Category Archives: Alexander Technique and Music

Artistic Expression And Physical Gesture

This morning I read an excellent blog article by Gerald Klickstein (author of The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness) about a skill that musicians too often neglect: “the ability to sense musical gestures before performing them.” He calls this ability, appropriately enough, “feeling ahead.”

Near the beginning of the article Mr. Klickstein offers this quote by violinist and teacher, Ivan Galamian:

“The mind always has to anticipate the physical action that is to be taken and then to send the command for its execution.”

F.M. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technique) would probably describe this phenomenon as conscious direction. Specifically, that your thoughts shape and anticipate your actions. To play music well, your direction has to be clear and always present.

Without this kind of direction, your risk serious inconsistencies in your performances. To paraphrase from Mr. Klickstein,”You must be able to perceive each musical expression as a physical sensation before you play it.”

I couldn’t agree more. And I’d add that as you progress as a musician, that your ability to “feel ahead” improves as well. Specifically, your anticipation of gesture changes.

But there’s a possible down side to this: What if the physical sensations you are imagining before you play a phrase or idea are habitually tense, and actually counterproductive to the process of playing the phrase or idea? Is it possible that your conscious direction is inaccurate? That your “thinking ahead” is sometimes causing you more trouble than you might be aware of?

Whether you like it or not, nearly all your musical gestures are tied into your habits. So to reframe what Ivan Galamian said above, your mind will anticipate the physical action that is to be taken and then send the command for its execution, for better or for worse.

Because of this, it’s a good idea for you to make a lifelong study of your habits and gestures as they pertain to making music. To do this you must learn to discern what you’re actually doing (as opposed to what you think you’re doing) and place it into context within the following questions:

Does all the tension I create in myself as I play support my musical aims (acoustically, artistically,expressively or otherwise)?
When I make music, am I using myself in such a way that is in accordance with my physical structure, and how my physical structure works in relation to gravity?
Are my movements and gestures spontaneous or are they habitual?

Some of your habitual tension is not at all necessary to good music making. But because it is, well, habitual, it probably doesn’t feel wrong to you. This is where careful self-observation (and a good Alexander Technique teacher!) can help tremendously.

Alexander described the phenomenon of responding with gestures that are counterproductive to the desired intention as end-gaining. When you end-gain, you are following the stereotyped response patterns that are ingrained and perpetuated by your habits.

It’s interesting for me to watch videos of musicians performing on YouTube. Sometimes I’ll watch only the video, with the sound muted, 6 or 7 times before I actually listen to the performance.

I do this as a study of movement as it relates to expression. As I watch I start seeing certain “gestures of expression” over and over with some artists. Usually I can categorize these into 4 or 5 specific patterns of unnecessary tension.

When I turn the sound up what I typically see is that each physical gesture by the performer precedes (by only a split second) each actual artistic expression. It’s as if the performer’s physical gestures are dictating (or at least greatly limiting) the expression.

I rarely see this with great musicians. With the greats, I usually notice the opposite: the gesture seems to follow the expression.

So notice what you do as you perform. Are your performance gestures the same in practice as in concert performance? In a recording session? Are your gestures spontaneous?

Always remember that you have choices, and that when you give yourself true choices, you can (to quote Mr. Klickstein once more) let your “imagination run free.”

The Best Saxophone Lesson I’ve Ever Taken

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This probably sounds crazy, but the best saxophone lesson I’ve ever taken was from somebody who didn’t even play the instrument. It was given to me by Frances Marsden, my first Alexander Technique teacher. How is it possible (you might ask) that somebody who knows nothing about playing the saxophone could help me become a better saxophone player?

Ironically enough, it is precisely because Frances knew nothing about playing the saxophone that she was able to help me so much. She did something very simple, but immediately practical: She observed what I was doing as I played, then asked questions about it.

She would ask, for example, “Is it necessary for you to tense and raise your left shoulder as you play?” I would stop for a moment and think, then reply, “No, it’s not at all necessary. It doesn’t help my sound or my fingering technique.” She would continue, “Let’s see what would happen if you don’t do that.” And of course, I found that if I didn’t do that, I would play better.

We went on and on like this. She, rather innocently asking questions and I, stopping to observe and reconsider my technique. You see, Frances didn’t know what was necessary to produce sound or create technique with the saxophone. She was just observing the tension I was creating as I played, and asking me if it was necessary. Sometimes it was, but more often than not it wasn’t.

She became fascinated by the whole process as well. With a childlike curiosity, she would observe and ask based upon a genuine desire to understand what was involved in playing the saxophone. She acted as a sort of a mirror for me: I was able to change many of the habits of unnecessary tension I was bringing into my saxophone playing.

By the time I’d take this remarkable “saxophone” lesson, I’d already taken about 10 Alexander lessons from Frances. I came to her because of some serious coordination issues I was having at that time that forced me to take time off from professional performance. In the first lessons we didn’t even look at how I was playing the saxophone. Instead we dealt with my general coordination: How I sat, stood, used my arms, maintained balance, breathed, walked, etc.

It was in these first lessons that I gained a much clearer understanding and kinesthetic sense of how my habits of tension were manifesting themselves. This was a good strategy, because had we started right in on the saxophone, I would have been so emotionally tied up into my own playing (and my beliefs about playing!) that I wouldn’t have been able to be truly open to seeing what my habits were.

But after significantly refining my skills of self-observation through my lessons (and making noticeable improvements in my overall coordination and balance), Frances thought it was time we addressed the saxophone directly.

Now, mind you, my saxophone playing was already beginning to improve quite measurably just from improving my overall coordination. I was finding a great deal more ease, consistency, and most important: optimism.

This is no small point. You see, many “saxophone specific” problems are really just problems of balance and coordination. Improve your balance and coordination, and indirectly, you improve your saxophone playing.

Here’s what I learned in that Alexander/saxophone lesson about my saxophone playing habits:

I tighten my neck as I jut my face forward (especially when playing altissimo)
I tighten across my chest as I lift my left shoulder up towards my ears
I pull my right shoulder downward toward the left side of my pelvis, and pull the left side of my pelvis upward toward my right shoulder
I hyperextend my right leg, throwing my knee backwards into a “lock”.
I throw my head back as I open my mouth, gasping noisily as I inhale
I over-extend my left wrist (bending it backwards), especially as I play up in the palm keys.

If you saw me, I probably looked like many saxophone players do. Most of the above habits are so subtle, that many saxophonists and saxophone teachers would never notice them. (Frances couldn’t immediately see some of them , but she could easily feel them with her hands!) Many saxophonists get desensitized to noticing the habitual patterns of unnecessary tension that many (even great) saxophonists have.

For this reason, it’s helpful to have a fresh set of eyes. Somebody who might not know the saxophone, but knows very well the workings of the human organism.

After having that remarkable lesson, I was able to develop a wonderfully useful strategy for improvement: Simply stop carrying out some of these habits. To be honest, that takes a considerable conviction, persistence and strategy, not to mention the investment of time. (But the rewards are so consistent, that it is easily worth it.)

To make a very long story short, I’ve since been able to rid myself of theses problems and am not only playing professionally again, but I’m also playing better than ever before. It all begins with changing your beliefs about what it takes to play, and then cultivating an ability to observe and to ask the right questions. That’s where the help of a good teacher comes into play.

Speak To Yourself Gently

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When I meet with a student for the first time, I’m observing as much as I possibly can, trying to get as much information about the student as possible. I’m watching movement habits, breathing, balance and posture, amongst other things.

Everything I’m looking at is giving me clues about my student’s thinking. Because I can’t help until I gain at least a cursory glimpse into how my student thinks.

And of course I’m also listening quite mindfully so that I can gain even more insight into my student’s thinking process. One of the first things I often notice with some students is how harshly they speak to themselves.

I hear things like:

“My posture is terrible!”

“I’m a complete hopeless klutz.”

Or if it’s a musician, “My intonation sucks!”, or “My jazz playing is feeble.”

Such harsh words! If I said to students in the first lesson, “You’re a complete hopeless klutz” or, “Your jazz playing is feeble”, I’d probably never see them again. They might walk away thinking, “What a jerk!” And even if they did continue to take lessons from me, they would most likely be in a constant state of fear during their lessons. Not a good environment for learning.

Yet these same people create this negative learning environment for themselves within the realm of their own thoughts.

So part of my job is to get my students to notice how they’re talking to themselves. I tell them that there are two problems with speaking to themselves in such a negative way:

First (as I’ve stated above), this creates a feeling of fear, and fear is not helpful to learn such a subtle thing as music (or the Alexander Technique). Second, this kind of language provides no useful information. Words like good, bad, fantastic, terrible, hopeless or awesome, really don’t give much more than a subjective impression of a situation or a thing. This is the language of judgment.

This is not the same thing as discerning objectively what the situation or thing really is. Discernment provides useful information.

So part of what I teach my students is to differentiate between judgment and discernment.

When I hear something like, “My posture is terrible”, I start asking questions. My first question is, “What is terrible about it?” Often my student replies with more judgment answers. But I just keep on with this line of questioning until my student begins to find tangible, objective information about his or herself.

Eventually, I’ll start hearing things like, “I lock my knees by throwing them backwards.” Or, “I stiffen my neck as pinch my shoulders together.” This language has no immediate qualitative judgment. No “good-bad” type words. It has instead words like “lock” or “stiffen” or “throw backwards” or “pinch” to describe more accurately what the student is actually doing. Now we have useful information. We know specifically what needs to be addressed.

As the lessons progress, I begin to hear a shift in the self talk. As the student learns to discern objectively, he or she starts making lasting improvements. Lasting because there has been a shift in the thinking process.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with judgment. In fact, we need it. Once we discern what something actually is, we can then assign it a quality. We can judge it. If it’s good we can keep it. If it’s bad we can throw it away. But we must first learn what that thing is. We must discern.

I remember reading in one of F.M. Alexander’s books about direction. In Alexander lingo, direction can be thought of as the quality of your thinking as it pertains to and influences your movement and postural habits.

As Alexander discovered, how you think has a huge impact on how you move, maintain balance, breathe, perform, or otherwise react. If your direction is downward, tense or unclear, you’re not going to move very well. If your direction is upward, clear, expansive and easy, you’ll be fine.

When directing, Alexander thought it a good idea to “speak gently” to ourselves, to “ask” for release, ease and expansive movement. No matter what you do, or are endeavoring to do, give yourself respect always, be kind to yourself, and take comfort in this fact: If you can discern, you can improve.

A Simple Tip To Help You Improve Your Habits As You Practice

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I’ve recently had the pleasure of teaching the Alexander Technique to a marvelous young professional bassoonist here in the Los Angeles area. In general, musicians pick up on the principles of the Technique fairly quickly, as most have a well-developed capacity to pay attention (not to mention tenacity).

But this young woman (I’ll call her Christi) was a standout. She was attending a six-week course on the Alexander Technique that I teach regularly in the community through the YMCA. Each week she came to class I was easily able to discern significant improvements in how she was using herself as she played her instrument. I would say, “It appears you’ve been thinking about this.” She’d reply, “Yes, quite regularly.”

In our last class session, after commenting in front of the class how significantly she had been able to change her habits in such a relatively short period of time, Christi shared a real gem of a tip with the the rest of the class.: Use sticky notes.

When she practices, she posts one or two simple reminders at the base of her music stand:

“Don’t pull your face forward.”

“Don’t arch your back.”

“Don’t take a noisy breath.”

“Don’t pull your left arm in toward your ribs.”

And so forth…Notice that all her reminders are to stop doing something. To stop the habitual response patterns of tension that interfere with her ability to play at her best.

She told me she got the idea from one of her bassoon mentors. There are two rules: First, she has to stop and consider whatever she has posted on her music stand before she begins or resumes playing. Every time. Second, she must limit herself to no more than two sticky note posts at any one time. (I might even suggest just one sticky note reminder.)

This gives her a chance to work against her habit each time she practices. Rather than addressing every habit she’d like to change all at the same time (which is not only overwhelming, but ineffective as well), she just goes after one or two things at a time and keeps at it until it comes under control. Easily manageable, lasting changes. Simple. Effective. Brilliant.

Not only is this a technique you can specifically use as you practice, but also, you can think of this as metaphor for effectively changing your habits: Keep it simple (one or two things at a time). Be persistent (every time you stop yourself from doing your habit, you weaken it). If you follow this model you’ll find a practical way to address any habit that is not serving you well.

Habits And Making Music

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In playing any musical instrument there are certain undeniable principles that need to be recognized. When you use your instrument to make sound, what you are creating is a phenomenon in nature called vibration.

To create vibration you must set something into motion. If it is a brass instrument, you have to vibrate your lips. If it’s a reed instrument you have to set the reed in motion against the mouthpiece. If it is a string instrument, you have to set a string into vibration either by plucking it or by bringing tension to it via the hairs on a bow…and so forth and so on.

In other words, when you make a sound, you are directing your energy to interface with an instrument to create vibration. If you keep this in mind, you will be able to understand more clearly your role in making music, and how your habits either help or hinder this process.

You can think of your habits as the total manner of how you react to the thought of making music. That’s right, the thought. Because as soon as you think about playing, your body is already setting up the habits you’ve developed from practicing and performing music.

Your breathing changes. The muscular tension in your body changes. You use your eyes in a certain way, etc. In short, your thinking sets up your habitual patterns, for better or worse.

Now, you certainly need your habits. You couldn’t function in life if you had to re-learn every experience over and over. But as a musician, is it possible that some of the habits you’ve acquired are causing more difficulty than benefit?

If you keep in mind how you interface with your instrument to create vibration, and become aware of many of the things you do habitually to create this vibration, you might want to ask yourself the following question: “Am I playing well because of what I do, or despite what I do?”

Because of, or despite…that is the question. If you take note of what you do to make sound, you can use this question as a lens through which you can evaluate your playing habits.

If you notice yourself tightening your legs, or raising your shoulders, or noisily gasping in air before you play a phrase (even if you aren’t a wind instrumentalist or singer!), or a host of other patterns of contraction, ask yourself this question: “How is this helping me to create vibration in my instrument?”

If you can’t answer this question, then there is a good chance that not only is your habit not helping you; it’s probably holding you back.

It has been said that the greatest hindrance to our own improvement is our success thus far. Nowhere is this truer than for musicians. As musicians, we’re often ready and willing to suffer a certain amount of pain and discomfort to get the results we want, never for a moment questioning whether or not this discomfort is actually making it more difficult to obtain the desired results.

Because I’m primarily and improvising musician, I tend to more readily notice the postural and movement habits of some of the great jazz musicians. Somebody like Art Blakey, who was always easily upright and free when he played, makes me think, “It’s no surprise that his sound and time are so good…he’s playing in such an easily efficient manner.”

On the other hand, when I watch somebody like Sonny Rollins play, with his head thrown way forward and his legs thrown way back and his raised shoulders I say to myself, “He’s playing really well despite what he’s doing.”

And that’s the truth. Some musicians play very well despite their harmful habits. But it begs this question: could they be playing even better if they didn’t have these habits? With the greats, no one can ever do more than speculate about this. And for many musicians who are at least moderately successful, “Why fix something if it ain’t broke”? “If I’m doing well already, why should I change?”

Well, you should want to change because you wish to grow. You know that even though you’re playing well, you can always play better. If you’re interested in trying different instruments and different equipment in your quest for improvement, why not consider your primary instrument: You. That’s right you are the primary instrument, no matter what instrument you play. It is what you do that makes the music happen.

If you observe many of the classical virtuosi, you’ll often find a set of habits that really do support their outstanding performance. Somebody like the great pianist Artur Rubenstein, who always appeared to play with such ease, really did play with ease. To many of the great musicians in the world, playing music is easy. And so it should be.

If you experience strain and discomfort when you play, there is a good chance that you are creating unnecessary tension in making the music happen. If you experience inconsistency in your practice and performance, there is a good chance that it is because of your unconscious habits that are interfering with easy music making. If you practice and practice with no noticeable improvement, it is probably because of your habits. The list goes on. Making music can be easy and enjoyable.

The Alexander Technique is the best way I know of dealing with this issue. With the Technique you can learn how to become aware of and prevent the harmful habits that you bring to making music.

The Technique becomes a standard through which you can judge the accuracy of your answers to the question, “Am I able to make music because of this, or despite this?” Then you have a choice as you become aware of your habits. You can decide for yourself whether or not they’re helping you.

In my own case, I’m not exaggerating when I say that the Alexander Technique saved my musical career. With the Alexander Technique not only am I pain free and technically more facile and precise, but also, my musical expression is deeper and more personal than ever before.

Years after studying and now teaching the Technique, I believe it to be the most important thing a musician can do to insure growth, improvement, health and satisfaction. I invite you to consider it.