One of the challenges facing all musicians is how to avoid unnecessary tension. There are two main reasons tension is so limiting for musicians:

Firstly, tension causes discomfort, pain and injury, and can ultimately force you to stop playing altogether.
Secondly, tension desensitizes you to what you’re doing and so undermines the quality of your playing.

One of the aims of the Alexander Technique is to resolve the problem of excess tension in activity. It is therefore an ideal method for musicians wishing to restore comfort, freedom, sensitivity and quality to their playing.

To take an important aspect, the separate movements which constitute preparing to play are often ‘concertinaed’ by musicians into one undifferentiated pattern of tension. For example, in reaction to the thought of playing, a violinist might automatically raise their left shoulder, jut their head forward, clench their teeth and hold their breath as they place the instrument under their chin.

To tease apart these preparatory tensions, I’ve recently introduced an effective Alexander-based approach with my students at Trinity Laban music conservatoire in London. Inspired by the work of Mio Morales, I’m using what he terms an ‘Alexander étude’. It goes something like this:

I begin by asking the student to divide up the act of preparing to play into four separate movements. This in itself is usually quite a revelation – up until this point they have rarely considered in detail their own sequence of movements. Together we spend a bit of time dredging up these movements from their unconscious, and then decide on a sequence of four.
On the count of one, two, three and four, we then rehearse the four movements they’ve decided on – the constituent parts of preparing to play.
Now comes the clever part. We insert pauses between each number and each movement such that we have: One PAUSE… and then move; Two PAUSE… and then move; and so on. Pausing, or inhibition, is fundamental to the Alexander Technique since it gives the student a chance to break the link between the stimulus to act (the number) and the way they habitually respond. To their surprise, students often find this stage quite challenging because their habit is to move immediately and with tension on hearing an instruction to move.
Finally, a short ‘constructive thought’ is inserted after the pauses, so that then we have: One PAUSE… CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHT… and then move; Two PAUSE… CONSTRUCTIVE THOUGHT… and then move; and so on. The constructive thought can be a generalized Alexandrian instruction such as ‘soft and tall’; or it can be something which addresses a student’s specific habits such as ‘just breathe’, ‘see the room around me’ or ‘release my jaw’.

To see the process in action, a complete ‘Alexander étude’ for the violin is demonstrated in this short clip created by Fuensanta Zambrana-Ruiz:

As you’ll see from the video, the calm awareness nurtured by this process is quite palpable, and my experience is that when students learn to attend in this way, the quality of their movements changes in quite a short space of time. No longer are they rushing to play without preparing their minds and bodies, and no longer are their movements so unconscious, habitual or concatenated with tension. (As an aside, musicians sometimes feel that, under the audience’s gaze, they shouldn’t take time for balance, poise or preparation. Yet it is important to realise that in fact the opposite is true. What can feel like an age from the performer’s perspective is not mirrored in what the audience perceives; in fact, audiences (unconsciously or not) adore a performer who takes their time and centres themselves. Indeed, this kind of presence can be electrifying.).

Finally, since my students learn a variety of instruments, I now have quite a collection of Alexander études for different instruments, worked out in collaboration with them. If you have a set of four movements for an instrument that’s not on the list, please contact me and I’ll add it. Here’s what I have so far:

Violin: 1. violin to collarbone. 2. raise violin a little. 3. rotate head to the left. 4. drop chin onto the instrument.
Cello (1): 1. move the feet apart. 2. check the chair is behind you. 3. sit down. 4. bring the instrument to you.
Cello (2): 1. move the feet apart. 2. sit down. 3. bring in instrument. 4. raise arms.
Cello (3): 1. move the feet apart. 2. sit down. 3. pick up instrument from your side. 4. bring instrument to you.
Piano (1): 1. move the feet apart. 2. sit down. 3. move the right foot to the pedal. 4. float the hands to the keys.
Piano (2): 1. sit down. 2. drop the hands to the sides. 3. move the right foot to the pedal. 4. float the hands to the keys.
Piano (3): 1. sit down. 2. hinge back. 3 move feet forward. 4. float the hands to the keys.
Piano (4): 1. sit down. 2. adjust seated position. 3. float the right hand to the keys. 4. float the left hand to the keys.
Singing (1): 1. walk across the stage. 2. place score on the stand. 3. open the score. 2. look across at the accompanist.
Singing (2): 1. walk across the stage. 2. place score on the stand. 3. arrange the score. 2. put feet apart.
Drums. 1. sit down. 2. left foot on hi-hat. 3. right foot on bass drum. 4. sticks in ready position.
Harp. 1. Sit down (slide behind instrument). 2. adjust feet to pedals. 3. bring harp to knees. 4. bring right hand to rest position.
Flute. 1. pick up instrument with right hand. 2. Place left hand in position. 3. put right hand in position and take instrument to horizontal 4. bring to playing position.
Trumpet. 1. Pick up trumpet with left hand. 2. Bring right hand in position. 3. Bring left hand into position. 4. Raise trumpet to lips.
Guitar. 1. sit down. 2. move left foot to stool. 3. open out right leg. 4. bring right hand to guitar.