Tag Archives: Music Ergonomics

Advice For Improving The Speed And Accuracy Of Your Fingers

In my experience teaching the Alexander Technique to pianists, string and woodwinds players, I often encounter a similar kind of counterproductive thinking concerning the hands and fingers. Specifically, too much attention is placed upon what the hands and fingers are doing.

Not only does this divide the musician’s attention, often cutting off the awareness of what’s going on in his/her body as the music is being played, but also, it interferes with hearing pitch, timbre, and perceiving time clearly.

And sadly, all this attention on the fingers doesn’t even make them work better. Quite the contrary.

Here are a few examples of the kinds of problems with hyper-awareness of the fingers that I’ve come across with my students:

A saxophonist who is consciously trying to keep his fingers very close to the keys (in an effort to not “waste” movement and play more “efficiently”). In doing so, he makes his entire body stiff and his fingers sometimes can’t move in response to the demands of the music. He’s stuck.
A pianist who stares constantly down at her hands as she plays, making sure her fingering is “correct” as she plays an unusually high percentage of wrong notes on a piece that she knows quite well.
A violinist who can’t keep his eyes off his fingers for fear of playing out of tune. (Ironically, as soon as he takes his eyes off his hands, his pitch improves dramatically.)

The simple truth is that if you want to improve how your hands work as you play, you have to leave them alone, so they can do the right thing without interference. To do this you have change your thinking. You have to replace the thought of your fingers “doing the right thing” with a broader kind of thinking.

First, start with the aim of being free in your body as you play. In particular, ask yourself for freedom in your neck, shoulders and back. This alone will not only change the quality and quantity of muscular tension as you play, but also, will calm and center your mind and improve your breathing.

Make this a top priority as you practice. The freer you are in your head, neck and back, the freer your fingers are to move and create the stability necessary to play your instrument. This is something you’ll need to practice as you practice (yes, I meant to say that). Here’s a previous article I’ve written about practicing paying attention to help you with this.

Next, rather than trying to feel how (or what) you think your fingers need to feel, think instead of where your fingers need to go as you play from one note the next.

By taking your attention from what you feel to where you are going, you increase your spatial awareness (and improve your sense of time, as well). Your brain organizes the music making task in a fundamentally different way, allowing your fingers to move freely, easily and quickly. In the simplest sense, you get out of the way of your brain’s ability to organize and control complex movement, so it can do what it needs to do unimpeded.

This is something that can be practiced gradually, using simple visualization:

For example, if you’re a saxophonist, practice a very easy, familiar pattern (arpeggio, scale, intervals, etc.) at a slow tempo as you think, not of what your fingers are doing, but what keys need to be pressed and/or released as you go from note to note. Think ever so slightly ahead to the next note to be played as you land on each note. If you practice this regularly, you’ll learn that you can play rapid passages that you couldn’t play before with stunning ease and clarity. (Same general idea if you play piano, strings, etc. Think where on your instrument you want your fingers to land, not what your fingers have to do.)

Finally, replace the thought of fingers with tonal imagination. Practice singing passages or patterns that you find difficult on your instrument. First, sing the passage slowly and very precisely, making sure the sequence of pitches and the rhythms are crystal clear in your mind. Once you’ve accomplished that, play the passage by following your ear. Really hear the passage clearly in your mind, and don’t worry about what your fingers have to do.

Most of the chronic technical difficulties musicians struggle with are a result of tense anticipation. Hyper-awareness of the fingers is akin to driving a car on the highway at top speed with your eyes planted downward on the road in front of you. Scary and stiff. Same thing on your instrument.

So change how you think about your fingers. Practice consistently shifting your attention from your fingers to your broader senses, and you’ll be surprised how limber and accurate your technique becomes.

Clarify A Few Misconceptions About Your Body To Make Better Music

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In my experience as an Alexander Technique teacher, I find that a significant contributing factor to many musician’s problems is a misunderstanding of how their bodies work with respect to playing their instrument.

I’ll see, for example, flutists who strain as they try to bend fingers where there are no joints. I’ll see pianists trying to use their necks to lift their arms. I’ll see brass players trying t0 “push the air from the diaphragm” even though this is physically impossible (the diaphragm, which is a muscle, releases on the exhalation).

These are examples of what F.M. Alexander (founder of the Alexander Technique) would call erroneous preconceived ideas about the use and the functioning of the body.

Your brain actually creates a representation of the size, structure and functioning of the muscles, bones and joints in your body. One thing that many postural scientists assert is that this representation always trumps reality.

In essence, this means that you will try to move in accordance to how you believe your structure works, whether that belief is based upon truth or fallacy. (Again, you’ll strain trying to bend at joints that don’t exist, for example)

Of course, much of this “belief” (or misunderstanding) is on an unconscious level, and has been cultivated by a lifetime of habit. Equally unfortunate, some of this belief is conscious, due to misinformation. Too many times I see musicians creating excess strain as they try to carry out some bad (anatomically counterproductive, if not impossible) advice given to them by their music teachers.

But whether below the level of consciousness or not, the unfortunate truth for musicians is that this misconceived sense of self, multiplied by thousands of repetitive movements everyday (practice), leads to strain, injury, poor coordination and inconsistent technique.

The good news is that you can change your misconceptions about how your body works. You can learn to move more in accordance to the design of your structure as it relates to gravity.

How? Start by gaining some knowledge. Get a basic understanding of the structure and functioning of your musculo-skelatal system. Look at pictures from anatomy books and study the structures. Experiment with your own body to find where your joints are and how they work.

I’ve come across a tool that is highly useful for helping you to gain a clear and accurate understanding of how your body functions as you move and maintain posture. It is a marvelous DVD produced by Barbara Conable (edited and narrated by Amy Likar) entitled Move Well, Avoid Injury: What Everyone Needs To Know About The Body.

Barbara and Bill Conable are both Alexander Technique teachers, and have developed a method they call Body Mapping to help musicians (and non-musicians alike) to gain a practical understanding of how their bodies work in movement and stillness. Amy Likar is an Alexander Technique teacher and a professional flutist.

This clearly narrated, logically organized presentation has 2 hours of absolutely essential information. Each chapter has lively animations and images that give you an easy way to understand, visualize and clarify your own body map.

It is organized in chapters covering such important topics as:

Balance-the physiological components that help us maintain our upright stature
Arms-thorough explanation and demonstration of how your arms (including your wrists, hands and fingers) work in relation to the rest of your body
Legs-besides examining the structures of the legs (pelvis, too), this chapter helps you to understand your legs in relation to your arms in moving and maintaining balance
Breathing-really demystifies so much of the conflicting information about this too often misunderstood function
Inclusive attention-how your other senses are integrated and impact how you move and maintain posture

The other chapters are equally interesting and helpful, addressing specifically the issue of how our body maps become flawed, and how we can correct them.

Here is a sample video demonstrating the rotation of the lower arm:

If you’re a musician, you will be nothing but helped by viewing and studying this video. If you teach music, you owe it to your students to have a reasonably clear understanding of the type of functional anatomy and physiology presented in this program. Not only will you give them accurate information, but also, you’ll be able to help them to prevent many of the harmful habits that come from these misconceptions.

I own the DVD, have spent many hours with this material, and highly recommend it.

Clarifying your body map won’t guaranty that you’ll solve all your movement and coordination problems as you practice and play music. Because your habits often feel “right” to you, it can be difficult to sense the misdirected energy and tension that comes with a poor body map (this is where a skilled Alexander Technique teacher and/or Andover Educator can help).

But just gaining the right information, studying it and applying it to what you do can make a huge difference. As I said, it’s a great place to start. I’ve seen some of my students improve instantly and significantly just be rectifying a particular misconception about their bodies as they play their instrument.

And that reminds me of this “oh, so true” aphorism by F.M. Alexander:

“We can throw away the habit of a lifetime in a few minutes if we use our brains.”

No doubt.

Keep This Aim In Mind When Practicing Slowly

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One of the things that many great musicians and music teachers seem to agree upon is the value of practicing slowly. Whether working on technique or improvisation, it is now almost cliche (yet true!) to say, “If you want to speed it up, you first have to slow it down.”

Slow practice really can prove quite beneficial. Here’s a few reasons why:

It gives your brain a chance to process information more precisely and lucidly.
It gives you a chance to become more conscious of any habits you might have that interfere with your ability play (so you can prevent them).
It strengthens your emotional connection to the music (even if you’re “just playing scales”) so that your ability to express yourself becomes second nature.
It allows you time to make aesthetic decisions that you might otherwise overlook at fast tempos (this is especially true in improvisation).
It increases your rhythmic precision.
It deepens your kinesthetic experience of making music.

All good stuff. Here’s a really nice video by clarinet virtuoso Eddie Daniels talking about how he uses slow practice to increase the precision of his technique at fast tempos:

But as an Alexander Technique teacher specializing in working with musicians, I sometimes encounter students who actually make their technique worse rather than better by practicing slowly. They do so because they lose sight of the main aim of slow practice: to learn how to move from note to note through release and balance.

When I encounter such a student, I see lots of tension and holding as the tempo slows down. Often, I see more strain and imbalance at the slower tempos than at the faster ones.

This is usually because the student’s aim of self-awareness (a good thing) has morphed into self-consciousness (not such a good thing). Self-awareness is about discernment (observing objective information), whereas self-concsiousness is more about judgment (going straight to assigning value to what you’re doing).

With self-consciousness comes a sense of needing to do things “absolutely right”. With this attitude comes fear. And with fear comes tension and holding (an unwillingness to explore, move, or take chances).

What I typically notice in these cases is that the students are dividing their attention in such a way as bring far too much awareness to one part (the fingers, for example) at the expense of excluding the rest of themselves. Lot’s of “forcing” the fingers into control. Too much expectation, not enough exploration.

Part of my job with these students is to help them redirect their thinking as they practice slowly (or at any tempo, for that matter). They learn to notice themselves in a broader light, expanding their awareness of themselves, and clarifying the conception of how their entire body (including their senses) is integrated and involved in the music making process.

With this expanded awareness (along with a diminishing self-consciousness) comes a complete shift in the aim of slow practice. The old aim being to “control” the fingers. The new aim being (as I mentioned above) to move from note to note through release as they maintain an easy, upright balance.

When this shift of intention occurs, marvelous things begin to happen: Technique becomes cleaner. Velocity increases with ease. Rhythmic accuracy improves. Self expression deepens. Confidence increases.

So if you devote some of your practice time to slow, mindful work (or would like to start), here are a few things to aim for to help you optimize your endeavor:

Start in balance-Notice how you’re maintaining balance. Are you stiffening and holding, or releasing and returning to an expansive, elastic, natural poise? Let your neck and shoulders stay free and easy as your head balances on top of your spine. Allow your hips, knees and ankles to be free. Let your weight pass into your feet. Breathe easily, quietly and naturally.
Move by releasing-Going from note to note means releasing muscles first. Think about where you can release as you change notes. When raising your fingers, think about them as releasing away from the keys as you play, as opposed to “lifting” your fingers by creating tension. When attacking a note, think about releasing your neck and your breath.
Broaden your awareness-Don’t get stuck putting all your attention onto one part (e.g. don’t place all your attention on your fingers). Let your awareness expand to the rest of your body, and your environment. Notice how your entire self is involved in playing the music.
Give yourself a chance to deepen your kinesthetic experience-Take plenty of time to stop and sense what’s going on as you play. Really embrace the experience of starting from release. Let yourself know deeply, where and how you “land” on the notes (see the video, above).
Listen to the clarity of attack, tone and time-There is always a temptation to rush the tempo when playing slowly. Avoid this trap by really listening and waiting. Use a metronome and let the time carry you forward easily and precisely. Be still but mobile and fluid as you wait for the click of the metronome. Let the clarity and consistency of your attack and tone be your guide.
Keep unnecessary effort in check-Return frequently to the question of effort and tension. “Am I beginning to stiffen myself as I go from one note to the next? Am I pulling myself out of easy balance? Am I letting my breath flow freely? Am I waiting for the metronome?”, etc.

Practicing slowly has been a staple of my routine for some time now. The benefits are tangible and ongoing. I highly recommend it. If you aim for release, ease and balance as you practice this way, you’ll also significantly change how you perform. You’ll learn to deal with fast passages and tempos with grace, confidence, and even joy.

Improve The Quality Of Your Playing By Asking Yourself This Question

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Musicians come to see me for Alexander Technique lessons for at least one the following two reasons: They are experiencing pain and excess tension and strain as they play. They simply aren’t improving in their playing , no matter how much they practice. (Many musicians come to me because of both of these issues.)

As they find, both of these issues are closely related and are caused by the same thing: unnecessary muscular tension. Misdirected effort, as it were. All of this misdirected effort is a result of habit and is interfering with their ability to play easily and confidently. Part of my job is to help them become aware of these habits, many of which are below their consciousness.

We can approach this problem from many angles: Where are you tightening and holding on? Where are you closing the space off in your body as you play? Where are you compressing yourself as you play? And so on.

But the one question that seems to get them onto the path of observation and prevention (of their harmful habits) is this: What are you adding on to the act of playing your instrument that is not necessary?

Such a simple question. What are you adding on?

You see, it’s mostly this adding on that is creating the problems. It’s not a matter of what you need to do to improve your playing. It’s a matter of what you need to stop doing. What you need to subtract.

Learning what to subtract begins with understanding balance and poise. How do you sit upright with the least amount of effort? How do you stand with lightness and ease? What do you do to stay in balance as your bring your hands (with or without your instrument) in front of your body. What do you do to take a breath? How do you prepare to play that first note? Etc.

My first aim is to get my students to better understand how to leave themselves alone so that they can sit, stand and move in easy upright balance. To get them to realize how easy, light and expansive their movement and posture can be. Then we use this as a standard to observe and evaluate what they do as they go to play.

Sometimes they find that they disturb this natural balance the moment they even think about playing, already stiffening up in anticipation. Or the moment they bring their hands to the instrument. Or the moment they begin to blow, pluck, hammer or bow.

And this is all good news, because they can then use their new found awareness to prevent these habits. And that’s when things just get better and better.

So ask yourself what you are adding on as you play that is not necessary. If you sit when you play, notice your balance and ease. Let your head balance on top of your spine, and let that balanced head be poised directly above your sitting bones. Don’t collapse. Don’t try to sit up straight. Just let yourself sit in easy, upright balance, the way a small child would.

If you stand when you play, let your head balance on top of your spine as you let the weight of your body travel through your legs into your feet (think ankle and heels). Let your shoulders soften and widen apart. Let your knees be soft (no locked knees). See how lightly you can stand. How little effort can you create to keep nicely upright. Naturally. Again, just like a small child.

Then take your instrument and see how your balance changes. Are these changes a necessary result of of holding your instrument in a natural manner? Or are they simply pre-anticipatory tension? Here are some things to check:

Am I pulling my head down into my neck? If you find yourself making rather noticeable changes in your neck tension as you go to play, and/or otherwise significantly altering the relationship of your head to your neck, ask yourself: Is this necessary?
Am I stiffening my shoulder? Again, ask yourself.
Am I breathing in a strained, noisy manner? Even if you play (especially if you play) a wind instrument, this is never necessary. It’s just more habitual, misdirected effort.
Am I bracing in my pelvis and legs? Not at all necessary to play your instrument.
Am I pulling myself out of balance as I play? Check some of the above questions to answer this question. Where is your head in relation to your neck? Where is the weight of your body going? (If it’s going primarily into the balls of your feet, you’re bringing yourself out of balance.) How much is your lower back working to maintain this posture? Where is the strain?
What am I doing with my hands and arms? Stiffening fingers, tightly flexed or extended wrists, arms pulled tightly against the ribs. These are but a few of the things that are never necessary to play your instrument.
Am I tightening up my face? This is more anticipatory tension that is not only unnecessary, but also, clearly interferes with the balance of the head on the spine. Interfere with that and you’ve opened up a Pandora’s box of other tension issues.

You can ask even more questions if you like. But always remember the most important: What am I adding on that is not necessary. Stop these unnecessary habits and (as F.M. Alexander would say) “you’re half way home”. In my own daily practice sessions this is always the question I’m asking myself. Answering it brings me consistent improvement. Give it a try!

Maintaining The Conditions In Yourself To Play Your Best

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Do you ever wonder why things that you practice sometimes get worse, rather than better, as you practice them? The answer is simple: You gradually worsen the conditions in yourself to play your best.

Simply stated, when you’re playing your best it is largely because you’ve been able to maintain the best conditions in yourself to play your instrument.

One of my Alexander Technique students, himself a highly accomplished saxophonist, related to me a story about working with the metronome to increase his velocity on a particular piece he was practicing:

“I was gradually increasing the tempo each time I played through the piece in my practice session. Each time with great results. I was playing freely, easily and accurately. I had worked it up to quarter note = 140. But then, feeling like I wanted to test the waters, I jumped up to quarter note = 160 (the target tempo) and it all fell apart. Not only was I making lots of errors, but also, I was playing with great effort, my breath was no longer moving freely and I felt like I could no longer really hear my sound.”

But here’s where it gets interesting. He continues: “But then when I returned to quarter note = 140, I played just as badly: tense, rushed, unclear tone, lots of mistakes and so forth. It’s as if I had wasted all that practice. Why couldn’t I play at 140, when just moments earlier I could?”

I answered him, “Because you had drastically changed all the conditions necessary in yourself for playing well that you had gradually been working toward. You did this by jumping far ahead of yourself and falling back into your old habits of tension. Then you took those habits and the frustration that comes with them back into your playing at the slower tempo.”

By “jumping ahead” the way he did with the tempo he indulged in something we in the Alexander world call “end-gaining”. (Specifically, placing 100% of your attention and effort on trying for a specific result, as opposed to paying attention to how best to obtain that result.) Because of this he had a difficult time returning to the ideal conditions he had created in himself earlier.

You see, my student started out paying attention to process (in the Alexander Technique we call this paying attention to the “means-whereby”) as he gradually increased his tempo challenges with the piece. Each time he played he was able to use his thinking, to use his conscious attention, to maintain the conditions in himself to play his best at any tempo.

This is what the “means-whereby” is all about. It’s about using your thinking to maintain the best conditions in yourself. The conditions that give you the greatest chance at achieving your desired end.

So what are the “best conditions”? Here are a few of the most essential, from an Alexander point of view:

Your neck is free-This means that you’re not compressing your head down and back into your spine, nor jutting your head forward. Your simply leaving your neck alone so that it can release your head upward off the top of a lengthening spine. This also means that your jaw is not tense, you are not tightening your face unnecessarily, and that your tongue is free to move.
Your shoulders (and arms) are free-Your shoulders can release and widen in gentle opposition to your spine lengthening. This will create the best conditions in your arms, and in your hands as well.
Your back is free and integrated-You are neither arching your lower back (tilting your pelvis forward) nor collapsing and rounding your back. Just let your back stay in neutral as you let your head balance on top of your spine.
Your knees aren’t locked-No hyper-extended knees (locking your knees backwards). This is something that also interferes with the good integration of your back.
You are breathing easily and naturally-No noisy and effortful inhalation. Your torso is free to expand in all dimensions to allow your breath to work its best.
You are not in a hurry– This is perhaps somewhat less tangible, but crucially important. As soon as you get into the “in a hurry mode” you are taking yourself out of the present moment and are dividing your attention, cutting yourself and your good use out of the picture.

When you maintain these conditions, you just plain play better. When these conditions are not present, you not only run the risk of not playing at your immediate potential, but also, of steering yourself toward fatigue and injury.

So what can you do to help find and maintain the best conditions for yourself as you play your instrument?

Start with your thinking-Every bit of muscular effort you make (whether necessary or not) is conditioned by your thinking. It’s not about your body. It’s about how your thinking is inextricably linked to your body. Always keep this in mind and you’ll avoid the frustration of “my hands just aren’t working today”.
Learn about your body-Try to gain an accurate understanding of your joints, how your body functions best with respect to playing your instrument.
Keep the importance of a free and easy use of yourself absolutely primary-It’s not about playing faster, higher, louder, etc. It’s about staying easy in yourself and developing the kind of playing habits that make playing more challenging material easier.
Be patient-Don’t always try to reproduce what you did on another day. If you could play this piece at quarter note = 160 yesterday, don’t expect to go that fast today when you practice. Expect nothing. Instead, cultivate a “wait and see” attitude. If you always stay with maintaining your good use (the good conditions) your ability to play at more challenging tempos will come as a result. Let there be fluctuations. Accept the present situation.
Seek help-Because of your habits it can be difficult to get a true sense of what it’s like to create these ideal conditions in yourself. A skilled Alexander Technique teacher can work wonders here in helping you with all the above.

By learning to shift the emphasis from what you do to how you do it, you insure yourself a chance for consistent improvement.