This ebook, Going for It in Musical Performance, 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.
REFINING TECHNIQUE IN ANY ACTIVITY FROM WALKING TO RUNNING TO PLAYING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT TO SINGING CAN BE A PURE JOY IF YOU DON’T BECOME NEGATIVELY OBSESSIVE WITH PERFECTION.
I once had a piano teacher who found the balance in teaching me to make music at the piano but not become paralyzed with piano technique and Alexander Technique perfection. My experience with this teacher changed every old and new activity I have done since working with her.
What was really extraordinary is that I had been her Alexander Technique teacher in a college class, but she had taken Alexander Technique principles, the piano technique principles of her piano teacher and synthesized a complete piano technique that melded Alexander Technique general postural use with specific piano technique to create an approach to playing the piano. All of this without selling out to just get it done or to become paralyzed with postural and body use perfection in pain.
One of the things that Mary did so well was dismantle everything that went into playing a note and then reassembling all of the parts to create the notes that made for the interpretation wanted. In other words, keys weren’t being played without including the intended volume of the note and color and duration for the interpretation of the music.
If you apply this concept to everything from running to elliptical machines to golf to singing, then a truly extraordinary Alexander Technique teacher can assist you in learning a new activity or revamping an old one, by showing you what you’re doing that works or will work, eliminating what doesn’t work, adding what does work, and integrating a complete way of walking or playing an instrument with grace and beauty and joy.
Let me say this a different way. When you experience the joy of refining an activity you love and realize the refining can only start with where you are in the moment with your level of self-awareness, then the joy of running or making music can incrementally get easier and easier each time you do it day to day.
If what you love to do becomes easier and easier on a daily basis, then you don’t have to wonder if you’re going to struggle with poor interpretation or physical pain on a regular basis. Of course you may have some days when what do is more difficult than others, but the Alexander Technique allows most days to be days of increasing ease and better and better technique in what you choose to master.
What I’m saying here is that discipline and consistency in doing what you want can be an experience of feeling good as you choose to master or revamp an activity.
MASTERY CAN BE JOYOUS IF YOUR APPROACH MAKES MASTERING GOLF OR MASTERING A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT MORE AND MORE PLEASURABLE.
The Alexander Technique doesn’t focus on how good something feels when you do it, but on letting go of poor physical habits that make the activity hurt you physically. So, to me, by definition, when I do something with ease and balance and an absence of doing physical damage, the feedback is a “feel good” (pleasurable).
YOU CAN CHOOSE TO DO ANY ACTIVITY OVER AND OVER WITH ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE POSTURAL AND TECHNIQUE PRINCIPLES WITH DAILY POSITIVE FEEDBACK AND PLEASURE AND JOY.
