Posts by Ethan Kind

This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Tuba 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 tuba 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)

This ebook is written to give specific and practical suggestions to help the technique that the tuba player has chosen, to work without causing any wear or tear or pain or injury to the tuba player’s body.

If your technique is causing you to hurt, then you are doing something wrong, and this doesn’t have to happen. Too many tuba players assume that at some point they will get into physical trouble, and that this is unavoidable. This is not true! In many cases a tuba player who has gotten into physical trouble doesn’t know why. The player may be playing with too much tension and trying too hard to play with precision. In this ebook I explain how to do less work to create a more effortless technique and posture, and to play with greater accuracy with trust.

I also go into great deal to show you how to analyze what you are doing technically and posturally, to see if there are fine tuning adjustments you can make to your playing that makes the tuba completely user friendly. Example: I make you very aware that there may be excess tension in your fingers as you move the valves, and I offer you a way to press the keys without compression in the fingers’ joints.

Posturally, so many tuba players hunker down with the head tilted backward or forward and the shoulders locked forward when they play. This does not have to be! In this ebook I explain how you can be fully upright when you play, and how to be fully upright using less muscle, than when you are hunkered down.

This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Tuba Technique, also addresses how to keep a free neck, even when playing loudly. It also explains how you can have the mouthpiece securely against the lips without locking the neck. I have asked tuba players to free their necks and then play, and they couldn’t. It is amazing how powerful the habit of immobilizing the neck can be in playing the tuba, and it isn’t necessary to performing.

I also bring to this ebook my three year training as an Alexander Technique teacher. An Alexander Technique teacher taught me how to play the classical guitar without any discomfort and healed the carpal tunnel pain in my left wrist. I bring my experience of hurting and healing on the guitar, and my training in the Alexander Technique to this ebook, to make you aware that the tuba player can play for hours without sacrificing the body in any way.

Finally, since the tuba player is always in motion when he or she is making a sound, it is the goal of this ebook to help you find a powerful support of your breath, but not to immobilize the torso and diaphragm when you play.

The tuba player’s torso is always in movement when performing, and it is the goal of this ebook to make this as effortless as possible.