JOYFUL MUSIC MAKING

Body mapping invites us to replace our faulty body maps with anatomically correct maps to allow for effortless and expressive movement. The body map is one’s self-representation in one’s own brain. If the body map is accurate, movement is good. If the body map is inaccurate or inadequate, movement is inefficient and potentially injury-producing. 

 

Designed to bring awareness to tension habits, this injury prevention information for musicians focuses on the body in movement. In Body Mapping, one learns to gain access to one’s own body map through self-observation and self-inquiry. The student corrects his or her own body map by becoming more aware of how he or she moves by using mirrors, anatomical models, books, and studying anatomical images. One learns to recognize the source of inefficient or harmful movement and how to replace it with movement that is efficient, elegant, direct, and powerful based on the truth about one’s structure, function, and size.

Keynote speakers at our biennial conference have included Dr. Bronwen Ackermann, specialist musicians' physiotherapist, musculoskeletal anatomist, and musicians' health researcher at the University of Sydney ; The WholeHearted Musician’s Dana Fonteneau; performance psychologist Noa Kageyama of The Bulletproof Musician, and Alexander Technique teacher Barbara Conable, the founder of ABME (then Andover Educators). With help from our Scientific Advisory Board we pledge to continue to foster research, and to investigate the relationship between the body in movement and musical performance.

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ABME's Statement of Belonging