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)
When you play the banjo with the head flowing upward, this is called DIRECTION or DIRECTING in the Alexander Technique. Directing means that there is an upward flow, upward direction, an upward vector in the banjo player’s body. This means that the banjo player is ordering the head to lead the spine upward, so that all of the disks and vertebrae are decompressed, so the banjo player can have superb posture and technique organization.
This is a central principle of the Alexander Technique – the body is organized in vectors, directing, and not in held positions. Directing is the head LEADING the spine into lengthening. This is not an alignment to be held. Think about it. When you play the banjo you are in constant motion, so trying for a specific placement/position of any part of the body is asking the impossible of your body.
You can look good holding a specific posture and holding a specific banjo technique, but you will eventually feel bad, because you have immobilized part or all of your body, as you simultaneously move to play the banjo. You have asked the impossible of your body, which means you have put yourself/body in a double bind. When you attempt to move your body and immobilize it at the same time, the result is pain, strain, compression, and injury.
The Alexander Technique is extraordinary at asking the body to do THE POSSIBLE. It does this incredibly well, because the Alexander Technique uses a belief system and vocabulary that is very accurate. What I mean, is that what we teach banjo players is very clear and very possible and very kind to the body.
When you are directing on the banjo, there as a very light, powerful, and dynamic spine being led into lengthening upward, as you send your fingers into the banjo. Directing is bringing to full consciousness what the healthy happy baby does, but usually loses once in school and possibly on the banjo.
So many banjo players have learned that the goal of fine banjo playing may override taking care of your body, and, “that’s just the way it is”. This does not have to happen if you play the banjo directing, you trust your hands to be accurate, and you don’t do anything in your banjo technique that will eventually cause harm to the body.
Implicit in directing is that you are taking care of your body as you play the banjo. To make directing an integral part of your banjo technique, you have to practice the banjo as you direct. This means that you treat directing the same as your fingers, hands, and arms. (I’m assuming that you treat your fingers, hands, and arms with love and patience, and that is how you will approach reclaiming directing.)
Remember you naturally directed when you were a crawling baby, so when you organize your body on the banjo with direction, you are reclaiming your birthright.
