The Feldenkrais Method for Musicians
We musicians are in a relationship with our self, body and instrument. The quality of this relationship determines how we feel and how we sound. So what makes a healthy relationship? If you take a moment to compile a list, you might come up with something like this:
Trust. Love. Respect. Patience. Boundaries. Understanding. Compassion. Curiosity. Listening. Honesty. Acceptance. Challenge. Fun.
Now, how would you describe your relationship with your body and instrument? Or better yet, how would they describe their relationship with you? If either answer leaves you, your body or instrument yearning for more, then consider the Feel Good Sound Good Program as relationship counseling for the three of you.
Step 1
Your relationship with yourself
The first step to feeling better is realizing that you are the only one who knows what feels good to you in the first place. So how is it that many of us end up feeling not so good? Multiple factors contribute of course, but perhaps the most common (and most overlooked) is our enmeshment with other people.
As children, we entirely depend on other people (namely our parents) for survival. This means that, in order to secure their approval, we must at times put their needs ahead of our own. So our mind, body and heart might tell us to do one thing, but our parents tell us to do another. As we age, this pressure to conform comes from other sources too, be it our teachers, peers, bosses or even society at large. The more we ignore ourselves, the worse we feel, and the worse we feel, the more we ignore ourselves. Over time, some of us come to value and trust external authority more than we value and trust our own self.
The good news is that this process of self-alienation can be reversed. Feldenkrais called it “removing outside authority from your inner life.” The more you trust and value yourself, the better you’ll feel, and the better you feel, the more you’ll trust and value yourself. With time, you’ll remember that you know what feels good to you far better than any outsider ever could. You just have to learn how to listen to yourself again.
The Feel Good Sound Good Program will help you do just that through the process of movement. Why movement? Because even the simplest of movements reveal the quality of your relationship with yourself. Do you do what feels good, or what you’re told is correct? Do you respect your boundaries, or just use yourself to get stuff done? Do you give yourself ample time, or rush to meet other people’s expectations? In Feldenkrais, we use movement in order to explore these profound questions at the heart of your relationship with yourself.
Step 2
Your relationship with your body
As you regain trust with yourself, you will come to appreciate the genius of your body. Genius at what? Finding the most efficient, comfortable way (for you) to get from point A to point B. Millions of years of evolution have passed down this genius from the most primitive life forms all the way to you.
Our task is to create the ideal conditions in which your genius nervous system can flourish. In the Feel Good Sound Good Program, you will learn just what those conditions are and how to put them into practice. Drawing upon the science of sensory perception, motor learning and habit formation, you will discover how change happens in your brain. You’ll find your own recipe of speed, force, range, rest, orientation and variety to consistently improve your physical organization.
As you refine how you move, you will also map what you move: your muscles and bones. More importantly, you’ll experience how these parts combine into movement patterns and how these movement patterns ultimately combine into a functional whole. You’ll explore skeletal balance, force distribution and neutral posture in a personal way that helps you move with less effort and more pleasure. You can think of it as functional biomechanics with love.
Step 3
Your relationship with your instrument
As your bond with your body and self deepens, you can invite a third person into the mix: your instrument! For some of us the mere thought of our instrument triggers self-doubt, pain, pressure to succeed and rules about “correct” posture. So how to welcome our instrument without sacrificing our relationship with our body and self?
The Feel Good Sound Good program will guide you though this delicate process so that you and your instrument can let go of any toxic baggage from the past and move forward together as healthy supportive partners. It starts with knowing what you want to express musically and then translating that sound into the mechanics of your instrument. Only once you have a clear image and feeling of what needs to happen to your strings, keys or reeds, can your genius body find the most comfortable and efficient way(s) of playing. Indeed, there are so many ways to organize our body in relation to our instrument to make sound. The more options we have, the more free and easy our playing will be physically, and the more rich and varied our tone, articulation and expression will be musically. It’s truly a three-way dialogue between you, your body and your instrument.
You'll facilitate this dialogue through innovative exercises applied directly to your instrument. Unlike other programs that teach general body awareness to the general musician, this program understands the unique demands of your instrument. You’ll refine the most fundamental movements of your instrument in order to free yourself from limiting rules about posture, so that your body and instrument become fluent translators between the sound you desire and the sound you create.
The Feel Good Sound Good Program
We each have a unique relationship with our self, body and instrument. That’s why the Feel Good Sound Good Program offers a flexible structure tailored to your needs. Whether through individual lessons or group workshops, you will be guided to focus on areas that will make the biggest impact on your playing and even on your life outside of music.
