Category Archives: Alexander Technique and Music

Rethinking A Well-Meaning Saying About Practicing

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Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice it until you can’t get it wrong.

This saying is common among athletes as well as performing artists.

In essence, this sounds like a good reminder of how committed you must be, how faithfully and tenaciously you must practice something to do it consistently well. I’ve heard many accomplished musicians express some version of this sentiment when giving advice about practicing.

But in my experience as an Alexander Technique teacher, I’ve also seen a downside attached to this sentiment.

Let’s start with the upside.

Practicing with this kind of commitment can bring you deeply into the music. Spending long periods of time as you aim towards mastery, gives your brain a chance to more fully process the aural and motor components necessary to execute the music more readily.

Plus, holding yourself to higher standards is fundamental to improvement. It can fuel your path toward continued growth.

All good.

So where is the downside?

Well, let’s start with the fact that it is an impossibility.

No matter how much you practice any fine motor skill, there is no guarantee that you will never make a mistake carrying it out. Go to any concert of even the most virtuosic musicians, and, if you’re listening for it, you’ll hear what I sometimes euphemistically refer to as “unintended events” (more commonly referred to as “flaws”).

Besides, no matter how diligently you’ve prepared, no matter how hard you practice, there are things that are beyond your control: everything from weather conditions affecting your pitch, to unwanted physiologic responses, to mechanical issues with your instrument, to the unpredictability of other musicians. (I’m speaking mostly about performance as opposed to practice here.)

Perfection is a human construct. It is an ideal, not a universally quantifiable reality.

Unfortunately, the pursuit of absolute perfection tends to make many musicians frustrated, perpetually unsatisfied, and even somewhat resentful and fearful about practicing and performing.

Some of the students who seek my help are hamstrung by their impossible pursuit of perfection. They are nearly paralyzed as they play, holding themselves stiffly, their eyes intense and glaring, their breathing noisy and forced. They more closely resemble warriors than artists.

Their music-making lives are nearly devoid of any kind of love or joy. It is mostly about fear, demand and unreasonable expectation.

As they relentlessly practice the same thing over and over, day after day, they often lose touch with what they are actually doing with themselves as they pursue this tense kind of perfection.

This, unfortunately, leads to a variety of problems: chronic pain, injury, coordination issues, anxiety and more.

Another pitfall for some is that this “practice until I can’t get it wrong” work ethic can morph into a sort of mindlessness about performance and practice. It can tempt you to rely upon a mechanical and unconscious “auto pilot” to take care of everything.

This not only deprives you of the thrill of being in the moment as you play, but also, it can invite and cultivate habits of unnecessary tension (which can cause chronic pain and some of the other problems I mentioned above.)

It needn’t be this way.

A more practical and constructive saying might be something like:

Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you know it intimately.

(Yes, I know it’s not as catchy as the original, but it’s more doable. And it’s certainly more healthy.)

Knowing something intimately doesn’t mean you’re beyond making errors. It means that you can always find your way back if and when you do. You can self-correct. You can stay present. You can stay connected with your muse, your desire and the overall meaning of the music. You become responsive, inspired. In the moment.

How do you know when you know the music intimately?

It starts with your ear. Can you sing it with reasonably detailed accuracy? If you can sing it, it’s deeply wired in your brain (your ear, your imagination). If you get off track, it’s easy to quickly find your way back.

Second, make sure you are crystal clear about any technical choices that best support the music: Fingerings, voicing, articulations, breathing, dynamics. Take time and be mindful with these choices. As you sing the music, review in your mind these details of technique. Merge technique and imagination seamlessly together, and let your desires be clear and lucid in detail.

Finally (as I’ve mentioned above, as well as in several of my other articles) create your music from a place of love and desire. Love cultivates the best kind of intimacy. Aim high, remain flexible, be present and enjoy the unknown mystery and magic of playing music.

Standing And Sitting To Play Music: Two Important Mechanical Principles

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Practically without exception whenever I give a musician an Alexander Technique lesson, I witness habits of imbalance and tension in the acts of sitting and standing that sharply impact the musician’s coordination, comfort and sense of control and satisfaction.

Because they are so deeply ingrained, the sensations of these habits fall below the kinesthetic “radar” of the musician (i.e., they don’t feel “wrong” at all.) In essence, there is general lack of an accurate body awareness involved in the music making process.

This lack of awareness is usually accompanied by a misconception about how their bodies function best in gravity. This is where I usually introduce two concepts (which are actually related mechanical principles):

support, and suspension

Support

Whenever I give an Alexander Technique lesson to a new student, I ask, “What is supporting you as you stand?” I get a variety of answers:

“My feet.”

“My legs.”

“My hips and back.”

“My entire body.”

(And sometimes, after some reflection by my student, I even get, “I have no idea.”)

But the truth of the matter is that when your standing, the ground (or the floor) is supporting you. Yes, that’s right. Gravity is drawing the mass of your body downward, and the ground is accepting and holding that mass.

Now, this is an important concept to grasp, because if you’re not allowing the ground to support you, you’re most likely tensing your body unnecessarily in an unconscious attempt to hold yourself up: stiff ankles, knees, hips, back, shoulders, neck…even your jaw.

It’s important that you let your weight pass through your bones into the floor (if you’re standing) or through your sitting bones (if your sitting). Let the stable surface of the floor or chair support you.

Suspension

But you need more than support to stay upright and in balance. You need an “anti-gravitational” energy source to counter the pull of gravity. This is where suspension comes into play.

Wired inside of you is a neuromuscular response to go up against the pull of gravity. (In fact, all organisms on the face of the earth have an anti-gravitational response system; even plants rise up from the ground, defying the pull of gravity.)

The muscles in your spine, from your pelvis to the top of your neck, and the muscles in your legs, are sending you lightly, yet powerfully upward you up as you stand.

If you let them. And this is where habit comes into play.

You see, you were born with (and cultivated in your earliest days after birth) this upward tendency: your head releasing at the top of your spine, your back lengthening and widening, your legs releasing out of your pelvis extending you upward, and your feet spreading out onto the floor. All of this upward suspension is  expansive, springy, flexible and responsive by design.

Yet, many of us lose this dynamic suspension as we get older through habits of bracing and/or collapse. When we un-learn these habits, our upwardly mobile suspension system returns to functioning optimally.

Why is this important?

No matter what instrument you play, if you are perpetually out of balance, you are creating tension that interferes with the freedom and functioning of the parts most directly involved in playing your instrument.

As an example, If you’re saxophonist (as I am) and you stiffen your legs as you play, you’ll also stiffen your pelvis (in an unconscious attempt to compensate for the lack of mobility involved in balance.) If you’re stiffening your pelvis, your shoulders will stiffen for the same reasons. If you’re stiffening your shoulders, your arms (because of their structual relaitonship with your shoulders), are stiff as well. If you’re stiffening your arms, you’re interfering with the freedom in your hands.

And so on. If you doubt this at all, as an experiment, stand on a very wobbly surface as you play your instrument (an Airex pad, or Bosu ball, for example). You’ll experience the above mentioned responses of tension immediately, and will have a noticeable loss of control over your instrument.

All this doesn’t even take into account the effect this has on your breathing. Can you play well with these habits of tension and imbalance? Sure. Skilled musicians do all the time.

But you’ll play better without them. I can vouch for that, both as a teacher and as a musician.

Integrating and optimizing

Support and suspension work best as an integrated system. Here are few things to keep in mind to help you take advantage of how your bodily design functions best in gravity:

  • Begin by thinking of yourself as being light. Seriously. There is a powerful connection between how you perceive yourself and your neuromuscular responses and organization.
  • Allow your weight to release into the floor (if you’re standing; if you’re sitting, allow your weight to release directly through your sitting bones onto the surface of the chair), as you imagine your head releasing lightly upward off the top of your spine.
  • If you’re standing, let your weight pass directly through your legs and through your ankle bones and heels into the floor. Think of your legs as releasing out of you hips. As you shift toward balance, your weight might shift slightly toward your heels. Let that happen as you also allow your feet to gently spread out onto the floor. Give yourself a moment to notice the stability of the floor.
  • Allow your ankles to be free and mobile to accept the support of the floor. The same with your knees and hips. No need to lock joints . Think that you have lots of space in your joints and lots of mobility (whether you’re sitting or standing).
  • Imagine each of  your feet as a three-legged stool (heel, base of your large toe, and base of your small toe). Ask yourself if you are putting too much of your weight into any one of these legs.
  • Think of your shoulders as widening, as they release one away from the other in response to your lengthening spine.
  • Don’t try to lift, or hold yourself up. Remember, “up” is already there in your body as a response to the pull of gravity. This is true, whether sitting or standing. Imagine unlatching yourself to release upwards.
  • Remain mobile, both in thought and movement. Don’t try to maintain posture. Instead, renew the wish for this springy, light upward organization in your body

It may seem counter-intuitive, but you’re allowing the weight to pass through your body as you direct your thinking in the opposite direction. In the simples sense, your weight goes downward, but your head releases your spine upwards. Two different directions, working together to integrate support and suspension, so you can play your best!

As a final thought, keep in mind that there is a difference between being grounded (supported, suspended, mobile and free) and being planted (held, stiffened and/or collapsed and immobile). Aim for being grounded, and you’ll improve your chances of success.

The Difference Between A Good Method And A Good Teacher

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Most musicians that come to me for Alexander Technique lessons have a well-developed, highly detailed practice method that they follow. They have chosen this method deliberately, and typically follow it with an almost religious reverence.

And therein lies some of the problems that lead them to seek my help in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favor of a logical, purposeful, structured method of pedagogy based upon the principle of cause and effect (as opposed to anecdotal assertions by accomplished players that aren’t based upon repeatably measurable results).

But any method, no matter how sound, has one rather obvious limitation: It can’t respond to you. It can’t modify itself to best suit your needs.

A good teacher, on the other hand, is helpful precisely because he/she responds effectively to you.

It’s all a matter of the teacher’s sensitivity of perception and communication with you, moment to moment, week to week (and longer). How you learn, what’s helping and what’s not, what you are misunderstanding, where you need more practice (where you need less!), etc.

And most important, a good teacher can notice what you’re doing with yourself as you carry out your practice. Are you straining, stiffening, compressing? Are you creating an unnecessary struggle within yourself as you play? (This is where the skill of a well-trained Alexander Technique teacher can be of enormous benefit.)

You see, most of the musicians who come to me for help do so, in part,  because they’ve become inflexible with their method of practice. Inflexible both in the details of the method itself, and in carrying it out on a day by day basis.

At the very least, this leads to a sort of stagnation in progress, a sinking feeling that, “No matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to get past this plateau in my progress.”

At worst, this rigidity with method leads to more serious problem, such as repetitive strain injuries, chronic back/neck/shoulder pain, and even focal dystonias.

I ask my students to ponder the differences between teacher and methodology. And because they are ultimately responsible for the choices they make as they practice and study, I encourage them to ultimately think of themselves as their own teachers.

I’m not telling them to ignore the advice of their teachers. I’m just telling them that it’s easy to turn their teacher’s methods into rigid, inflexible, unresponsive practice habits. It’s up to them to be vigilant, to grow into experts on themselves and their learning process as they practice each day.

To become your own teacher is a lifelong skill. It’s something you strive to get better at. It takes lots of reflection, discipline, honesty, discernment, love, commitment and great attention to detail. (That’s the same, of course, whether you’re teaching yourself, or somebody else.)

But the main thing you need is responsiveness. You need to see which component of your practice method needs modification.

I’m very well-organized in my saxophone practice, and most definitely follow a method of learning that I’ve designed largely myself. I always have a “to do” list of particular exercises and study. Typically, this list is based upon a weekly cycle.

But a day in the week doesn’t go by when I don’t modify something from my weekly plan in my practice session. Alter a tempo, spend more time on one detail of a particular exercise, reduce or eliminate the detail of another,  sometimes throw out an exercise in its entirety. (In fact, by the end of the week, the routine I started with has morphed into something quite different.)

With each component (exercise, or detail of an exercise) of my practice routine on any given day, I’m either regressing (making it simpler and/or easier), progressing (making it more complex and/or challenging), or keeping it the same.

I make my decisions on modifying (or not modifying) the components on my routine by asking myself one simple question: “Is this helping me exactly the way it is?”

If the answer is yes, then I know to keep working on it until it needs to either be modified (progressed), or dropped, from my practice routine.

If the answer is no, then I have to ask myself, “What would I need to modify right now to make this more helpful to me”?

This is where creativity comes in. If it’s too complex and/or difficult, I need to find a constructive way to regress the exercise while still maintaining the pedagogical intention.

Regressing effort is a fundamental part of the art and science that any good teacher utilizes. The better I get with regressing effort for myself, the better I get with helping my students. And the better I get in helping my students, the more efficient (and satisfying!) my own practice continues to become.

Equally important is learning to either progress an exercise or to let it go entirely. I encounter so many musicians who are spending time needlessly on things that just don’t continue to help them improve.

So strive towards being a teacher as you practice each day. Go by principle, and follow a method. Just be observant, curious and flexible. If you do so, you’ll do nothing but improve.

A Technique To Help You Improve Your Odds

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Without a doubt, the greatest tool I possess as a musician is the Alexander Technique.

By applying the Alexander principles, I’ve been able to not only solve a very serious problem that threatened my musical career, but also, continue to find growth, improvement and insights into the challenges that I, and many other musicians encounter.

After years of studying and teaching the Technique, I continue to be amazed at how potent it is.

But the Alexander Technique isn’t a fail-proof guarantee that you’ll play better, or that you’ll solve all your musical performance problems. Instead, it’s simply a skill you can learn that significantly increases the likelihood that you’ll play better. It improves your odds, so to speak.

In essence, the Alexander Technique teaches you how to become aware of, and address, harmful and inefficient movement and postural habits. You learn to uncover many of the subconscious habits of tension that interfere with your natural coordination. You learn to replace strain with ease and efficiency.

These unconscious habits are a manifestation of how you react. The way you react, even as you start thinking about playing your instrument (or doing anything, for that matter), begins to condition the coordination involved in the playing itself.

If you react by compressing yourself in tense anticipation of playing your instrument, you’re simultaneously decreasing your odds of a successful outcome.

And yes, you still might be successful in your attempt, despite doing this (many musicians are!) But to increase your chance of a satisfactory outcome, you need to improve how you respond. This is the key to conistency for many musicians.

There are two distinct disadvantages that an overly tense habitual response brings to your music making. Both are inextricably related:

1. Mechanical disavantages-By unnecessarily stiffening muscles, compressing joints, and holding yourself perpetually out of balance as you play has a very real impact on your coordination. Often, you’re creating effort in your body that you need to overcome to do the work that is actually necessary to play your instrument.

2. Cognitive disatvantages-When you respond in a overly tense manner, you’re also bringing a kind  of  “fear/urgency” response into your efforts that interferes with your ability to think as clearly as you could. I call this the “deer in the headlights” response. Your thinking becomes muddled, hurried, rigid, and ultimately disconnected to your intentions.

These two disadvantages are so closely linked that you can often see how they go hand in hand. Watch somebody truly struggle with the fast tempo of a particular piece, and you see not only a tight neck, compressed shoulders, stiff arms and hands, but also, a knitted brow and narrowly fixed eyes that seem to broadcast desperation and strain. (Not to mention the breath holding that comes along with all this!)

None of this helps you play any better. (Am I being too obvious here?)

With the Alexander Technique you learn how to play your instrument with less effort (and with fewer counterproductive movement habits) because you learn to better control how you react as you play your instrument.

You learn to replace compression and urgency with expansion and calm alertness. You gain a clearer understanding of how you function naturally (in accordance to the design of your body), so you can say “no” to stressful, counterproductive reactions, and say “yes” to the possibility of ease, control and confidence.

You learn to better stay in the present moment with your thinking, responding effectively to whatever comes your way, instead of tensely anticipating the unknown. You increase your ability to choose your responses, and in doing so, improve your odds.

If you’d like to find out more about the Alexander Technique, visit the world’s most comprehensive website on the topic. If you live in the U.S. and would like to find a teacher in your area certified by the American Society for the Alexander Technique, take a look here. If you want to contact me personall

And maybe like me, the Alexander Technique just might become your most useful tool as a musician, too.

The Power Of Deciding

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One of the things that has become clearer to me since studying and teaching the Alexander Technique is what it really means to make a decision.

To decide is not the same thing as to plan. Many people make plans about improving something in their lives (sometimes with elaborate details) that they will never carry out.

Why? Because they didn’t take the most crucial first step before making the plan: deciding.

Decision is a matter of commitment. It’s “closing the deal” without any way to turn back. As my older brother would say, after making a tough decision, “The ball has already been thrown; nothing to do now but wait and see where it lands”.

Though this can seem scary, it’s also empowering. If you can rely upon your ability to make a decision, and stick with it, you become your most trusted ally and advocate.

There are two types of decisions: The decision to do; and the decision not to do.

When I think of the decision to do, I think of a friend and colleague of mine here in Los Angeles, Vinny Golia.

Vinny is an internationally recognized multi-woodwind improviser, composer and teacher (CalArts). He is extraordinarily prolific, having put out dozens and dozens of recordings, many of them very ambitious in their scope (large ensembles, improbable instrumentations, multi-media collaborations, etc).

Once when I was on tour with Vinny, I asked him how he manages to plunge into these seemingly impossible projects (funding them, composing all the music, organizing the musicians, recording, promoting, etc.).

His reply:

I just make a decision to do whatever it is I want to do, whatever inspires me. I never wonder if I can or can’t. I always decide first, then figure out how afterwards.

Again, decision precedes planning to make the seemingly impossible  possible. In a sense, this is the very definition of ambitiousness.

But whenever I think of the decision not to do, I always think of the Alexander Technique. 

Sticking with the decision to not do something as I carry out an activity is the cornerstone of the Alexander Technique. This has been the skill that I’ve cultivated to help me solve some rather serious problems I was facing as a saxophonist.

Whenever I give an Alexander lesson to a musician, we always come face to face with the need (and the difficulty) of  sticking to the decision of not doing.

For example, I recently started giving lessons to a violinist who begins her sound (draws her bow across the strings) by stiffening her neck, shoulders and arms, thereby noticeably interfering with her technique, tone color and intonation.

My aim with this student is to get her to play without this habitual excess tension. As you might guess, it’s not as easy (at first, anyhow) as it sounds.

Too often it turns into a bit of an internally waged war, in which the student is trying hard to stop the habitual response of tensing up, only to create a different, yet equally tense response.

 F.M. Alexander (the developer of the Alexander Technique) sums it up accurately:

When you are asked not to do something, instead of making the decision not to do it, you try to prevent yourself from doing it. But this only means that you decide to do it, and then use muscle tension to prevent yourself from doing it.

And so it was in the beginning with my violinist. Her problem, too, was that she never really made a decision to play without her habitual pattern.

Why not? Well, first, producing her sound was so tied up into the excess muscular tension that she really had no idea what it might be like to play without all that extra effort. (Part of my job is to work with my hands to guide her into a different kind of coordination as she plays.)

Second, she (like most musicians) has a very strong aversion to sounding bad, and/or being wrong. Holding on to the tension was an unconscious security blanket that made her believe that she could get her sound, no matter the physical consequences.

She’s already (after about seven lessons) doing noticeably better with all this, as she gradually changes her practice process.

Specifically, she aims at giving herself permission to draw the bow only if she doesn’t tighten her neck and shoulders first. If she feels herself  preparing to play a particular passage with her habitual tension, she simply stops.

That’s right. She doesn’t start to play. She decides to proceed into playing only when she feels confident that she has started without all the extra junk.

It’s a decision she’s made and a commitment she stays true to. Now, to be clear, this is something she works on as she practices. It’s obviously not something she has the luxury of bringing into rehearsals and performances.

But the more she does this, the weaker (and more manageable) the old pattern becomes. By giving herself permission to stop, she no longer replaces tension with tension. Instead, she replaces excessive “doing” with an easy “non-doing”. Things will only get better for her. All because of her growing skills of deciding not to do as she plays here instrument.

So if you’d like to change, to really improve the quality of your practice, you can apply this same, highly effective principle. No matter whether you’re deciding to do, or not to do, staying with a decision is an important part of your continued growth and improvement.