Category Archives: Healthy Practice Habits

Improve The Quality Of Your Playing By Asking Yourself This Question

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!

Want Less Tension As You Play? Think About Your Space

Want To Improve Your Technical Facility? Pay Attention To Your Sound

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I’m having a week teaching where many of my Alexander Technique students are (purely coincidentally) discovering the same truth about their technical facility. It’s a a truth that is rather surprising to them. Let me illustrate with a short story:

One of my students, a fine cellist, was in his lesson with me noticing the lack of evenness and rhythmic clarity in a particular musical passage he was playing. (Specifically, he was rushing some notes in the passage.)

As my student and I began to explore this further (he, too, could hear the rhythmic imbalance in the passage), I asked him to stop the moment the sound of any given note in the passage was less than the quality he wanted. (I had him slow the tempo a bit to make this exploration.)

He stopped each time he didn’t like his sound on any given note in the passage. This was somewhat new and surprising for him, as he said he wasn’t paying such careful attention to his sound as he played the passage.

What we found was that many of the notes he didn’t like were notes bowed on the upstroke. I had him repeat each of these notes several times, going from downstroke to upstroke.

What became immediately apparent was the difference in color between the two strokes. (Now, for sure there is naturally a color difference between bow strokes, but his was more than necessary or desirable.) The reason he could so easily hear the difference is that he normally plays with a more homogeneous color between bow strokes.

So we had to ask this question: What are you doing differently with your entire self as you change bow direction on this particular passage. What are you adding in terms of tension and doing that you don’t need to do?

We found that he was mostly bowing from a narrowing shoulder (mostly contracting) on the up stroke in this passage, as opposed to bowing from a widening back (mostly expanding), which he was doing on his downstroke. It was fairly easy for him to redirect himself (he’s a good Alexander student!) and to not worsen the conditions of how he was using himself from up to down bowing.

He was then able to keep a beautiful evenness in his tone color.

Suddenly, as if by magic, as he brought this into the context of the passage he was playing, his rhythmic troubles disappeared. He was soon able to play the passage with great facility, speed, clarity and expression. He could really hear his sound as he played.

As I mentioned above, this seems to be the week that many of my students are learning this same lesson, whether on guitar, saxophone, trumpet, drums, or cello. It’s actually a lesson about cause and effect: Technical problems are often rhythmic problems. Rhythmic problems are often sound production problems. Sound production problems are often problems of unnecessary tension. Unnecessary tension is caused by unhelpful thinking.

(Last week I wrote an article specifically about maintaing the ideal conditions in yourself to play your best. Give it a read after you finish this article.)

Often when musicians are struggling with a technical passage, they sort of lose connection with their sound. They get very interested in the parts of themselves they think are responsible for playing the passage. For my cellist, it was placing far too much attention in his left hand, at the expense of dividing his attention and cutting of his capacity to really hear his sound.

There is one simple truth about the great virtuosi: every single note they play is sonically gorgeous. Every note. Not only does this make beautiful music, it also makes for greater technical facility.

So if you’d like to improve your technique, make paying attention to your sound the lens that you judge the quality of your work. Sounds simple enough, I know.

Here is a way to proceed as you practice in this manner:

Don’t approximate-Give yourself a chance to really hear each passage clearly, note by note. This means playing very slowly, with the metronome.

Listen and stop-The moment you hear any note out of color, any note less than as beautiful as you know you can make, stop and see if you can understand why it is less than ideal. Are you tensing somewhere? Are you being less than accurate with finger placement, embouchure control, air stream, bow energy (or any other element relevant to your instrument). Give yourself a chance to discern what you are doing differently with yourself to interfere with the sound, then make a conscious choice not to do that.

Stop and listen-Once you’ve noticed your less than optimal sound, stop and play this note by itself a few times, sustaining it, to really get back in touch with the quality you want. See if you can use your thinking to bring you back to that ideal state of conditions to produce the sound you know you can get.

Work your way forward-Define the length of the technical passage that’s presenting the challenge. Let’s say it’s about 12 notes long. Play from the first note until you run into any notes whose color you don’t like. Play the passage up to that note and sustain that note, again, going back to your good conditions to produce your best sound. Continue this until you can successfully make it through the entire passage with beautiful, clearly intended and executed sound.

Enjoy your new rhythmic clarity and technical control-You’ll be consistently pleased with the results if you follow this procedure.

To sum up, stay connected to the sound you hear on each note, discern what you are doing if your sound is less than what you know you’re capable of, then trace that back to how you’re thinking. Because above all, it is your thinking that conditions everything else in your playing.

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.

An Important Thing To Keep In Mind When Changing Your Habits

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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.