Body Basics Workshop for Musicians

Summary of Body Basics March 11th 2018
Ashburton
We explored how our concepts and beliefs about our innate design can either improve or interfere with our natural poise and coordination.

Not only this, but how our thoughts can nourish or even sabotage our desire to express ourselves musically.

That our thoughts and feelings are inseparably connected to our ability to move freely and with ease.
In addition, the less we interfere with excessive tension, the more aware we can be of our total environment and so we can hear ourselves more objectively.

I used a muffled sounding bowl to demonstrate how excess tension…. grabbing the bones…. can serve to dampen not only the sensitive  soundboard of our instruments, but also the free resonance of our bones…. Thus further damping the sound.
Back to bodies and bones!

How heavy is the head!!
and how to find or begin to imagine the balance point in its intimate dwelling between the ears, behind the soft palate.
The extreme distress of the nervous system becomes apparent if this heavy head should wobble off balance…. this is where we grab our bones as part of our “Alarm system”.
Imagine trying to play freely when we are in a condition of trying not to fall down!?
As adults we learn to avoid falling over, (and in so doing, create extra tension which is so automatic that it becomes unconscious and so barely noticeable) but when you see a wise and intelligent toddler in the journey from crawling to walking, they very sensibly fold at the hips and knees and….plonk…. down they go, ready for the next practise run.

We trotted around the room as heads and necks and bodies… our good conscientious necks striving to keep up with our giddy heads or opting out in a flop.
As soon as the head became aware of the neck and the neck aware of the head, and the body, of the neck, there was a general sense of integration and improved, collaborative coordination. Yes, a slight overall modification, but the freedom of one was no longer at the cost of another.

Throughout our days we lose and regain poise time and time again.
If we have an understanding of how to return to relative balance and ease, we can pull the plug on tension and avoid a build up of residual “holding”

So we looked at

chin-head/nose-head
Pelvis…. dog-tail duck-tail and dinosaur-tail
Ribs…. Strut, slump and sigh

These in whatever combination can either release our full wing span or compromise it.
Imagine a pianist sitting on his coat tails and finding that the “sleeve” of his arm fabric is too short to reach the top and bottom notes!

We took a good look at the wing structure.
How the only bony point of contact is at the delicate junction of the collar bone with the breast bone.
How the shoulder blade can swim around the thorax in order to offer the shoulder infinite possibility.
We do not have teddy bear arms that are sown at the shoulder onto the torso!
People sometimes wear their shoulders as though they are peering over the top… a little hunched or drawn forwards.

We chose a favourite colour and imagined painting with the inner surface of the scapula…. Painting our rib cages blue and green and yellow.
Coming to our instruments.

The shoulder blades love to “come home” to the back so that their tips (the lowest point of the triangle) can peek out from under the arms!
We found that a gesture of offering, as in an open bowl helps to create this delicious opening.

We noticed especially that when David opened in this way, his whole being changed, became more alert, alive and authoritative.

This and the poise of his head and the subsequent lengthening and widening of his spine was very impressive!
We thought that the sound had opened out too.
I wish I had caught this on camera!

There is a great deal more that I could say, but it would turn into a thesis and not serve as a reminder to our main points.

Many thanks to you all for your attention and focus!