Some years back, after I’d been studying the[ for a couple of years, a friend of mine, George McMullen (a highly accomplished trombonist), came to hear me play saxophone at a concert in West Los Angeles. He hadn’t heard me play in quite a while (since before I started studying the Alexander Technique).

After the concert ended, George came to talk to me and said, “You’re sounding great, but very different from the last time I heard you play. What are you doing differently?”

I remember answering him, spontaneously and without hesitation, “The real difference in my playing is not because of what I’m doing. It’s because of what I’m not doing.”

And that’s about as truthful as I could be. You see, what I wasn’t doing anymore was playing with all my old habits of tension: I wasn’t tightening my neck as I pulled my head back and down into my shoulders. I wasn’t tightening my left shoulder as I pulled my arms in toward my rib cage. I wasn’t thrusting my pelvis forward. I wasn’t locking my knees. I wasn’t clenching my jaw to produce my sound.

I was playing well, playing better than before, because of the sum total of what I wasn’t doing. F.M. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technique) said, “If you can stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing will do itself.” This turns out to be especially true in the act of playing music.

By playing my saxophone without my habits of tension, I become free to play in such a way that is in concert with my human design. I Become free to direct my energies most efficiently toward the act of producing a sound, and otherwise playing my instrument. And the results, as my friend could hear, are palpable.

And as I continue to teach the Alexander Technique I’m rewarded with seeing remarkable improvements in musicians as they learn the art of non-doing. Practically any musician, on any instrument (including voice) can improve how they perform by following this principle.

An example that comes to mind most recently is my experience teaching a young violist who plays in the local youth symphony. He came to me (as do an alarmingly growing number of young musicians) because of chronic tension and pain. His condition was worsening to the point that he couldn’t practice more than a few minutes without experiencing rather significant pain and muscular exhaustion.

As I observed his playing in our first lesson, I could see the manifestations of the tension that was causing his problems: stiff neck with his head pulled forcefully downward onto his instrument; left shoulder being pulled tightly upward and inward (impinging the muscles at the shoulder joint); breath being held; torso being twisted and held rigidly too far back; knees locked as his legs stiffened.

Though these are different things to observe, they’re all really part of one entire pattern of tension that is brought about by my student’s reaction to the thought of playing his instrument.

So I proceeded to help him the same way I helped myself (through the principles of the Alexander Technique). I helped him to become aware of all the unnecessary “doing” he was bringing into his playing (tension!), then I taught him how to change his thinking so he could stop doing so much (playing without so much tension and misdirected effort).

This is a process that takes persistence and time to make lasting changes. (But lasting changes are made!) He has to keep coming back to his tendency to go into his habit of tension, then make a conscious decision to not indulge in his habit as he proceeds to play his instrument. Simple in principle, but not always immediately easy to carry out. Again, persistence and time.

It’s been a few months since I started working with this student, and already things are much better for him. No more shoulder pain. No more neck pain. No more exhaustion. And what makes it all even better, is that his sound, intonation, technique and even his artistic expression have all noticeably improved.

So at our last lesson, in which my student was playing particularly well (easily, expressively, joyfully), I asked him if he could tell me what is different about how he was playing now in contrast to how he played before taking lessons with me. He, too, without hesitation answered with a list of things he wasn’t doing anymore: “I’m not scrunching my neck; I’m not pinching my left shoulder; I’m not twisting my body downward; I’m not locking my knees…” And so on.

He (like I was/am in my Alexander learning process), was very clear about why he improved, and that improvement had a great deal to do with non-doing. When he stops doing the wrong thing, beautiful, expressive, easy music is free to come forth.

And that’s the way it always is with musicians (and non-musicians) who study the Alexander Technique. They become very clear at why they are improving, at what they’re not doing anymore.

So if you notice yourself playing with great effort, notice yourself stiffening up as you play, feel blocked expressively, feel unstable as you make music, or lack confidence in your playing, consider the idea of non-doing. Notice what kinds of tension you begin to create in yourself as you go to play, and simply ask yourself if it helps you play better, or interferes with your playing.

Understand that all the the necessary skills to play your instrument well are already there, waiting latently. All you have to do is stop doing the things that interfere with this skill.

Of course, you can be greatly helped with this by a skilled Alexander Technique teacher. Consider taking a series of lessons from a qualified teacher. Allow yourself to discover the value of non-doing, and experience the possibility of positive change.

“There is no such thing as a right position, but there is such a thing as a right direction.”

F.M. Alexander

One of the traps that many thoughtful musicians can fall into is that of trying to recreate physically what it looks like to play efficiently. They see a musician perform who is playing with what appears to be “effortless efficiency”, and they aspire to imitate that musician’s physical gestures: postures, hand and arm positions, placement of the facial muscles, placement of the fingers on the instrument, etc. But what they are doing, in essence, is confusing cause and effect.

They’re looking for the “right positions”, as Alexander mentions above.  Keep in mind that the thing that always precedes physical expression, is thought. Alexander described the thinking that precedes and maintains an activity as being an individual’s direction.

So what you’re really seeing when watching a masterful, effortless musician perform is that musician’s direction. You’re witnessing the physical manifestations of his or her thinking during the music making process.

Much of this is a result of good training for sure, but it is also a reflection of the attitude of the musician. Anticipated effort brings forth effort.  Anticipated ease invites ease (and confidence!) This anticipated ease usually has certain identifiable gestures, many of which appear as a sort of efficient stillness: No excessive jaw movement, no fingers flying all over the place, no raised shoulders, and so on.

But if you go directly for trying to look this way without examining the thinking that supports it,  you run this very serious risk: Creating excessive effort in an attempt to appear effortless. (Yes, I did mean to say it that way.)

If you’re a saxophonist, for example, and were to watch many of the great technical masters of the instrument, from Charlie Parker, to Michael Brecker, to Marcel Mule play, you’ll notice that their fingers appear to hardly move at all from the keys (in fact their entire bodies seem to hardly move as they play). So you might say, “Aha, to get that great kind of speed and control I need to keep my fingers close to pearls.”

But what often results from trying to keep the fingers “close to the pearls” is a huge amount of tension and unnatural playing gesture. When saxophonists go after this directly, I often see them holding their fingers into place at the expense of tightening their necks, arms, wrists and backs. (These are sometimes the musicians who come to me for help because of the “mysterious” physical pain they are experiencing from playing their instrument.)

When you see really efficient, effortless saxophonists play, you’re seeing an interdependent chain of gestures that are the result of a clear and helpful thought process. There is no holding of anything in place. Just letting things move the way they need to move to support the best results. Lengthening and widening (through release) of their physical structure as they play. Good direction.

So of course the fingers aren’t flying all over the place. That would be inefficient, tense movement. Of course you won’t see the shoulders tightening up around the neck. That, too, would be tense and inefficient movement. (Not exactly lengthening and widening of the physical structure, if you know what I mean.)

If you were to trace this chain of events it might be something like this: Fingers staying relatively still and connected to the keys because the hands are staying soft ,supple and responsive; because the hands are being supported by arms that are freely balanced and releasing out of the back; because the neck is remaining free and mobile allowing the head to balance on the spine.

Fingers, to arms, to back, to head and neck…all determined by the quality of thought that precedes and supports it. Again, good direction is the cause. The effect are the physical gestures. (And do you notice that these gestures primarily involve release and mobility, not tension and position?)

There is a stark difference in quality between dynamic, efficient stillness, and stiff, self-conscious and limiting control of movement. No matter if they appear the same at first glance.

So if you want to play like the masters, don’t try to look like they do. Don’t go after their gestures directly. Instead, emulate how they think (their direction): ease, efficiency, expansion, mobility, balance, lightness, confidence and joy. Get clearer about your habits of tension, and work toward lessening them. Get to know what helps you and what doesn’t.

By better understanding the relationship between thought and gesture, you better understand the kind of cause and effect relationship that leads to continuous improvement.