Category Archives: Healthy Practice Habits

Using Your Body To Play Music: Integrate Instead Of Isolate

One of the common traps that many musicians fall into is in thinking that one part of their body is almost entirely responsible for their sound: If it’s a flutist, it’s the lips. If it’s a violinist, its the hands. If it’s a singer, it’s the vocal mechanisms, and so forth. But in reality, this is never the case, and thinking about it as such can actually interfere with optimum performance.

True, if you’re a violinist, the music ultimately comes through your hands. If you aren’t using your hands well, you’re probably not going to have your best results.

But your hands are dependent upon your arms , which are dependent upon your back, which is conditioned by how you manage the relationship of your head and neck. And of course if you’re standing, your legs support your back, which supports your arms, which supports your hands.

This doesn’t even take into account how your eyes and ears influence all this.

When musicians come to me for Alexander Technique lessons, I typically see this over emphasis on one part of their body. Even before the first lesson, when we speak by phone, I often hear things like, “I’m having problems with the fingers of my right hand”, or, “I’m having jaw problems. My embouchure just seems stuck.”

And for sure, these musicians have identified the symptoms of a problem. But what they’ve really done is noticed the manifestation of a bigger problem: The coordination of their entire body is off kilter. They just haven’t realized that yet, and still think their problem is in this one, isolated part of their body.

Yet ironically, it’s this over emphasis and hyper awareness that is causing the problems. These musicians have effectively divided themselves into isolated, seemingly unrelated parts. All at the expense of excluding the whole of their bodies from the entire music making process.

In my own case it was the same thing. I took Alexander lessons because I had a serious problem with the functioning of my left hand, making playing the saxophone nearly impossible. When I came to my first lesson, my teacher listened very attentively and openly about my problem. She then begin to work with my head, neck and back.

Wait a minute! There’s nothing wrong with my head, neck and back (so I thought). The problem is with my left hand!

Well, fortunately for me, in that first lesson my teacher was able to show me (through the experience of movement) that my left hand problem was the end-result of the poorly coordinated use of my head, neck and back. As my head/neck/back relationship started to improve, the good functioning of my left hand began to return.

As the lessons continued, I grew to discover and understand how my legs, feet, eyes, hips…everything, was involved not only in how I used my left hand, but also, how I produced my sound, how I heard pitch, and even, how I imagined music and improvised.

Here’s a succinct and elegant description of this topic by Pedro de Alcantara, from his recently published book, Integrated Practice-Coordination, Rhythm and Sound:

” A violinist who plays a trill using two fingers of her left hand is, in fact, using both hands, both arms, both shoulders, and her head, neck, back and legs at the same time. If she doesn’t direct her back and legs to support her upper body, she’ll compensate unconsciously by stiffening her neck and shoulders, thereby affecting the fingers of her left hand. If she doesn’t command her right arm to bow smoothly and steadily, her left hand will lose some of its own stability. If she sways here pelvis forward and backward, she’ll hollow her lower back and shorten hers spine. Directly or indirectly, all these misuses will affect her trill.”

There’s just no getting around this truth.

So examine your own thinking about how you play your instrument (voice is an instrument, too!) Is there a connection in your thinking to all the parts, or does the “main” part live in isolation?

Whatever that “main” part is (hands, mouth, etc.) see if you can trace it back to its most immediate connection.Then trace that back to its connection, and so on. For example, if it’s your mouth, see how your lips work with respect to your jaw; then see how your jaw works with respect to your neck (and to how you balance your head on your spine); then notice how your head and neck work with respect to your back. All the way to your limbs, and even your eyes and ears.

You might find that there is some unnecessary tension in one or more of these connections. When you start letting go of these habitual tensions, you’ll indirectly improve the use of the main part, be it your lips, hands, feet…whatever.

So the aim here is to view your body as an integrated whole, not as a bunch of isolated parts. As you move toward integration of these parts into a unified whole, with a clear intention, you’ll make music in an easier, freer and more expressive way.

Think Expansively To Play Better Music

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As both a performing artist and an Alexander Technique teacher, I tend to observe the physical manifestations of a musician’s performance with one simple inquiry: “Is this person mostly expanding or mostly contracting as she or he makes music?” In essence, I’m looking for whether or not she or he is primarily gaining or losing stature while playing.

To be clear, you’re always contracting muscles to play music. You have to. And even when you’re “expanding” your stature there is still muscular contraction (along with a lot of release) going on. The real question is: What are you mostly doing with yourself as you play music?

A simple way to begin to address this question is to notice yourself in reasonably neutral, easy balance (not playing your instrument), then see what happens the instant you go play. Whether sitting or standing as you begin to play one of two things will happen: Either you “bear down” as you play, pulling yourself downwards and inwards; or you release yourself upwards and outwards. You tend toward either contraction, or expansion.

Noticing this in yourself can sometimes be difficult, as you are very used to whatever it is that you do habitually to play music. Even observing it in others can be an exercise in the observation of subtlety.

With some performers, it’s very easy to see when they pull down and contract, creating a good deal of pre-anticipated effort and strain. Perhaps you even notice this in some of your music students. (Perhaps you even notice it in yourself.)

When performers move with expansion, it often goes unnoticed. It’s as if they are really doing nothing at all, just leaving themselves alone as they play. And in reality, that’s precisely what’s happening. You see, you naturally move toward expansion if you don’t interfere and just let it happen. It’s how your neuromuscular systems is wired. You expand as you oppose the forces of gravity.

And what generally accompanies this physically expansive tendency is freely expressive, dynamic music.

The truth of the matter is that many great performers are actually going back and forth between contraction to expansion. In a sense, this mirrors the movement of breath. Inhalation and exhalation. It’s also a metaphor for artistic expression. Tension and release.

The really great performers ride this tension/release cycle from the music, and from within themselves. But mostly they default to release and expansion. That’s the baseline.

Other performers tend to default mostly toward tension and contraction. That’s their baseline. Usually (but certainly not always) this manifests itself as over-efforted, sometimes awkward and inconsistent musical expression.

So notice what you do with yourself as you play. Do you mostly expand or mostly contract? Here are some guidelines to consider in the form of questions you can ask yourself:

Am I pulling myself downward and inward as I begin to play? If you are, just think about releasing upward and outward instead. As counterintuitive as this might seem, it makes perfect physiological sense. A boxer, for example, knows that the power of the punch comes from the whole body expanding upward and outward, creating greater leverage and velocity.

What am I doing with my head and neck? Again, are you stiffening your neck and pulling your head downward, or leaving your neck alone and letting your head release upward? When you stiffen your neck you begin to interfere with the entire process of expansion.

What am I doing with my shoulders? Are you picking them up toward your ears, or are you leaving them alone? Are you letting your arms release away from your body? Letting your hands release from your back and arms?

What am I doing with my lower back? Are you arching or otherwise straining your back as you begin to play? Let your back and pelvis stay neutral.

What am I doing in my legs and feet? Are you locking your knees by throwing them backward? If so, let yourself release your knees as your weight moves slightly back toward your heels. Let your feet expand onto the floor (Don’t curl your toes!)

How is my breathing? Are you gasping noisily to inhale? If you are, see if you can notice how this affects your entire stature (contraction or expansion?) Keeping your breathing easy and quiet can work wonders for maintaining your stature, ease and balance.

Watch this video of the great violinist, Jascha Heifetz, as he plays Hungarian Dance #7 by Brahms. What’s noteworthy here is what he is not doing: He’s not pulling his head down. He’s not narrowing his shoulders. He’s not pulling his arms in toward his body (notice how free his arms and hands are!) And so forth. What you see instead is expansive, expressive easy music making. He is clearly working in cooperation with his physical design. Enjoy!

Master The Art Of Stopping To Improve How You Practice

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Recently a talented young violinist came to me for Alexander Technique lessons because he couldn’t play for more than about 10 minutes at a stretch without feeling significant amounts of pain and tension, particularly in his left shoulder area.

After listening to him talk about how he approaches practice, then observing his overall habits of movement and balance, I finally asked him to play so that I could take a look at what he was doing.

What I saw was no surprise to me based on what I’d already observed: A huge amount of preconceived tension that was not at all necessary to the act of playing the violin. In essence, his playing mirrored his general attitude and use of himself, being somewhat rigid and effortful, aiming for a narrow conception of perfection. He almost wouldn’t let himself move at all as he played, pulling downward as he “planted” himself.

His thinking (and therefore his energy) was being misdirected. Add to all this his rather inaccurate body map, specifically, misunderstanding how his arms worked in relation to the rest of his body.

He was a terrific student, bright, disciplined and motivated, and it wasn’t long before I was able to help him to play his instrument and otherwise move more easily. Each week he would report being able to play for longer and longer periods with no pain or exhaustion.

But the cornerstone of his improvement wasn’t improving his body map, or re-learning his balance and coordination, or even changing his erroneous preconceived ideas about playing the violin (just to be clear, he needed all these things if he were to improve, and all are VERY important). The most essential skill he learned was how to stop during his practice sessions.

I spent about 10 or 15 minutes during each one of his lessons just watching him practice. I wanted to see exactly how he practiced. What I noticed was that he rarely if ever stopped during an exercise, no matter what. I would see him flinch as he made mistakes, or as his intonation went awry, but that’s about it.

So we worked on getting him to stop more and play less during his practice sessions. We followed this rule: You stop the moment you notice yourself creating any unnecessary tension (going into your habit) or you stop because you don’t like something about your performance (intonation, wrong note, rhythm, articulation, etc.).

It took some persistence (from both him and me), but he went from stopping maybe once in a 10 minute period to stopping 20 0r 30 times. Each time he stopped, he gave himself a chance to notice what he was doing, prevent himself from doing the wrong thing (habitual, misdirected tension) and redirect his thinking in a more accurate and constructive way.

In essence, he learned the art of stopping. And he learned that every time he stopped and gave himself a chance to notice, prevent and redirect, that two things happened simultaneously: He weakened his habits of tension as he strengthened his new habits of ease and balance.

Each week I literally see improvements, not only in how he uses himself as he plays, but also, his musicianship: His intonation, flexibility with time, interpretation, dynamic range and more, all improving regularly. He can now play for very long periods without pain or exhaustion.

So learn the art of stopping. It is probably one skill that musicians neglect the most. Without stopping in a strategic way, you run the risk of doing the same thing the same way over and over again without any real chance of improvement.

Here are some guidelines to follow to help you cultivate your stopping skills:

Devote some time everyday to paying attention to yourself and stopping when something isn’t quite right. You can either notice things kinesthetically (“I’m starting to tighten my neck and raise my shoulder as I play.”), or aurally (“I’m beginning to rush.” or, “I’m playing this note sharp.”) Once you notice something that’s not quite right, simply stop playing and observe yourself. Then redirect your thinking toward ease, balance and expansion.
Notice how you react when you make mistakes. What do you do when you know you’ve made a mistake? Do you tense up? Where do your eyes go? What happens to your breathing? Does how you react help or hurt your performance? Learning how to make mistakes “without flinching” is an essential skill (especially for the professional musician!) If you can learn to make mistakes “graciously” during practice, you’ll take that skill right into performance.
Give yourself a chance to think. Once you’ve stopped, wait. I mean really wait. Make stopping, noticing, preventing and redirecting be your primary objective. As the great classical trumpeter, Rafael Mendez said about practice, “I used to practice 8 hours a day. Nowadays I only practice 3 hours every day, but I really listen to myself.”
Shift your thinking from the mechanical to the conscious. If you learn to stop more as you practice observing, preventing and redirecting, you can continue to strengthen the neuromuscular connections that lead to consistent performance. Forget “muscle memory”. Think about improving the connections between your brain and the rest of your body.

As I continue to progress as a musician, I find myself playing less and thinking more during practice sessions. This has served me very well, and I think it can help you, too.

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.