One of the most frustrating, dissatisfying feelings you can have as a musician is when your performance falls far short from your potential. After you’ve prepared adequately, played well in the practice room, and in rehearsal, you come to your performance with positive expectations. Continue reading
This morning I was looking at some videos I’d found on YouTube after searching “good posture.” What I found was a mix of ideas and demonstrations, some helpful, many not so helpful. One of the things that many of the “not so helpful” videos had in common was in presenting posture as static. Something to be held.
Here were some of the most frequently given directions about holding this good posture:
As an experiment, I took out my saxophone and followed these directions. Besides not being able to produce my sound in any reasonably pleasing way, I also noticed I couldn’t move. I couldn’t express myself. I couldn’t really breathe very well. I was not free. I was planted. I would get tired very quickly if I had to maintain such holding in my body.
As an Alexander Technique teacher, I wasn’t too surprised by this experiment. I see time and again musicians who get some kind of a notion about good posture, then make a mess of themselves (and the music!) as they try to maintain it.
Now in all fairness, if you were to look at snapshot of somebody maintaining this kind of holding, it would probably look like good posture. You’d likely be able to see the symmetrical alignment in the body. But if you were to put your hands on this same person’s body, you’d fell nothing but tension and rigidity.
According to the Alexander principles, good posture is a result of a good use of yourself. And this good use involves releasing yourself into balance.
Contrast the above directions above with the Alexander Technique primary directions:
Notice the word release is used in each direction. This is a matter of un-doing as opposed to doing, and involves much less effort. In truth, we are designed to release upwards into good balance, posture and alignment. It’s what we naturally default to (as long as we don’t interfere with it!) Just look at a small child sit, stand, and otherwise move and you’ll see this to be evident.
If you were to see somebody carrying out the above Alexander directions, they too would look like they were maintaining good posture (nicely aligned, etc.) But the difference is that they would be able to move easily, breathe easily and express themselves easily through these directions. Just like a small child. Balance instead of bracing.
So if you find yourself struggling to maintain the correct posture, think of balance and fluidity instead. This is where a good Alexander Technique teacher can help tremendously. In an Alexander lesson you’ll learn how you are creating habitual patterns of tension that are interfering with your natural, easy, upright balance and coordination.
Take a look at this video of the great pianist Artur Rubinstein performing Chopin. Notice how beautifully upright he is as he plays. If you were to take a snapshot of him in mid-flight, you would see what appears to be good posture. But as you can also see, he is free and flowing, expressing himself effortlessly and gracefully. Releasing into balance.
I had a wonderful moment of revelation this morning as I practiced my saxophone. It was one of those experiences that helps me to better see how interconnected thought is to result when it comes to playing music (or doing anything else, for that matter). I was working on my intonation by playing long tones with a tuning CD (recorded tracks of drones consisting of fourths and fifths).
It is very challenging to play the saxophone in tune with this recording because of the nature of the saxophone overtone series. I have to play each note with a very particular internal embouchure (i.e., how I shape the inside of my mouth and throat) to stay in tune. It’s like walking on a razor’s edge. For that reason it’s great practice. It really improves my ears, and makes staying in tune with other musicians (who possess reasonable intonation capabilities) a snap.
But what I noticed today is that I would typically attack each note ever so out of tune, then within a millisecond I’d correct it. It was almost indiscernible, but it made me realize something: I’m not really imagining the pitch before I’m playing, so much as I’m reacting to the pitch I’m hearing, then correcting it.
Now, I thought I was imagining the pitch. But if I was, why was I slightly off in that first part of my attack? I thought it was time to investigate this question.
What I started doing was observing my thinking as I was playing. As I readied myself to play along with the drone, I asked myself if I was really hearing the pitch. I was sure I was, so I played. Same thing, slightly off (sharp), going immediately into tune.
How could this be? I explored this a few more times and found out something interesting about myself: I was imagining the pitch, to be sure, but I was not at all paying attention to what I was doing with myself as I did so.
So I gave it another go with the only intention being to notice what I was doing with myself as I prepared to play. What I discovered was that I was sort of “holding” my embouchure in a habitual way that wasn’t allowing me to attack the note with the kind of intonation that I was imagining. It dawned on me that I was dividing what I was imagining (the pitch) from what was going on inside my body (my embouchure as well as my head/neck/back relationship).
As I continued with this exploration, I realized that my “habitual” embouchure preparation involved tensing my neck ever so slightly, usually making me a bit sharp (flat on certain notes). I also noticed that I released this tension the moment I came in tune. (Actually, better to say the opposite: I came back in tune when I released this tension.)
In short I was reacting as opposed to directing myself with a clear intention.
Once I became aware of this, I simply gave myself a chance to integrate the two things into one whole: My imagination and my direction could be one inseparable thing. Immediately I found that I could make my attack with beautiful intonation. Consistently and easily. I was actually embodying my imagination.
I’m always so thankful for these experiences. Such great lessons that I seem to learn over and over again.
“Your biggest mistake wasn’t in playing the wrong note. Your biggest mistake was in what you did after you played the wrong note.” I heard this during a saxophone lesson I took nearly thirty years ago from the great teacher and woodwinds artist, Bill Green. I vividly remember what he told me word for word because it was such a moment of clarity for me.
What made me sound bad wasn’t the clunker note that I played in the etude during my lesson. What made me sound bad was how I sort of fell apart after playing that note.
I was so concerned with producing a “flawless” performance, that after I made my mistake I became at first flustered (thereby making more mistakes), and then I sort of gave up.
I still finished playing the piece, but at one point I just stopped seeing the point in giving it my full intention (after all it was now flawed!) I had effectively lost the music. Disconnected myself from it. Stopped feeling it and started judging myself instead.
At that point in my musical career I had the grand notion that, with enough hard work, I could play flawlessly like the great Bill Green. But what I learned from him instead is that his aim (and the aim of most great performers) is not to play flawlessly. Instead his aim is to stay present with the music.
When you stay present in the act of making music, you indirectly reduce the amount of mistakes you’ll make. When you stay present with the act of making music, you always stay within the realm of personal expression and artistry.
When I told Bill Green that I’d never heard him make a mistake, he just chuckled. Then he replied, “Oh, you’ve heard me make mistakes. You just didn’t notice them.” He said that the important thing is to keep the music going and stay present with your original intention. He went on to tell me an allegorical tale:
Imagine you’re in a dark forest, running for your life to elude an angry bear that is chasing you. You have a good head start on the bear, and if you keep running, you’ll make it to safety before the bear can catch you. But then (because it’s dark) you accidentally run into the low branches of a tree. Bam!
You’re not hurt, but you’re startled. You have to keep running though, so you continue to do so. But now your thoughts are on that tree that gave you a problem, and you keep looking back toward where it was. Then, Bam! You run into another tree. Same thing, you’re startled but not hurt. You keep running, still looking back at those damned low-lying branches that gave you trouble. Then, Bam again! And so on…
I think you get the point: once you’ve made a mistake, let it go. Stay present and keep moving forward toward your intended goal. It works in the forest running from a bear (it gives you better odds of survival, anyhow), and it works in playing music.
When I teach the Alexander Technique to performers who struggle with performance anxiety, I’m struck by one underlying theme: These folks are almost never in the present moment of their performance. They tend to live somewhere between fear of that which is yet to come (their fear of making mistakes), and regret of that which just happened (the mistakes they’ve made thus far).
This keeps them shifting back and forth from past to future, never having a chance to experience the exhilaration of the present moment. (Not exactly something that cultivates and supports an authentic and rich personal expression.) When I can get them back to the present moment, they are often stunned with the beauty and power of their performance.
There is art in all aspects of music making, both in what you intend to play, and in what you don’t intend to play. It comes down to how you react to what you do. To make mistakes artfully, you must react in such a way that allows the flow of your art to continue.
So notice how you react the next time you make a mistake while performing:
What happens in your body? Do you tense up? Stop breathing? If you notice that you become tense, see if you can discern a pattern. Do you stiffen your neck? Raise your shoulders? Lock your knees? Ask yourself if any of these patterns of tension might be preventing you from playing your best. If the answer is yes, practice not reacting with these patterns as you play. If you give yourself the chance to pay attention, you might also find that these same patterns of habitual tension rise up a great deal while you’re practicing as well. This is a wonderful opportunity to practice preventing these kinds of reactions. You can take this skill right into your performances.
Where does your attention go? (Does it move backwards or do you easily bring yourself back to the present moment? Do you “give up” on the performance, or stay with your intentions?) It’s important that you learn to let go of regret immediately after you’ve made a mistake. This takes a persistent, clear intention, as well as practice. But if you can learn to react by not reacting (no such thing, really, but I think you get the picture; just stay present and clamly alert) you’ll become a much more consistent, artful and authentic performer.
I wanted to share this video I came across of the great Dutch saxophonist, Raaf Hekkema. The first time I saw it I was so impressed that I immediately had to find out more about him. After visiting his Website I was even more impressed with him. He has an insatiable desire to continually find deeper ways to express himself through his music.
Besides expanding his so-called “extended technique” (in this video performance you can hear spectacular altissimo control, multiphonics, slap tonguing, vocalization and other surprises) he is also interested in altering the mechanics of his instruments to better support his vision and imagination.
One of the great things about all this innovation is that it is all in the service of the music. There is no grandstanding (though some might think there is by sheer virtue of his stunning abilities). He is a reminder to me of how we are often only limited by our imagination and our reluctance when it comes to growing as artists.
Here he is playing Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 on alto saxophone. Besides loving what he plays, I also love how he gives himself time between each variation to redirect his energy and thinking. A true virtuoso. Hope you enjoy!