This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Alto Saxophone 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 the accurate saxophone technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
The goal of the Alexander Technique is to help the alto saxophone player create the most effortless and balanced saxophone technique and posture possible, so that the alto saxophone player doesn’t have to struggle to play the saxophone. This isn’t always easy, because many alto saxophone players bring misconceptions of what they are doing physically when they play. In other words, the saxophone player thinks they are doing one thing, when they are doing another thing.
What does this mean? The alto saxophone, as with most instruments, has a history of the rules of playing that has gotten passed from teacher to student etc., over generations of teachers and students. What is taught isn’t always an accurate representation of what is physically happening on the saxophone.
Here are a few of my corrected misconceptions of movement in the body. You can’t lock the knees, you lock the thigh muscles to lock the knees. When you rotate the forearm, turning the hands over up and down, it is the biceps that rotate the forearms. When you move your hand side to side in relationship to the forearm, it is from long muscles tied to the elbows. When you move your fingers, it is from the forearms – the flexors and the extensors. When you support bent forearms, it is the brachialis, not the biceps for the most part.
The last two are critical for the alto saxophone player, because when the saxophone player is aware that he or she moves the fingers from the forearms, this means that the alto saxophone player can create a conscious sense of ease and freedom in the hands and forearms as she or he plays. In other words when you have a misconception of how the body does something, then that belief causes the body to move with tension, because of the conflict between the believed lie and what is really happening.
Another issue with alto saxophone players is that they are not aware there is no muscle in the forearms that supports the forearms. It is the brachialis (half biceps) that supports the forearms. Because so many saxophone players have experienced tension in their forearms for years, whether it is conscious or unconscious, they experience the forearms as holding up the forearms. This isn’t true, and it contributes greatly to forearm pain, tension, and injury.
Returning back to the first paragraph of this article, if you believe the body does one thing, and it actually does another, then the conflict between your misconceptions and what really happens will contribute to pain, strain, and injury. So, when an alto saxophone teacher tells a student something that is not true about how the body works, then it seems to really cause physical problems. Because the student is stacking statements from authority to back up misconceptions of what he or she is doing on the saxophone. This can really lead to strain and injury. It may take years, but many alto saxophone players get in trouble eventually over a career of teaching and/or performing.
It is an extraordinary feeling when you are made aware of what you are really doing on an instrument. Every time I was given accurate information from an Alexander Technique teacher on what balanced posture and accurate movement in my guitar technique were, my classical guitar playing always improved dramatically. It was truly as if I took off blinders, and could clearly see and experience how easy and free playing the guitar could be.