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)
INHIBITION is one of the most powerful tools in the Alexander Technique. It gives the singer a tool to change any aspect of his singing technique and posture that doesn’t work with what works. Inhibition helps the singer identify what is interfering with the singer creating the most user friendly singing technique and posture possible, and then to be able to change what isn’t working.
INHIBITION ALLOWS THE SINGER TO LET GO OF WHAT ISN’T WORKING, AND TO REPLACE IT WITH WHAT DOES WORK IN SINGING.
Inhibition is what you do after you’ve identified what is not working in your singing technique. Let me explain. By the time a singer has discovered, after years of singing, that there are aspects of the singer’s technique and posture that are interfering with the singer’s ability to sing all of the music that the singer would like to sing, these destructive habits are as central to the singer’s technique as the productive ones are.
So, how do you throw out the bath water, without throwing out the baby? You identify and list what is compromising your singing, and you also make a second list of what it is that works in your singing technique, and you only keep the good list.
There are the typical big postural problems – slumped or over-arched posture, obvious tension throughout the body, from hands to legs. Then there are the much more subtle problems, which may be a matter of degree. What I mean, is there may be postural and technique things that you do that are not obvious to anyone but an Alexander Technique teacher.
Ex: If right before the singer sings, he locks his neck, then this can be pretty invisible to most people. If right before the singer sings, he slightly tilts the head backwards, this can be almost undetectable. If every time, in a very rhythmic piece, the singer pulls slightly downward, shortening his spine to feel the beat, this can be a very subtle habit that interferes with coordination. This rhythmic hunkering down can compress the nerves that originate at the spinal cord.
So, what is the act of inhibition or inhibiting? If right before you do what you have always done when you sing, and just before you sing, you stop and choose to do something new, then you have just inhibited what isn’t serving you.
Ex: Just as the singer is about to sing, he notices he is tilting the head backward and pulling down. The singer stops – doesn’t sing. He now chooses not to tilt the head backward, and right after that new choice, he then sings.
What I have just described is inhibition or inhibiting a habit. It very subtle and very powerful, because for the first time, the singer has chosen not to initiate singing with a bad habit.
He has chosen to sing without unconscious tension and compression of the neck/spine. Bringing this into the singer’s awareness is moving singing away from being something you fix, to being something where you are truly experiencing all of your subtle habits, good and bad, you have sung with. Now you have the tool, INHIBITION, that will allow you to perceive and choose which habits you want to keep or release.
THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE DOES TWO EXTRAORDINARY THINGS. IT TRULY RAISES YOUR AWARENESS OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING AS YOU SING TO A LEVEL THAT SHOWS YOU HOW YOU COMPROMISE YOUR TALENT, AND IT GIVES YOU THE TOOLS TO STOP DOING THIS.
