This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Violin 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 violin 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)
CAN A VIOLINIST CREATE A COMPLETELY NEW VIOLIN TECHNIQUE AND POSTURE WITHOUT HAVING TO STOP PERFORMING AND START OVER? YES!
But it has to be by evolving degrees of change to your technique over time. Let me explain. For the average violinist, technique is not something that continues to evolve over time. So, by the time a talented committed violin player has played for five years or so, the violinist’s technique is not changing.
And the odds are it won’t change unless the violinist either gets into physical trouble or becomes unwilling to accept his or her inability to play the most difficult violin music without pain, injury, or strain.
WHAT IF YOU SAT OR STOOD WITH THE VIOLIN AND LOOKED AT EVERYTHING YOU BELIEVE IS GREAT VIOLIN TECHNIQUE WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF AN ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE TEACHER WHO WAS VERY CLEAR ABOUT THE INSEPARABILITY OF POSTURE AND VIOLIN TECHNIQUE?
What would be the result?
You would find yourself creating a gently evolving violin technique that would only allow you to become a better and better violin player.
But this doesn’t answer the problem stated by the title of this article. Simply, the title of this article asks, “Is it possible not to do what you’ve done on the violin without disruption to your performing?”
BY DEFINITION IF YOUR VIOLIN TECHNIQUE IS IN AN EVOLVING GENTLE STATE OF CONSTANT CHANGE, AT SOME POINT YOU WILL HAVE NOTHING OF THE OLD TECHNIQUE LEFT.
A couple of points here: I want to address the issues of an evolving violin technique being an unstable violin technique and of eventually “having nothing of the old technique left”.
We have a saying in the Alexander Technique, “DO LESS!” What does this mean? It means that your posture and violin technique will be in a constant state of evolving into something better, if you use your warm up each day to let go of excess tension. In other words, every time you sit or stand to play you do a physical inventory of release, so that you use less and less muscle to play better and better.
Is this a radical approach to violin technique? NO, but it is a PRACTICAL approach for two reasons. First, if you don’t do this, it is very likely that your violin posture and technique will devolve into greater and greater slumping and tension. What I just said is the basis for why some days your violin playing is working, and other days why it isn’t.
If every time you sit or stand with the violin you guide yourself into postural and technique balance, then at the very least you are allowing more and more days to be good practice or performance days. Second, at the best you’re creating a very very subtly evolving violin technique and posture that will not interfere with how well you perform here and now. And in fact, this subtly evolving violin technique based on “doing less and less” will most certainly guarantee better and better performances, which means a growing faith in yourself to play well in front of others.
What does it mean to realize you aren’t doing anything you did the first five or twenty years on the violin?
IT MEANS THAT EVEN WITH IF YOUR EVOLVED VIOLIN TECHNIQUE DOESN’T LOOK ALL THAT DIFFERENT TO THOSE YOU’RE PLAYING FOR, YOU HAVE CHANGED SO MUCH HOW YOU INHABIT AND MOVE YOUR BODY (FINGERS, ETC.) TO PLAY, THAT YOU AREN’T THE SAME VIOLINIST.
You have brought your violin posture and violin technique into such amazing alignment, by using less and less muscle to allow this, that you don’t feel like yourself. THE BODY ALWAYS TELLS US WHO WE ARE. What do I mean?
All tension, all good or poor posture on the violin, all good or bad violin technique, is your own creation. None of this is done to you. It is all the result of all of what you believe about yourself, what you believe is necessary to play the violin, and what you believe about others, brought to the violin.
Inherent in the above is that you have ALL OF THE POWER to evolve your violin technique, not cling to a potentially stagnant technique, or watch your violin technique and posture devolve over time.
Here is a spiritual example: It is possible you know someone who is an enlightened being, but you don’t know that this is their level of awareness. Because on the outside, he or she looks like and acts like everyone else.
What is the experience of a brand new violin technique?
MOST OF THE TIME YOU EXPERIENCE A SENSE OF PHYSICAL WELLBEING ON THE VIOLIN, AND YOUR TECHNIQUE ALLOWS YOU TO DO WITH EASE ON THE STRINGS WHAT IS IN YOUR HEAD.
