Alexander-Technique-Albuquerque-NM-Trombone

Excerpt – An Alexander Technique Approach to Trombone Technique (Musicians)(Psychology)(Pain)(Strain)(Injuries)(Posture)(Albuquerque)

This ebook is published on this website in a PDF format.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)

The left hand and arm supports the trombone, and both arms are supported in front of the torso by the shoulders. In this section of this ebook I want to talk about the arms and fingers and in the section on the shoulders look at the shoulders supporting the arms in more detail. What I want to look at are three things in this section: space between the joints of the arm and hand supporting the trombone, the right hand as it plays the instrument, and the trombone against the face.

When a trombonist is playing the trombone, the odds are he is doing too much in his arms. “Doing too much” in the Alexander Technique means he is using too much muscle to play the trombone. How this shows up in the hands and arms is that the space between all of the joints of the arm, hand, and shoulder joint is reduced by the muscular tension in the hands and arms. In other words, the bones are pulled closer to each other in all of the joints of the arms and the fingers.

Because the trombone is in a set relationship to the body, the left hand holds the instrument and the right hand moves the slide, then this excess tension in one arm is static tension, and the tension in the right arm can be from wanting to play accurately. So, the joints of the left arm aren’t changing their relationship to each other, and if there is too much tension, then you are essentially playing the trombone as if you were doing isotonic exercises for hours. An isotonic exercise is where you tense a muscle without any movement, like pressing the wall with your arms with the intension of strengthening the muscles. I can’t think of a worse way to strengthen muscles.

What if you made part of your arm, hand, and finger technique playing the trombone discovering how little muscle you needed to activate to support and play the instrument? Simply, think of your right arm and hand and fingers lengthening to the trombone as you move the slide. As you play be aware of how released the right upper arm and lower arm and hands and fingers can be when you play. Allow the left arm and hand to do the minimum amount of work to support the trombone on your shoulder and to your lips. Don’t squeeze the instrument or drive your head backward or sideways with the left arm. With the trombone against your lips, place the trombone against your lips with the minimum pressure to get the job done.

Trombonists almost always do too much work to guarantee the sound is clean. If you are pressing the trombone too hard against the lips, you will force the neck to lock to compensate for the pressure against the head. You can have a free neck, even as you do what is necessary for the head to meet the trombone’s mouthpiece. And the other major Alexandrian concept is that your neck continues to lengthen upward, as you meet the trombone. Something you can try, is to play as if the area around the trombone’s mouthpiece was super-glued to your face. I asked a violinist to play as if her fingers were glued to the bow, and she instantly realized how little work it took to hold the bow.