A musical community. 1 The pianist

Dogged Don has always played the most beautiful music but these days, has mostly forgotten its tender embrace.

In a way he has rather forgotten himself.

Everything has closed him in and although there is rarely a day when he doesn’t play, somehow, over the years, practice has become a chore…. an inescapable routine.

The intimacy which once he felt with Chopin and Debussy and which lit him up from the inside, has dulled.

He finds that he is unexpectedly nervous about playing in public. 

His agility and musical sensitivity are not quite at his fingertips and so he has withdrawn from performances. He hasn’t noticed how lonely he has begun to feel.

Or how stooped.

That his shoulders ache.

In fact he is a little numb to himself.

One foot still strays to the leg of the stool; a little reassurance and security, this was how he originally steadied himself when his boy-legs could not yet reach the floor. 

One day he hears some Fauré. It is ravishing. He finds the score on his shelves and starts to play.

He feels clumsy and awkward.

He knows what this music could be and the distance he would have to go to realise his deepest aspirations.

So what has this possibly got to do with the Alexander Technique?

Didn’t he just need to sit up straight?

My sense is that he might just want to touch his musical heart.

To notice his longing.

What did he feel like when he played the Schubert…. the Brahms…. the Mozart of his youth?

What was this like?

It felt so still.

So peaceful.

He was so awake.

He was truly himself.

There is a wisdom in body memory that sculpts itself into our being but which can become overlaid with coping mechanisms, with effort, with the push and pull of occupational demands.

On the surface, it might look as if Don had decided he needed to sit up a bit. 

To do that he would have needed to know where he was coming from….. 

Do you know where you are these days?

In the hands of a sensitive Alexander teacher, you may

 “re-member” yourself and be surprised. 

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