-04-26 at 6.16.57 PM

Yes. (to answer the question in the title)

And no.

Yes, in that you are most certainly generating musical ideas. And yes, these ideas contain what can be referred to as “compositional elements and principles”. And yes, when you are a skilled improviser, you are often constructing a solo in a cogent, “compositional” manner.

But to describe improvisation as “spontaneous composition” is an incomplete (and sometimes inaccurate) description of the improvisational process.

In the most fundamental sense, the difference between improvisation and composition comes down to a matter of conscious deliberation.

Take human speech, as an example. The vast majority of the time you are speaking (talking with friends, explaining something to someone, etc.), you are actually improvising.

Sure, you might have a “theme” that you’re working with (maybe talking about where you’d like to eat lunch, for example), but you really aren’t planning, word for word, what you’re going to say. You’re simply following the immediate need to communicate. In essence, you’re reacting in real-time.

Now contrast that with writing something, let’s say for example, writing an essay. Writing gives you a chance to choose your words more carefully. You can take your ideas out of “real-time”, and consciously craft them with the kind of nuance that best suits your intentions.

Musical improvisation and composition have a similar relationship. When you improvise, you are reacting, moment to moment (whether you think you are, or not).

Sure, there might be some kind of narrative going on in your mind as you do so, perhaps guiding and shaping what you play. Nonetheless, it’s still  a question of reaction.

And of course, musical composition is similar to composing with words, in that it is more calculated, more pondered upon, more deliberate.

In truth, improvisation involves a largely different neurological process than composing. As neuroscientist and amateur jazz pianist Charles Limb discovered in his research, the main parts of the brain that “light up” for a skilled improviser are the parts that have to do with immediate communication.

Think about that for a moment. The skilled improviser is largely in the realm of attempting to communicate  something. More specifically, to connect  with the other musicians with whom he or she is playing.

Communication involves not only taking into account the ideas that you have an impulse to express, but equally important, that which you are hearing and reacting to.

Listening is at the heart of it all.

The best, most sought after improvising musicians are those that listen deeply, and respond in accordance to what they hear. (The late, great jazz bassist Charlie Haden comes immediately to mind here!)

And of course, listening is a very active thing to do. To listen deeply is to be fully present. And being fully present in this way provides the wind beneath the wings of the improviser.

And it’s not just about listening to the others with whom you’re playing. It’s also about listening deeply to yourself. It’s about not being stuck in the “deliberation” of your musical ideas at the expense of losing your improvisational consciousness and flow.

Even if you’re playing with backing tracks, or a drum loop, or a metronome (i.e., things that don’t respond to what you’re doing), you need to be listening and reacting to what you hear. This is absolutely primary.

We can sometimes hear the novice to intermediate improviser string one “pre-fabricated” idea into the next seemingly unrelated prefabricated idea. This kind of improvising lacks cogency. There is no “story” being told (as many accomplished jazz musicians might complain).

Again, this is largely (but not exclusively) the result of not really listening in a coordinated and constructive way, of not actually getting into that beautiful realm of communicating.

It’s a matter of getting “stuck in your head”, and not being truly available to hear what you just played, and how the rest of the ensemble is reacting  to what you just played.  It’s much like holding a good conversation. You listen,  to yourself and those with whom you’re speaking, and you say something that has a logical connection to the conversation. (It’s also part of the learning curve as an improviser, so if this describes where you are now, that’s fine; it will only get better!)

But I’ve also heard some highly accomplished improvisers try a little too  hard to tell their story.

This often gives them what sounds like a “well-crafted” solo, but perhaps not the most spontaneous expression. It can come off as sounding a bit too compositional (and somewhat self-conscious), as the emotional “arch” of the solo builds with more than a small amount of predictability.

Maybe it’s a matter of balance here, but to me, to “plan” an entire solo seems antithetical to the deeper, neurologic process of improvisation.   (I realize that I’m talking here about what my values are in improvisation. I don’t wish to challenge or offend those that disagree or hold other values.)

To paraphrase Charlie Parker: “Learn your instrument. Learn the scales and chords. Learn the tunes. Then forget all that shit and just play.”

I think part of the reason why many of us still get excited when we hear these old Parker recordings, is because that is precisely  what is happening. We’re not so much hearing a deliberate “composition” (though it is most certainly, cogently compositional!) as much as we are hearing a highly disciplined musician who is spontaneously following his muse, is listening deeply, and is expressing himself freely and personally.

And so many other great improvisers have expressed similar sentiments. (Sonny Rollins talks about aiming to access the “subconscious” when he improvises.)

So study and think like a composer. Aim to master solid compositional principles. Work with the materials of music constantly, as you find new ways to move musically, and to express your ideas.

But when it’s actually time to improvise, just remember to be open, to listen and react without second guessing yourself. Let your voice emerge and manifest its unique, beautiful truth.