This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Viola da Gamba (Viol) 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 viol 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)
When I observe viola da gamba players going all out 100% in a performance, they are almost always paying a physical price – harming their bodies. The more performances a viol player does, where he or she goes all out, the more cumulative the wear and tear.
Does it have to be this way? Is it possible for an extraordinary viola da gamba player to go all out all of the time every time he or she performs and not cause damage to the body? Yes, but a couple of things have to happen. First, the viol player needs to use a technique where the body is always on balance, so that the viola da gamba player doesn’t have to use excess muscle to perform the most difficult literature written for the viol.
The other major factor is that the viola da gamba player may use too much muscle constantly throughout the performance. This usually manifests as two negative things happening at the same time. The viol player tenses before he or she presses the strings or uses the bow, and he or she uses too much muscle to get the job done.
What do I mean they use too much muscle to get the job done? In anticipation of pressing the strings and bowing, the viola da gamba player creates too much musculature tension in the arms, back, shoulders, thighs, etc., to make sure he or she can play and interpret the music exactly as they want. This has two negative effects on what he or she doing.
The first is that excess muscular tension interferes with the speed of the fingers and bow arm. It slows the viol player’s fingers and arms down, so they aren’t moving reflexively.
Second, if the viola da gamba player plays with held musculature in anticipation of what they’re about to do, then they have forced joints together throughout the whole body unnecessarily, and hours of practice or performance with joints in compression wears out the joints. In other words, it isn’t about the hours of practice and performance with a lot of repetitive movements, it is about the excessive tension throughout the whole body being confused for playing expressively.
You can play the viol without damaging your body, when you perform with a technique that creates balance throughout the whole body, and by not tensing up, and then pressing the strings and bowing with total all out ease.
It is a powerful realization for me to see how viola da gamba players who go all out in performances, assume they have to pay a physical price to experience the joy of an all out commitment to playing their best for the audience. This is the norm. It is a norm based on the assumption that you can’t do your best in a concert unless you are willing to do damage to your body over time.
If this is true, then performing without holding back is not a win win situation, it is a win lose situation, where the viol player believes the momentary glory is worth a lifetime of pain, or at worst a crippled body.
Playing a concert without holding back can be a win win situation, if the viola da gamba player learns to move reflexively on balance using released muscles. Going all out is the way it should be, because it is doing what you love without holding back, which is an act of self-love, commitment, and self-loyalty.
