This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Oboe Technique, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create the accurate oboe technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
I defined inhibition in the introduction to this ebook, but I feel it is such a powerful tool for the Alexander Technique teacher to give to the student, that I want to look at inhibition or inhibiting the habit in detail.
An oboist comes to me because he’s hurting, struggling, because he can’t do what he wants on his instrument. He sits down and plays for me. It doesn’t go well, and he instantly starts over and starts over and starts over etc. He finally gets into the piece and gets in trouble, and he instantly repeats what he messed up and tries it again and again, etc. This is what so many performers do, and it is such a habitual dead end, because it never leads to solving the problem. You cannot fix a mistake, if you constantly are trying to fix the same mistake, by doing the same thing over and over and over.
What should the oboist have done after he messed up the beginning of the piece? He should have stopped and done something different. This is inhibition. Inhibition or inhibiting a habit is a choice to stop trying to get it right and to let go of or inhibit what isn’t working. How is this done? You stop doing what you’re doing, make a change, and continue on the release of that change. How does the hurting oboist who has come to me do this?
When you bring something you’ve done over and over to consciousness, you change how you do what you’ve been doing. The simple observation and experiencing of the activity changes how you do the activity. Now, if you add in the Alexander Technique intention of doing less work than you’ve been doing to get the job done, then you get to experience what you’re doing, how it is being done, and how easily it can be done.
Many oboe players have over their performing years put all of their awareness on what is coming out of their instruments, and aren’t in the moment of performing experiencing what their bodies are doing as they play. In many cases their techniques evolved over the years with the oboe player doing more and more work to create a more refined performance.
So, the oboist strives for ever greater beauty and subtlety in his performance, and isn’t aware of what she is asking the body to do to create this. If the oboe player is working harder and harder to create a more beautiful performance, then he will probably get into physical trouble.
So, first we find a way to play the instrument so he can sit fully upright. It will take more than one session to integrate what I’m describing, but let’s go with making lots of changes all at once for the moment. I ask him to inhibit (stop) slumping and then play. I ask him to release his neck and then play. I ask him to release any holding in the torso, and then inhale. I ask him to release any holding in the wrists and then play. I ask him to release the tension in his legs and then play. I ask him to feel his fingers soft and close to the keys and then play.
