This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Piano Technique, is published 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 piano 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)
What is it that makes a musical prodigy or an athletic prodigy a prodigy?
The prodigy is usually defined as someone who can play a musical instrument or sing, or do a sport with great ease and accuracy at a high rate of speed at a very young age. Or in music, can interpret a piece of music at a deeply profound emotional level.
This means from the moment they pick up the instrument or run the track, they learn incredibly quickly. The sport or instrument is mastered very quickly, and there is a sense of facility, an inherent getting it right right away once it’s explained.
Why is this so rare? Why aren’t most children prodigies?
I’m an exception to the prodigy rule, in the sense I became a prodigy on the guitar in my early twenties. I read Luigi Bonpensiere’s book New Pathways to Piano Technique. There was a sentence in the book that said if you trust your hands to hit the right note, and leap to the desired note, you can’t miss.
I did this on the guitar, experienced playing the right note effortlessly, and never went back to playing the guitar with a fear of missing the note. When I missed, I let go even more, trusted my hands even more, and didn’t miss, no matter how great a leap across the guitar neck.
As a person on a psychological and spiritual journey, my experience on the guitar, pointed to something greater, the possibility of living my whole life fearlessly, enlightened.
But I just couldn’t get there.
In fact after I attained my most important life’s goal of playing the guitar effortlessly, I drifted away from the instrument and eventually stopped playing altogether.
I knew deep down that playing the guitar fearlessly was a threat to who I am, but instead of delving into this, I quit playing. But, every time I’ve picked up the guitar after I quit, I always played with a fearless trust of my hands.
Just recently, after all of these years, I remembered a daily lesson in A Course in Miracles, which is a profoundly spiritual work, the most important spiritual work in my life for years.
It was Daily Lesson 122, Forgiveness offers everything I want.
Until very recently forgiveness meant nothing to me. In other words, I knew what the word meant, but it seemed to me it was nothing I could use in my spiritual journey, my daily life.
Finally, I listened to the lesson and it hit me over the head that I never forgave myself for anything that I believed I had made a mistake doing, anybody who ever hurt me, or myself for hurting someone. And I still have never forgiven myself for mistakes made, forgiven myself for people I have hurt, forgiven anybody who has ever hurt me.
I got very good at hiding my state of “never forgiving myself” from myself, and hiding never forgiving people in my life who were still in my life. I learned this very well being raised in the South, where politeness makes it very easy to hide one’s true feelings.
What does all of this have to do with musical and athletic prodigies?
I NOW REALIZE THAT MUSICAL AND ATHLETIC PRODIGIES WHO KEEP THESE EXTRAORDINARY ABILITIES THROUGHOUT THEIR LIVES ARE IN A STATE OF GRACE.
What do I mean?
It means that when a runner is running with great form and ease, and when the musician is playing effortlessly accurately, they are performing in a state of FORGIVENESS.
What does this mean?
It means that when a running prodigy or a musical prodigy is practicing or performing, they are effortlessly and constantly forgiving themselves whatever errors they make, and letting go of fear and tension even more, and performing with even greater ease fearlessly.
I JUST CREATED A DEFINITION OF WHAT DEFINES A PRODIGY IN A SPORT OR ON AN INSTRUMENT. A PRODIGY IS SOMEONE WHO DOES AN ACTIVITY EFFORTLESSLY WITH GREAT EASE AND SKILL AND BEAUTY, BECAUSE THEY ARE IN A STATE OF ONGOING NONSTOP FORGIVENESS AND GRACE. THEY ARE BEING ONLY FORGIVING AND LOVING TO THEMSELVES WITHIN THE PERFORMANCE.
You would think that these prodigies would be this way in their lives away from the sport or instrument, but from what I’ve seen, most compartmentalize this state of grace to their instrument or sport, and do not live in a state of self-forgiveness otherwise.
This is why I had to stop playing the guitar, when I became a prodigy in my twenties, because having spent over twenty years never forgiving myself or anyone anything, this state of forgiveness on the guitar was going to take the lid off of my hiding from myself how intolerant of myself and others I have always been.
Finally, I get what forgiveness is, and why I haven’t been able to see the relevance of it in my life.
Here is a definition of a fully enlightened being.
AN ENLIGHTENED BEING ( A CHRIST, A BUDDHA, A SAINT) IS SOMEONE WHO LIVES IN A STATE OF FORGIVING HIM OR HERSELF AND OTHERS 24/7, NEVER HOLDING ONTO GRIEVANCES OR GRUDGES OR REGRETS OR CONDEMNATIONS OR GUILT OR HATRED OR FEAR.
A STATE OF SELF-FORGIVING GRACE.
