This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Singing (Singers’) 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 singing 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 if it is easier to play, sing or conduct the right note than it is to miss a note? What if so many musicians have this wrong, believing it is easier to make a mistake than not make a mistake? In this article I look at the UNCONSCIOUS OBVIOUS.
What do I mean by “unconscious obvious”? It is my term for describing what so performers or conductors believe, even talk about at times, but don’t fully accept it is what they believe. They may believe it is easier to miss the mark than hit the mark, which means they perform avoiding mistakes rather than always LOVINGLY WITH FAITH expecting the right notes to be performed.
When I used the main principle of the Luigi Bonpensiere book New Pathways to Piano Technique in my classical guitar playing, which is you can’t miss if you know where you’re going if you have an adequate technique, I discovered it was EASIER to play the right note than to miss. WHAT A REVELATION!
What I’m talking about here is the faith that you will always play, sing or conduct the right note or passage, and when you don’t, you continue to perform or conduct with the assurance that you won’t miss the next time, so there is no problem.
Inherent in the above statement that I fully and completely experienced on the guitar, is that accuracy on an instrument or in conducting is inherent, and that making mistakes is learned.
I know this is a pretty radical statement. Even if you always perform avoiding mistakes, don’t you avoid making mistakes most of the time?! What tends to happen to a performer, or conductor who plays, sings, or conducts avoiding mistakes, is that every time he or she makes a mistake, their egos magnify the hell out of the mistake. So, you say to yourself the unconscious obvious – “I always make mistakes!”
When you reflexively tell yourself you always make mistakes, this is an extraordinarily cruel way to talk to yourself. It sets up the love/hate relationship to an instrument or conducting, and you avoid practicing or make yourself practice.
I always make mistakes is not the same as saying to yourself, “I make mistakes, but I usually don’t”. What I just wrote can be a bridge to playing, singing, or conducting with the faith that it is inherently easier to play, sing, or conduct the right note, than to miss.
How does believing accuracy on an instrument or in conducting is inherent change everything? It does so two ways. First, you can now approach the instrument or conducting in total control, not afraid your instrument or conducting will GET YOU that day.
SECOND, IF YOU KNOW MAKING A MISTAKE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE MADE THE NEXT TIME, THEN A MISTAKE MADE AND RELEASED IS NOT SOMETHING YOU USE TO ATTACK YOUR SELF-WORTH WHEN YOU PERFORM.
This heals the love/hate relationship with your instrument or in conducting, and you are left with only a love relationship.
So, if you were to write the affirmation a 100 times a day, “I let go being afraid of making mistakes on my instrument. It is easy and inherent for me to play the right notes”. What do you think?
I think this will be a major loving confront to what you have always believed about your instrument or your conducting, and that if you will hang in there until you believe it, you create a major transformation in your performing or conducting life.
Your performing or conducting life depends on it. CHOOSE!
