This ebook is published on this website in a PDF format. It is written to give all performing musicians deep insights into the beliefs and bad habits that performers have that can end careers with pain, strain, tension, and injuries.
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, I watch people do what they love to do and/or are driven to do, and I wonder how they can so effortlessly sacrifice themselves physically, psychologically, and spiritually. I watch pop performers on TV, and I watch classical concert artists on stage and in my studio, and I wonder why they so consistently confuse tension for intensity.
It is so painful for me to watch American Idol, and see the singers strain their guts out to emote. All they succeed in doing is strangling their voices, as they hunker down attempting to be expressive, and they are admired for “going for it”. The very same thing happens as I watch concert pianists sit at the piano like Snoopy from the comic strip Peanuts, curled over giving it their all with their noses almost on the keys.
I was walking in Albuquerque at the base of the Sandia Mountains, and a woman on a bicycle came riding by me. She was the epitome of “going for it”. She was hunched over the bicycle, and her shoulders were up to her ears, and her whole torso was so painfully narrowed. I didn’t know it at the time, but this woman on the bicycle inspired me to write these essays on “going for it” in musical performance.
The main goal of the Alexander Technique is to do what you do with such balanced posture and ease and efficiency, that you don’t strain yourself. This ebook’s intention is to look at all of the different components that have to integrate, so that almost every time a performer practices and performs they “go for it”. What do I mean by “go for it”? The performer plays fearlessly inspired with a technique that allows the playing or singing to be exactly what the player wants, without straining for the notes or straining for expressiveness.
By the usual definition, “going for it” is about throwing yourself 100% into what you’re doing, and this is really admired when it works (you win), even if you “win ugly”. So, we have athletes who really go for it in track or swimming or any number of athletic events, and they wear their bodies out over time or quickly. Is this “going for it”? We have musicians who do the same, performing beautiful interpretations but “performing ugly”, by physically and emotionally exhausting themselves. Is this “going for it“? I don’t believe so.
“Going for it” is pleasurable before during and after the activity, and a price is never paid, and the performance is amazing and loving for the audience and the performer.
So, how do we get there consciously? “Consciously” is a super important part of this “going for it” by my expansive definition. There have been performances all throughout history where the performer “goes for it”, but they have achieved this “expansive going for it” accidently. What do I mean accidently? They play such an inspired performance, that every part of the performance, from the physical to the emotional to the technical to the expression to the interpretation, is so “in the zone”, that no price is paid by the performer in the moment, and aches and pains don’t show up the next day.
