Tag Archives: Practicing Music

The Serendipitous Gifts of Studying the Alexander Technique

The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

–Serendipity (as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language)

It was my frightening and frustrating struggle as a saxophonist with focal dystonia (a neurologically based movement disorder that impairs coordination) that brought me to the Alexander Technique.

As I began to do more research on my condition, it became evident to me that, even though my focal dystonia symptoms were experienced through my muscles, they only ever surfaced whenever I began to prepare to play saxophone (more precisely, the moment I began to think about playing).

In the simplest sense, it was my reaction to the thought of playing saxophone that was triggering my focal dystonia symptoms.

After doing a good amount of research about the Alexander Technique as it applied to musical performance (and considerable amount of reading about the neuroscience of learning and unlearning), one key truth stood out to me that prompted me to seek out a certified Alexander teacher: Thought precedes and conditions reaction.

“So”, I said to myself, “if I can learn to think and react in a different, more constructive way when I play saxophone, I’ll have the best chance at improving my focal dystonia symptoms.”

I’m happy to say that this has proven to be true.

Resoundingly so.

And in the process of applying the Alexander Technique in addressing my focal dystonia symptoms, I became absolutely intrigued by the efficacy and possibilities of the work.

So much so that I decided to commit to the 3-year training program to become certified to teach this work.

The Alexander Technique continues to be my most effective tool in helping both my clients (mostly professional and serious student musicians) and myself as a musician.

If you’re not familiar with the Alexander Technique, it’s a practical set of principles you use to become aware of the (often) unconscious habits of misdirected effort (things that take you out of your optimal coordination) that you bring into your activities (like playing music!). By studying and applying the Technique, you learn to prevent or lessen these unwanted habits by changing your thinking, bringing yourself back to your natural, optimal coordination.

It’s about learning to respond to things in a more conscious and constructive way, instead of reacting habitually (and sometimes harmfully).

Lots of musicians who regularly take Alexander lessons rave about how the Technique makes playing feel easier, more natural, and with far less tension/effort than they’ve ever experienced before.

It’s helpful for decreasing/eliminating chronic back, neck, shoulder, jaw and wrist pain, as well as improving breathing, and balance (obviously helpful for any instrumentalist or singer!)

And even though I myself wasn’t motivated to seek out and Alexander teacher because of the maladies mentioned above, I did indeed suffer from most of them (especially back and shoulder pain!)

I was usually in some sort of state of discomfort when playing my instrument, just chalking it all up to “working hard”. I accepted pain as part and parcel of what a serious musician struggles with.

No, my motivation was simply about restoring (or at least improving) my coordination when playing saxophone. Period.

But as I began to take lessons, it wasn’t long at all that my back began to feel better (not just when playing, but all the time!), my shoulders began to widen and become freer, my jaw became flexible and responsive, and my breathing became more full, easy and supportive of my saxophone sound.

All great things, for sure!

I began to describe these other changes I was experiencing to my friends and colleagues as “serendipitous gifts”, meaning I was blessed in finding such positive things I wasn’t even looking for.

(And as you might have wondered/guessed by now, my focal dystonia symptoms were inextricably connected to the misdirected muscular effort that was causing these pains I’d been experiencing for so many years.)

Yet the most cherished, most profoundly life-changing serendipitous gift I found in studying the Alexander Technique was more simple, more basic, more essential to my personal well-being and growth as a musician:

I learned to treat myself with kindness.

This kindness includes how I treat myself when practicing and performing:

How I changed my previously harsh and rather loud “self-talk voice” to one of soft inquiry and assurance;

How I allow myself to be wrong in order to discover new ideas and techniques;

How I give myself permission to pause when practicing in order to redirect my efforts;

How I allow myself to rest optimally;

How I listen to myself (and the other musicians) with a more detailed presence;

How I allow myself to peacefully walk away from an exercise (or even a practice session) if it isn’t going just right and I can’t seem to put myself back on track;

How I accept and trust my efforts, sound and intentions when performing.

And so much more…

One of the biggest changes in how I treat myself is that, even when I’m doing something “wrong” when practicing or performing, that I don’t interpret that to mean that there is something wrong with me.

That’s huge for me, as it places me squarely in a place of gratitude, with an almost child-like curiosity when I practice. And feeling grateful, is perhaps, the most beautiful of all states of being.

As I’ve mentioned in some of my other blog posts, practice for me is now a form of meditation. It’s nourishing and ever so pleasurable.

And as a bonus, my saxophone practice has become more dynamic, more efficient, more directly helpful to me than it ever was.

All this because of the gift of kindness I give myself.

You see, when applying the Alexander Technique to any activity, you are learning to redirect your thinking in the most helpful way you can.

To do this, you must ask things of yourself, rather than demand them. (You can’t bully yourself into reacting constructively!)

I “ask” for my optimal coordination. I do so with kindness and deference. With sincere respect and love.

That makes all the difference.

I feel compelled to talk about all of this in my first blog post of the year because of my experience over these past years teaching the Alexander Technique to musicians.

I’ve had the honor and pleasure to share this work with (quite literally) some world-class performers.

And one thing I continue to notice is how harsh many of these wonderful artists can be with themselves as they approach practice and performance.

Of course they seek excellence! Of course they are disciplined! Of course they have high standards! Of course they’re willing to sacrifice!

But what they learn when studying with me is that it is often their fierce self-talk that is taking them out of their optimal coordination, taking them away from getting precisely what they want.

As their coordination improves, it does so by going hand in hand with their self-directed kindness. They ask instead of demand and marvel at the results. It’s about as “win-win” as you can get. A beautiful thing.

So I’ll continue to enjoy and cultivate my serendipitous gifts, and graciously share them with my students, living a musical life of gratitude, exploration, growth and satisfaction.

Language Matters: Optimizing Effort by Modifying Word Choices

Resonance, Time and Ease (A Warm-up Meditation)

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Just as my practice goals and strategies evolve over time, so does my conception and implementation of warming up to practice.

Recently, one of the musicians that I coach asked me to elaborate more specifically how I’m currently warming up. So I thought I’d share my thoughts here with you all.

In the past few months, I’ve given myself a specific warmup project: playing one-octave modes from various scales (major, minor and harmonic major) legato, in slow sixteenth and thirty-second notes (half note equals 12 to 15) bpms).

I started out doing this as a way to challenge and improve my sense of what I call my “temporal imagination” (how vividly and accurately I perceive time and pulse). As I continue to work daily on this, the components (or objectives, if you will) of my daily warm-up have become distilled into the integration of these three things:

1. Optimal resonance

2. Perception of time

3. Psychophysical ease

Allow me to elaborate a bit on each of these components.

Optimal resonance

As a saxophonist, this has a very specific meaning to me. It involves finding the “balance” (or “exchange of energy”) between my air stream and my instrument. (Some of you saxophonists might notice that I simply said my “instrument” and not “the mouthpiece and reed”. I find this to be a more accurate description of the acoustic reality of the sound making process.)

In finding that balance, I’m looking for a consistently responsive and flexible breath support, coupled with an awareness/allowance for my voicing mechanisms (soft palate, tongue, jaw, nasal cavity, etc.) to “come alive”, so to speak.

I aim to feel the sound resonating gently inside my head (particularly, my nasal cavity), as I connect that feeling to the sensation of the sound inside my horn. I connect all of this immediately to how I hear my sound out into the room.

So I’m calling into play both internal and external sensory awareness and sensations.

Perception of time

My coordination, my technique, sound, expression…virtually everything I do is conditioned by my sense of time.

As I play each of these modes slowly with the metronome, my aim is to be present with each note.

What that means specifically is that I am connecting my “optimal resonance wish” with my internal perception of time, and how that internal perception of time relates to the reality of the metronome (an external cue for time) and my sound in the room.

When the metronome clicks so slowly, it becomes tempting to try to “play each note in time” by imagining how “evenly” each note should sound.

But as I try to play that way, I virtually always end up rushing just a bit. I tend to try to manage what my fingers are doing as opposed to truly listening and responding. It’s as if I’ve lost the sense of the wholeness of the phrase I’m playing.

So what I do instead is aim for optimum resonance on each as it moves in time to the next , while I hold in my imagination the anticipation of where the next click will fall on the metronome. This helps me integrate my internal consciousness (my intention and imagination) to the external world (hearing my sound; hearing the sound of the metronome).

Whenever I do this, my time instantly becomes lovely and easily precise. I can hear the evenness of not just every note that I play, but also the entire phrase as a whole.

Metaphrically, it’s as if I’m standing on top of a large mountain looking down on the whole valley. This is an immensely pleasurable experience, and it has significantly bolstered my confidence in my sense of time, as well as rhythm and meter.

Psychophysical ease

This is where my experience both teaching and learning (and applying) the Alexander Technique comes in handy. As I aim to integrate optimal resonance with my perception of time, I’m doing so through the foundation of a good “use” of my entire self.

(This is the central organizing principle of all my work as I warm up and practice.)

You might notice that I use the term “psychophysical ease” instead of “physical ease”. I do so because “psychophysical” is a more complete and accurate description of how we as human beings function in activity.

The “ease in my body” is incumbent upon my “ease and clarity in my thinking”. It is impossible to have one without the other.

So what I aim for as I’m connecting my optimal resonance to my perception of time, is finding the ease that is already there inside myself.

I notice my balanced connection to the floor through my feet, the mobility of my joints, the poise of my head on top of my spine (very important!) and the elastic quality of my ribs and torso as I breathe.

If I happen to notice something in my reaction (how I’m using myself) that I don’t want, I simply make a decision to stop doing it, and bring my attention gently back to the ease in my body, and the calm but alert clarity in my thinking, as I stay present with my sound and with the time.

As I mentioned above, my aim in warming up is to integrate these three components into one, singular, omnisensory experience. I’m never sacrificing one component at the expense of another.

The challenge in writing or talking about this , is that it sounds much more complicated, slow-moving and cumbersome than it actually is. In reality, my thoughts are quick, quiet and thorough. Powerefully effective in helping me to react optimally.

After my warm-up (which takes me about 10-15 minutes) I’m ready to work on anything (psychophysically ready!), and the rest of my practice session, virtually without fail, goes along constructively, efficiently and pleasurably.

So how do you warm up? What do you aim for specifically? What do you do to get yourself there? How do you know if/when you are “there”? If you’re not clear on the answer to these questions, I encourage you to investigate and experiment. (And please know that I’m here to help you if you need it.)

Deep Listening: Thoughts from a Master Improviser

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One of my all-time favorite musicians is pianist, composer, improviser and educator, Ran Blake, who has been teaching at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music for over 40 years. He has also amassed a significant body of recorded work that is simply stunning.

The first time I heard his music, the most formidable impression it made upon me was how startlingly unique it was, in combination with it being so clearly conceived and masterfully executed. The first recordings I heard were of him improvising over “standard” songs. I’d never heard anything like it before in my life.

I remember thinking, “How does he ‘hear’ things this way?” Where does all this come from?” He made me imagine what Charles Ives might have sounded like if he were a jazz musician. Yet even that doesn’t begin to describe his very personal approach to improvising music.

Well, the short answer to my two questions above has to do with one very specific thing: Ran Blake plays the way he does largely because of how he listens to and hears music.

Recently I read a copy of his book (first published in 2010), entitled, Primacy of the Ear. What a wonderfully apt title! Primacy of the ear, the “ear” being the most significant organizing mechanism in creating music.

To musicians, the word “ear” means so much. Everything from how accurately we perceive pitch, to how we conceive of form and structure, to how we hear and interact with other musicians, to how we imagine music yet to be played. And much more.

Even as an Alexander Technique teacher who specializes in working with musicians, I continue to learn more and more each day about how explicitly the “ear” impacts coordination, skill and expression. It’s huge.

So I was intrigued by the idea of perusing the thoughts on this topic from such a master.

In this book, Mr. Blake shares his wisdom and knowledge in both a theoretical/philosophical way, as well as practical one (with very specific exercises and activities to work through).

I’d like to share what I consider to be a few of the most significant ideas put forth from this book that resonate most with what I’ve discovered in my own explorations (both as teacher and performer) with respect to hearing and listening to music:

On the primacy of the ear in creating a personal music style:

Your single most crucial ally in this personal exploration is the ear. When you listen, the ear reacts before the brain has time to process; it is an honest broker. When you play, the ear pulls you to a sound faster and more confidently than your brain; it is the part of you most in the clutches of the muse.

(Scientifically speaking, the ear doesn’t “react” before the brain, as your ability to “hear” is a function of the brain. But I think what he means here is that you can hear something even before you become cognizant of what it is you hear. Hence, the word “primacy”.)

And this is true in so many ways. Ultimately, all expressive music is “played by ear” (deeply internalized and imagined), whether improvised or notated. I think this is what saxophone legend Sonny Rollins experiences, in part, when he is “accessing his subconscious”.

On listening to live and recorded music:

Not all listening experiences are equal, of course, and Mr. Blake describes several categories of consciousness when listening to recorded music, from “background” listening (completely passive), to what he calls “quiet listening” (giving your full attention), as well as “listening while falling asleep”, etc.

He also talks about the importance of repeated listening and analytical dissection in listening, and gives specific advice and guidance about carrying out these activities in an effective way.

On listening to recorded music as an artistic discipline:

This is a major area of discussion in this book. Mr. Blake believes (and I do, as well!) that active, intentional listening should be a daily component of musical study for any serious musician. It should be approached with the same care, strategy, documentation and edification as any other part of daily musical practice.

As a performance coach and teacher of improvisation, I’m still amazed by the percentage of musicians who come to me for help who are not listening to music in this intentional, strategic manner.

For aspiring improvising musicians in particular, this is often the missing piece of their study routine that is creating the kind of frustration that leads them to seek my help in the first place.

Deep listening means listening to everything, not just the pitches being played by the soloist. It means studying the color of the soloist’s sound, inflections, dynamics, use of space, and more. Not to mention listening specifically to what each member of the ensemble is doing in response the “whole” of the music being created.

On avoiding “ear fatigue”:

Yes, discipline yourself to listen deeply and purposefully, but respect your ears. Mr. Blake mentions that he consciously limits his intake of kind of “background music”, and treats his ears with the same care any instrumentalist should have with respect to avoiding overuse and getting adequate rest.

He advocates for designating periods of absolute silence to help “restore” the ear. (This is another thing that too few of the people who come to me for help do, as well!)

On the importance of singing:

From a practical performance point of view, this is probably the essence of this book’s message. For anything you express to be truly yours, ultimately it must be heard (imagined) vividly and precisely.

Mr. Blake has recorded a large portion of his work with singers (most notably, the brilliantly personal Jeanne Lee!) He states that one of the things he likes best about working with singers is that you’re only ever hearing what they hear. (He loves the immediacy of that of that phenomenon!)

There are no filters, no buttons to rely upon, no “muscle memory”, etc. When somebody is singing, you are hearing their imagination in its purest form.

And that’s the ultimate goal for virtually all ear training. Being able to immediately play what you imagine.

Bear in mind that being able to recognize a sound accurately (interval, scale, chord voicing, rhythm, etc.) is not at all the same skill as being able to re-create it from aural memory. You must sing everything you practice if you wish for it to become accessible to your muse!

This book is filled with lots of exercises, explorations, and strategies to help you “discover” and cultivate your ear. As somebody with a fair amount of experience studying “brain science” (neuroscience), I didn’t always agree with the author’s description and/or understanding of certain phenomena (as mentioned earlier on in this post about the ear and the brain, for example), but I most sincerely cherish the wisdom, insight, inspiration and immensely practical advice from this marvelous work.

Here’s a gorgeous rendition of the hauntingly beautiful song, Laura (composed by David Raksin), as played by Ran Blake and sung by the magnificentJeanne Lee. Enjoy!