This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Banjo 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 an extraordinarily accurate and kind banjo performance.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
It is almost universal that performing banjo players hold their breath, especially in the difficult sections of a piece. Is this inevitable? What effect does it have on a performance? What does it say about the banjo player? Can it be changed, if the banjo player wants to do so?
Breath holding in banjo performance and while practicing is not inevitable, but like I said it is nearly universal. Since there is no obvious direct link between breathing and playing the banjo, you can play holding your breath and breathe when absolutely necessary. I have heard wonderful recordings of wonderful banjo players, and you can hear the players gasping for breath at times.
When a performing banjo player holds his or her breath, it usually means the performer is afraid he or she will not make it through a passage. If you stop breathing in the difficult passages, then I believe this always has an effect on what is coming out of the banjo. You may still play beautifully, but it has always been my experience, that when a banjo player plays for me and doesn’t hold his or her breath in a passage, the passage dramatically changes.
It may not be a dramatic technical change, but the passage almost always has a better tone quality, and I notice there is a lowering in me of feeling stressed when I listen. The banjo player usually feels less stressed for two reasons. The first is he or she isn’t immobilizing the body. The second reason is that for possibly the first time, the banjo player is watching him or herself breathe and choosing to breathe through the passage, rather than focusing on their fear of the music.
So, yes, a banjo player can make gentle non-held breathing part of their technique. A performing banjo player’s technique is everything he or she does in their body when they perform. As an Alexander Technique teacher, when I help banjo players connect to their whole body as they play, then I truly make their technique conscious and whole body.
How does a banjo player internalize a new truly fearless breathing pattern as they play? Ex: I ask a banjo player to play a traditional difficult pattern with no particular focus. Then I ask her to play it again, but this time ONLY observe her breathing as she plays. I ask her what she notices. She may say she’s noticing herself hold her breath, or she may notice she’s trying to “force” herself to continue to breathe.
I ask her to play again, but this time gently watch herself breathe as she plays the banjo pattern at a very easy tempo, and to let her body breathe when it wants to, and to continue to repeat the pattern non-stop for five minutes. If she can truly trust this process, she will begin to realize she doesn’t have to make herself breathe, and she won’t hold her breath.
For possibly the first time in her life, she has expanded her banjo technique beyond her hands and arms, and she is beginning to play the banjo with her whole mobile body.
