Posts Tagged ‘Banjo Technique’

This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Banjo 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 an extraordinarily accurate and kind banjo performance.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
YOU CANNOT UNDERESTIMATE THE EFFECTS ON YOU OF PLAYING THE BANJO WITH THE LEAST AMOUNT OF PHYSICAL TENSION, THE HIGHEST MUSCULAR AND EMOTIONAL DYNAMIC, AND WITH EXTRAORDINARILY BALANCED POSTURE.
When all of the above is happening simultaneously, then you are guaranteed to be playing in the zone, but more importantly, when all of the above is happening simultaneously, you are just about guaranteed to be playing with an amazing sense of well-being. What do I mean?
When you are PLAYING THE BANJO WITH THE LEAST AMOUNT OF PHYSICAL TENSION, THE HIGHEST MUSCULAR AND EMOTIONAL DYNAMIC, AND WITH EXTRAORDINARILY BALANCED POSTURE, then your body frees up your mind, as your mind is directing your body to play at the highest level of physical organization.
SIMPLY, A FEARLESS BODY ASSISTS THE MIND IN A FEARLESS JOYOUS PERFORMANCE.
There is an unbelievably good feeling of physical well-being when your body is playing the banjo with less and less work, more and more postural balance, and higher and higher energy. High energy and high dynamic are synonymous, and is the experience of performing with great joy and technical ease.
What is the effect on the body, on the musculature and joints when this is happening? I’m writing this from my experience of having been a concert guitarist. I’m not trying to capture what I’ve seen happen in my Alexander Technique banjo students, but share my visceral memories with you.
WHEN YOU ARE CREATING AN EXTRAORDINARY PERFORMANCE ON THE BANJO AS YOU PLAY A DIFFICULT PIECE, AND INSTEAD OF THE MUSIC CAUSING YOU TO TENSE UP AND HUNKER DOWN TO PLAY WELL, YOU USE THE MUSIC TO KEEP RELEASING MORE AND MORE THROUGHOUT YOUR BODY, THEN IT’S LIKE BEING ON THE BEST HIGH IN THE WORLD.
You begin to sense an ongoing decompression of all of the joints in your body, from head to toe. Even if you didn’t know there tension in your whole body, the sense of physical euphoric release through the act of playing the banjo doing less and less physical work, I’ve got a feeling this releases endorphins in the brain. I believe you are experiencing a runner’s high at this point.
But a runner only experiences a runner’s high, when the runner is experiencing running as effortless, either accidentally or by using the Alexander Technique principles of effortless running to choose to run effortlessly.
So, the principles of the Alexander Technique applied to banjo playing, used to assist you in creating physically expansive playing, releases the body’s inherent chemicals of well-being, endorphins, even though banjo playing is not an aerobic activity.
If you allow this and direct this, and choose to do this on the banjo, then you will become addicted to banjo, playing in the most loving of ways. The banjo then becomes a place where you find physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
In this circumstance I’m using addiction as an act of love. What do I mean? When you play the banjo to bring yourself into postural balance, and use your body to play the most difficult banjo music with the greatest of ease, releasing the body’s natural chemicals of well-being, then you are showing yourself through playing the banjo, what your life should ideally be all of the time.
And if you can handle this amazing sense of well-being on the banjo, WHICH MEANS YOU TRUST PLEASURE, then you well run to play the banjo every day.