Category Archives: Alexander Technique and Music

An Important Thing To Keep In Mind When Changing Your Habits

Musicians come to me for Alexander Technique lessons for a variety of reasons, but typically it’s because they’re experiencing a lot of unwanted tension (and often pain, too) as they play their instruments. Since they know I’ve been successful in applying the Technique to solve my own problems as a musician, they invariably ask this question: “What does it feel like to play music without all that excess tension?”

They are often surprised (and sometimes annoyed) by my seemingly evasive answer: “I don’t really pay much attention to how it feels.”

Of course, they press me on this subject. “So you purposely ignore how you feel when you play?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that. I easily sense what’s going on in myself and include this into my consciousness. But I don’t let the feeling of what I’m doing guide my efforts. I realize that what I feel is a result of how I’m directing my thinking. So I want to stay with directing my thinking in such a way as to play my best, and that includes playing with much less tension and effort than I used to create habitually. I’ve learned to trust my thinking, and so I simply acknowledge and enjoy the feeling of playing my instrument.”

As they press me further, it becomes clear that what they really want is for me to describe what it feels like to play now, as opposed to my “pre-Alexander” self. Fair enough. This is the answer I give: “To play now it feels practically opposite of what I thought it would feel like to play freely and easily before I started taking Alexander lessons.”

Practically the opposite of how I imagined it.

This is an important thing to keep in mind when changing your habits.

F.M. Alexander said that, because we are so strongly guided by what our habits feel like, when we actually do something different, even though it might be better for our purposes, it will very likely feel wrong. He described this as having a faulty sensory awareness.

And it is for this reason that it’s not a good idea to be guided by what you feel when you are trying to change your habit. Instead, you’d be better served by being guided by what you can discern. Guided by your thinking, so to speak.

Musicians are strongly conditioned in their habits by their perception of what it feels like to be in control of their instrument. Yet sadly enough, the very efforts some musicians employ to control their instrument become the habit that makes control more difficult, if not impossible.

Then a vicious cycle begins. You start playing with too much tension in an effort to control your sound, time, technical facility, pitch, etc. You actually start having a harder time controlling these things (because of this tension), so you start misdirecting your energy further, adding even more tension and effort to playing your instrument. This takes you even farther from control and confidence.

After a time you begin to believe that you have to use all this effort to get control over your instrument. Yet the more you try, the worse things get. This begins to develop certain unhelpful, yet strong habits.

And the cycle continues, sometimes until pain and injury step in to tell you in no uncertain terms that it’s time to do something different.

Well, if you’re going to do something different with your playing habits, remember that you have to let go of being guided by what it feels like to be in control.

In my case, I would have perceived the feeling of actually being in better control over my instrument as being out of control. Too soft, too mobile, too flexible. This doing more work, that doing less work. This part moving, the other part being still, etc. All wrong, if I were to be guided by the feeling of my habits. I would have never let myself feel that way, because it would have felt like I couldn’t even play the saxophone.

And this is where the Alexander Technique comes in. As I began to study and apply the Technique, I learned to be guided by reasoning and discernment instead of feeling. What is necessary and what is not to play my instrument. Never mind what it feels like. What am I actually doing (in contrast to what I think I’m doing) as I play? Is this helping me, or making things harder?

As time passed I began to greatly attenuate my habits of tension, and in doing so, began to gain real control over my instrument again. And of course, how it feels to play is much different from before. But as I said, I don’t pay much attention to that feeling. It doesn’t at all feel strange to play now, by the way. It actually feels quite wonderful: fluid, dynamic, easy and free. Because it actually is.

Where our habits are concerned, often what we want is not real change. We want to do the same thing the same way, but somehow with better results (that was Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity). We want it to feel the same way minus the excess tension and pain. That can never happen.

So realize that you probably have no idea what it feels like to play without all your habits of tension (nor should you care). That, in fact, it might feel quite wrong (even though your playing would be considerably better). Don’t hold onto your preconception of feeling. Find yourself a good Alexander Technique teacher and learn to trust your thinking instead to find highly favorable, consistent results.

The Possibility Of Change Lies In Every Moment

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Happy New Year! Since this is my first post of the year, I’d like to talk about something specific to the topic of the coming of the new year: making resolutions.

It has become quite a tradition to sit down and think about what we could be doing better in the coming year, whether it’s practicing music more, eating more fresh fruits and veggies, or even deciding to finally take Alexander Technique lessons.

And of course these are all good things. But is there a drawback to making New Year resolutions?

My brother-in-law, Celio, never indulges in this tradition. He tells me, “Anything I wish to change in myself, I can start changing in this moment. I don’t have to wait for an arbitrary marker in time like the New Year to begin.”

If you ask Celio what’s wrong with making these kinds of resolutions, he says, “Because it takes you out of your responsibility for the present moment. It stops you from realizing that you have the power of choice in every moment.”

Just to be clear, I like New Year resolutions (I actually think Celio does, too; I think he’s mostly speaking from principle.) These kinds of resolutions usually reflect values and ideas that we’ve been pondering for a good while, and the ritual of making a “resolution” is like a making a ceremonial commitment to carrying out our wishes.

Some resolutions are things that really do require planning and a great deal of reflection, things that can’t (or shouldn’t!) be done in the moment.

For example, if you are a completely deconditioned, overweight person with a history of knee injuries, whose New Year resolution is to run a marathon, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to go out for a 5 mile training run without first checking in with your doctor, finding a good running program/coach, etc. You need to think first and take action later.

But how many other types of resolutions do people make that could be started in any moment? I’d like to be kinder to my work colleagues. I’d like to be more available to my children. I’d like to eat only whole foods. I’d like to improve my ear musically.

These are decisions you can make in any moment to begin to take action to achieve your goal. You don’t have to wait for anything.

In fact, if you were to take the marathon running example from above, you could even start planning in that very moment. I’ll call my physician’s office right now to set up and appointment. I’ll do some research to find a good running program.

As I examine my own unfolding urge to improve and grow as a musician, I sometimes find myself waiting for certain points in time to take action. Whenever I catch myself doing so, I ask this simple question: Why am I waiting?

Often I’m surprised by my own answers to this question. Sometimes the answers make sense. After all, for example, it’s a good idea to commit a reasonable amount of time gaining mastery over one simple component of a more complex musical exercise, before plunging right into the complex part. You have to put the horse in front of the cart, so to speak.

But more often than not, my answers don’t make much practical sense. They simply reflect a habit of avoidance and procrastination.

And that’s good news for me. Because once I realize my habit, I’m free to change it. (That’s an essential principle and value of the Alexander Technique.)

So in my music practice, I let myself to begin anew at any moment. I stay willing to alter my course, drop my agenda, step into the unknown, even open a can of worms if need be. I really need to improve my facility in altissimo. Start now. I really need to feel more comfortable improvising in unusual meters. Start now. I’d really like to learn how to get a darker sound in the upper register of my saxophone. Start now.

Begin the entire process of change in this very moment.

Some of the music students I encounter are waiting for something to happen. In doing so they get stuck into the rut of their routine. With jazz musicians it’s sometimes spending too much time learning the language of other jazz artists before exploring and developing their own language. Start now, I tell them. Don’t wait to find your voice. Discover and develop your language as you learn the language of others.

With many other musicians (including jazz musicians) it’s sometimes procrastinating dealing with habit. One of these days I’m going to start really paying better attention to how much strain and effort I bring into my playing. I sometimes feel blocked when I play. Start now, I tell them. Use this moment to notice, to decide to change. And then continue from there.

So make your resolutions for the New Year (as I have), but let me offer you this as a possible resolution: I’m going to look at every moment as an opportunity to change. You’ll be surprised at how liberating this can be, and how positively productive as well as satisfying it can be, as well.

To quote the great artist, Charlie Parker, Now’s the Time.

Wishing you all the Best Year yet….

Reflecting Upon The Joy Of Sharing Knowledge

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I’ve been writing this blog for about a half a year now, and, in the spirit of the holiday season, I’d like to express my gratitude for all the unexpected gifts that came with writing it.

My initial desire to start this blog came from a genuine rebirth of passion I was experiencing this past year as a musician. In particular, I was excited by the things I was discovering in both my technical approach to playing music, and in my artistic development and growth. All of these great discoveries were driven by deep exploration and application of the principles of the Alexander Technique.

And as I share these Alexander principles to help my students to learn to play music with greater ease, confidence, authentic expression and joy, I feel as if I’m involved in a continuous, ever growing exploration of the human condition as it pertains to creating art.

What I learn from my students, I apply to myself. What I learn from myself, I share with them. A circle of continuous growth, both teacher and student being blessed by the experience of the other.

F.M. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technique) referred to his work as being “psycho-physical”, in that what we think conditions our muscular responses, and in turn our responses condition our thinking. It isn’t just that the mind and body are connected. It is that the mind and body are an inseparable entity, something Alexander referred to as the “self”.

In the simplest sense, the Alexander Technique is the practical study of the use of the self. We begin by observing our thinking to notice the quality of how we’re carrying out an activity. Is it tense, fluid, easy, forced, balanced, awkward, rushed…? As we learn to redirect our thinking, the quality of what we do improves. Significantly.

By keeping this always in mind, I’m able to address many issues important to my improvement as a musician (and to my students, too!)

So with the desire to share what I’ve learned (and am continuing to learn) with serious musicians, I began writing articles. And of course, to help people find my articles, I’ve been learning various ways of reaching out: social media, visiting and sharing on other blogs, forums, podcasts, etc.

In reaching out, I seem to affirm over and over this simple truth: People who are passionate about what they do love to share their knowledge to help others. I am constantly inspired by some of the folks I’ve run into who tirelessly put information out there to make other people lives better.

Not long after I started writing this blog, I discovered a great group of saxophonists on Facebook. This group was founded by a fine saxophonist and very generous person by the name of Rocky Gordon, who is always vigilant in keeping the group growing and staying on topic. There are some very high profile musicians in this group, such as Tim Price, Mel Martin, Terry Landry, Dave Moody, Brandon Fields, and many others ,who are so generous and gracious about sharing they’re wisdom, experience, opinion and love of playing the saxophone. I’ve learned a great deal from many of these fine folks.

Again, the most inspiring thing is to witness how freely and tirelessly these great artists share their knowledge. It gives me a beautiful, optimistic feeling, like a model of how we all could live our lives all the time: helping each other, honoring and respecting our differences, giving passionately and unconditionally.

If you look at my blog roll, you’ll find some sites of others whose generosity of spirit, wisdom and experience have helped me to help myself and help my students. One person in particular I’ve developed a very nice relationship with from my blog roll is Doron Orenstein, who runs Best.Saxophone.Website.Ever.com.

Doron is deeply committed to providing highly useful, always interesting content about all aspects of playing the saxophone. He is a great writer, who is articulate, humorous, creative and downright cleaver. Recently I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of contributing to an upcoming ebook that he’s writing about playing the saxophone. I’m very much looking forward to its release.

I feel in debt to my other blog roll colleagues as well. In particular, Janet Horvath (author of Playing Less Hurt) is always an inspiration in how she’s constantly finding and sharing great information about keeping musicians healthy, and other many interesting and fun topics in music. Her energy, passion and commitment are like food for my soul.

If you’re at all interested in the Alexander Technique, I highly recommend that you visit Robert Rickover’s massive Alexander Technique Website. Robert is another person who works selflessly and tirelessly to share knowledge and information and to provide a network of communication and access to distribute it. I’m deeply grateful.

I’ve also had such great support, feedback and insight from my friends on Facebook and on Twitter. I feel like I’m finding an ever growing group of musicians that are open and ready for the kinds of ideas I’m sharing. It’s a great feeling to be heard and appreciated by these folks.

In the coming year, I’ll probably expand the blog a bit. I’ve had lots of requests for more video and photo images in my posts, so I’ll be working toward that. My aim is to help my fellow musicians. I’m indebted to those of you who have shared with me and allowed me to share. I wish you all a happy, prosperous, and growth-filled New Year!

Think More And Play Less To Optimize Your Practice Time

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I’ve been reflecting lately on how the structure and quality of my saxophone practice has evolved over the years since discovering the Alexander Technique. I think every serious musician can look back and notice the change in process and approach to their practice routine. Much of this evolution takes place because of edification (refining or eliminating ineffective efforts) , some of it because of change in perceived need (taking on new musical challenges, styles, interests, etc.)

Though the particulars of my practice continue to change to serve my ever emerging aesthetic impulses, the biggest change in my practice has been in approach. In any given amount of practice time, I’m simply playing less than I used to. Way less.

So what am I doing (if not playing) when I practice? I’m taking time to really think about what I’m doing.

This manifests itself in the following ways:

I stop much more frequently than I used to. This is key to all my improvement. I do this to give myself a chance to process what I’m doing, and to make sure that I am doing what I think I’m doing. By always allowing myself to stop at any point in my practice (mid-note, mid-phrase, mid-exercise, or?) I keep myself in a constant state of receptive fluidity and flexibility. It gives me a sense that I am always in control of what I’m doing. That I’m acting out of choice, and not simply habit.

I listen carefully to what I’m hearing in relation to what I’m thinking. It’s easy to get stuck into either hearing yourself at the expense of not noticing what’s going on in your body, or paying too much attention to what’s going on in (usually) one part of your body at the expense of not really hearing yourself. The idea is to integrate what you hear with what you sense in your body as a whole, integrated process. For me this means to always “observe my thinking” as I listen to the music I’m making. What am I thinking when I play well? When I’m not playing so well? Am I doing what I think I’m doing?

I rehearse things mentally before I play them. There are huge gains to be made by just taking a moment to mentally rehearse something before playing it. It gives me a chance to experience the thought process necessary to best produce the music. I can pre-bulid the neuromuscular pattern without any habits of tension that I might bring into the actual execution of the music. This becomes a natural process in thinking that I bring into all my performance and practice.

I rest much more. In a one-hour time period, I will probably take 3 or 4 mini-breaks (1 to 4 minutes) completely away from my instrument. I seem to do this every 10 to 15 minutes. If I’m practicing multiple hours in a row, I’ll also take a 5 to 10 minute break every hour to lie down in constructive rest. Besides helping my avoid injury and strain, it keeps me feeling receptive and present (fresh!) for the entire practice period. I’m able to really absorb things much more effectively this way.

Some of the smaller details of my approach show up as things like: really listening to the metronome to internalize the tempo before I start playing; pausing between key changes when I’m working out a particular scale or arpeggio pattern; taking time to imagine my pitch before I play my long tones or overtones; stopping completely between one exercise and the next to check in with myself and redirect my efforts and intentions.

Less playing, more thinking. Time well spent.

When a musician comes to me for Alexander lessons, I always want to observe his or her practice process. So during one lesson I’ll ask them to just practice they way they normally would for about 15 or 20 minutes as I observe without interrupting them.

What I usually see is nonstop playing, divided thinking, and escalating effort. If it’s a string player there usually isn’t even a pause. If it’s a wind instrumentalist there is usually lots of gasping going on as they jump right back into the fray over and over again, each time with ever increasing tension. (Keep in mind that many of these students have come to me because of chronic pain from playing their instruments.)

So one of the first things I get them to do is to learn how to stop (not always an easy thing for some). Once they’ve learned how to stop, they can learn when to stop. And this starts the process of positive, lasting change. Not just in the area of pain and tension management, but aesthetically as well. They learn to really hear themselves deeply as they play, and connect what they hear with their entire selves, body, mind and spirit. They replace habit with choice.

So how do you practice? How much do you pause to think, to really listen, to really understand what you are doing with yourself as you play your instrument? Do you feel exhausted, or exhilarated after a typical practice session? How much silence is there during a one-hour practice period?

I know that it might seem counterintuitive to stop so much during your practice, but that’s the beauty of it. It takes you out of the real time demands of performance to give a chance to think, to notice, to assess, to, well…practice.

Research has shown that to learn something, it is not simply a matter of how many times the thing is repeated so much as the quality of attention used to practice the thing. Perhaps this is why many of the great virtuosi practice less than many of us might think.

I remember reading about the great trumpet virtuoso, Rafael Mendez. In an interview, towards the end of his still brilliant playing career, the interviewer asked, “Do you still practice 5 to 6 hour a day?” He answered, “No, I only practice half that amount these days, but I really listen to myself.” Playing less, thinking more.

Practicing Music: Paying Attention To “How” Instead Of “What”

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“The experience you want is in the process of getting it. If you have something, give it up. Getting it, not having it, is what you want.”

-F.M. Alexander

On of the great temptations when I practice my saxophone is to try to “memorize” how it feels in my body when I’m playing well. Fortunately for me, I rarely ever yield to this temptation (anymore). If I did, I might find myself losing touch with the most important element of my progress: the thinking process I use when I play my best.

It’s easy to disconnect our consciousness from our activities by aiming directly for a feeling of the result we’re after. In the language of the A lexander Technique, this is working along the lines of the “end-gaining” principle. When we end-gain, we bring all our attention and effort directly to achieving a desired result, without sufficient consideration to the process of how we can best achieve that result.

When I do this practicing the saxophone (or engaging in just about any activity) the results are usually less than optimal. This is because I’m being guided by an unreliable source: my habit.

For better or for worse, we are typically guided by habit, and our habits have a certain feeling of “rightness” to us even if they aren’t helping us. (F.M. Alexander described this as an unreliable sensory awareness.) Much of my progress in playing the saxophone since I started applying the Alexander principles has involved learning to not be guided by the feeling of my habits to achieve the results I’m after. Instead, I aspire to be guided by my reasoning, by what I can honestly discern.

Alexander said that rather than going after our desired results directly (guided by the less than reliable sensations of our habits) we would be better served by paying attention to the quality of the process we use to achieve those results. He described this as paying attention to the “means-whereby”. In essence, it is a matter of being more “process oriented” than “results oriented”.

And so I’ve found over and over, both as teacher and as performer, that giving the quality of process top priority is the best way to insure desired results. Consistently.

This is not a new idea. If you’ve ever read the Tao Te Ching, studied Zen, or experienced many of the other forms of eastern mindfulness disciplines, you’ll regularly encounter this idea. It seems to be universally true.

Before I discovered this principle, I practiced in quite a different manner than I do nowadays. I really got no sense of satisfaction from my practice session unless I felt certain certain things as I practiced. “Does it feel right?” was becoming more and more of an indicator of success or failure in my practice attempts.

As a result, not only was I not allowing myself to change and grow as much as I could, but also, I was feeling frustrated by the inconsistencies of my efforts. Not to mention that a lot of what I was hoping to feel was actually nothing more than unnecessary, habitual muscular tension. It wasn’t helping me at all!

These day when I practice, I’m giving my thinking process top priority. This often manifests itself into deeply mindful work, as I pay attention to the quality of how I’m using myself as I practice.

This primarily involves two things that were missing from my pre-Alexander practice sessions:

Letting myself stop frequently to prevent habitual tension patterns, and to understand specifically what went wrong (what I’d like to prevent).
Allowing myself to slow things way down to connect my thinking to the activity (particularly when working on technically challenging material).

As I do this, I’m always coming back to discerning the quality of my own use as I play saxophone. Where am I stiffening unnecessarily? How is my balance? Am I mostly contracting or expanding, tightening or releasing? How is my breathing? Am I rushing ahead in my thinking, or staying with myself (and the music!) in the present moment? Am I tense and anticipatory, or am I flexible and yielding?

I’m not using these thoughts to distract me in my practicing process. I’m simply using them as the criteria for discerning if what I’m doing is really what I want to be doing.

When I approach my practice in this manner, I’m staying with (quoting Alexander, above) the “getting it” rather than the “having it”.

You may have heard the saying, “To play faster, you have to practice slower.” Part of the reason this works for so many technically brilliant performers (I’m thinking here of the great clarinetist, Eddie Daniels, as he describes his approach to gaining technical fluency and velocity), is that it gives them a chance to really process what they’re doing.

Add to this paying attention to the quality of how you are using yourself, and you have a surefire recipe for continued, consistent progress.

So next time you’re having a really good day practicing, when everything seems to be going well, take time to notice some things. Notice the quality of muscular tension in your body, specifically through your head, neck, shoulders and back. See if you can understand what your not doing that you normally would do (where are you not working so hard, not tensing so much). Then observe your own thinking process. See if you can connect this kind of thinking to the ease that you have in your body as you play your instrument.

Remember, it’s your thinking process that determines the quality of your playing more than anything else. By shifting your attention from what you are doing, to how you are doing it, is a big step in the right direction to cultivate the kind of thinking that helps you the most.