F.M. Alexander
The Alexander Technique is a simple and practical method for
improving ease and freedom of movement, balance, support, flexibility,
and coordination. It enhances performance and is therefore a
valued tool for musicians. Practice of the Technique refines
and heightens kinesthetic sensitivity, offering the performer
a control which is fluid and lively rather than rigid. It provides
a means whereby the use of a part -- a voice or an arm or a
leg -- is improved by improving the use of the whole body, indeed,
the whole self.
With the Alexander Technique, these benefits are accomplished
by the application in one's own experience of what Frederick
(F. M.) Alexander called constructive conscious control.
Constructive conscious control is a process of self-observation
and self-analysis, wherein one becomes intimately knowledgeable
about one's own habits so that one can suspend habitual muscular
tightening (sometimes called downward pull), where it exists,
and gradually consciously replace it with constructive behavior.
Often one simply suspends unnatural movement and waits for
natural movement to emerge. Natural movement is discovered
to be that movement which is most supported and sustained
by the body's whole complex of postural reflexes, including
the much prized "Primary Control", the natural lengthening
and gathering of the spine in movement, which depends on a
dynamic, initiating relationship of the head to the spine.
Barbara Conable is an internationally renowned teacher of the Alexander Technique. What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body, her book and her course, are informed by the insights of F. M. Alexander, as well as other Somatic disciplines. The insights are plainly elucidated, though the Course does not contain direct hands-on instruction in the technique. Students of the book and the course are able to use the insights of the Alexander Technique because they learn the kind of kinesthetic self-observation that F. M. Alexander used to resolve his own vocal problems.
The Alexander Technique is a simple and practical method for
improving ease and freedom of movement, balance, support, flexibility,
and coordination. It enhances performance and is therefore a
valued tool for musicians. Practice of the Technique refines
and heightens kinesthetic sensitivity, offering the performer
a control which is fluid and lively rather than rigid. It provides
a means whereby the use of a part -- a voice or an arm or a
leg -- is improved by improving the use of the whole body, indeed,
the whole self.
