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)
As an Alexander Technique teacher who was also a concert classical guitarist, I strove for perfect technique as a concert guitarist. It was the Alexander Technique that saved me from permanently damaging my wrist on the guitar and took the limits off of my ability to play what I wanted on the guitar.
The holy grail of the performing banjo player is perfect technique. It is usually an unspoken goal that the banjo player aspires to. Since striving for perfect banjo technique is usually never really talked about, is it a sane reachable goal? Or is it what keeps the banjo player going, even though it makes no sense, like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the mountain forever, hoping one day the rock will not roll down the other side?
“PERFECT TECHNIQUE” IS ATTAINABLE WHEN THE RULES OF PERFORMANCE THAT THE BANJO PLAYER IS APPLYING MAKES SENSE. THIS MEANS THAT THE POSTURE OF THE WHOLE BODY AND THE WAY THE HANDS AND ARMS AND FINGERS ARE USED ON THE BANJO, MAKE THE MOST DIFFICULT PASSAGES AND PIECES EASIER AND EASIER AND EASIER TO PLAY.
As obvious as this sounds, so many banjo players do the same things over and over that aren’t working, because these are the rules of good banjo technique that they were taught. Again, another unspoken exchange between the banjo student and the banjo teacher is, “If you just work HARD ENOUGH, eventually you will be able to play anything. I promise!”
The unspoken hook that keeps you doing what the teacher asks is that it will work, because it is SUPPOSED TO WORK. (This is what your banjo teacher was taught by his or her banjo teacher.)
At what point do you pull the plug? What do I mean? At what point do you question what you’re been doing to perfect your banjo technique? The sooner the better!
Understand that I’m asking you, the banjo player, to pull the plug on what is NOT working that you’ve been doing for years, instead of doing what you’ve been doing, because it is SUPPOSED TO WORK AND YOU WERE PROMISED WOULD WORK.
This is MAGICAL THINKING. What I mean is that you have combined two things to keep you striving the same way you have been for years. Magical thinking, in this circumstance, says that if you do what I ask you to do on the banjo, combined with endless hours of practice, will magically make you a great banjo player.
So, at what point do you realize that the technique you are trying so diligently to make work is the problem, and that you’re not the problem? What do I mean that you’re not the problem? I mean that if you had been mastering a banjo technique that wasn’t conflicted, that the promise of easeful fine banjo playing would already be yours.
Since most of the thousands upon thousands of practicing endless hours banjo players out there are at best mediocre players, does that mean that these mediocre players lack the talent to be fine players, or are they trying to make work on the banjo what will never work? I choose the latter.
I used the term conflicted banjo technique two paragraphs ago. Let me define it. CONFLICTED BANJO TECHNIQUE IS A BANJO TECHNIQUE THAT IS A COMBINATION OF WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T WORK. WHEN YOU COMBINE WHAT WORKS WITH DOESN’T WORK, THEN YOU WILL NEVER REACH THE GOAL OF EFFORTLESSLY PLAYING THE MOST DIFFICULT WORTHWHILE BANJO MUSIC.
The sooner you keep what works on the banjo, release what doesn’t work, and add what else works, the sooner the rock will not roll down the other side of the mountain.
