Instrumental &
Vocal Somatics

• A DEMO LESSON EXCERPT (Transcript translated from the Serbian below)

• "Do you feel different now?"
• "Yes."
• "Do you like it?"
• "Yes!"
• "Your sound is already better. Play a bit more, let's see what else we can do..."
• "Now your bones are doing more of the work, the muscles less, right?"
• "Right."
• "It's a strange feeling, eh? But there's an ease to it and a special sound. Your muscles are freed from having to hold the body up. They are free to do their real job, moving, because the bones are doing the job of standing you up. When your muscles are holding you, you are not free to move, but when the bones hold you up, you are free to move. I know this is really strange for you, but for a first try, it's fantastic... And now we're going to refine it a little, so it becomes more familiar to you."

With Performance Somatics, string players, wind players and vocalists can all

• Improve their sound, colour, and resonance
• Gain increased dynamic range
• Increase their agility
• Avoid the risk of injury
• Eliminate pain
• Feel more comfortable in the body
• Reduce performance anxiety

Performance Somatics offers these and many other benefits, improving body organization and applying it to musical performance for a breakthrough in every aspect of technique.

A problem in modern-day instrumental performance

Research shows that more than 50% of professional orchestra string players are playing with pain. Obviously there is nothing wrong with their technique – the problem lies rather with the carriage of the body. Well-organized movement throughout the skeletal frame is needed to support the complex, highly precise and highly demanding movements of virtuoso musicianship without undue stress and injury.

Specialized, effective interventions

The Feldenkrais Method^® offers a sophisticated, highly effective approach to resolving the negative impact of anomalies in performers' body organizatiion. Group classes of Awareness Through Movement^® are recommended for entire sections of an orchestra, and Functional Integration^® sessions can zero in on an individual's particular problem, helping string players, wind players and vocalists resolve their performance pain issues effectively and permanently.

Alan Fraser is especially well-qualified to work with performing musicians, with over 50 years' experience as a performer as well as 30 years' experience as a practitioner. The more deeply one can delve into the precise physical movements of high level musical performance, the better one can recognize where an intervention can be most effective.

Improving the Self-Image

The problem lies in the performer's self-image. We may feel that a proud, open bearing is going to help our playing, but if we lock our torso into extension, other parts of the body move with less ease. Others may love hunching over their instrument as they play, in a kind of intimate embrace. Again, there is nothing wrong with rounding the body – unless it becomes chronic.

Alan's lessons in Feldenkrais for performers gently reveal to the neuromotor system the detrimental aspects of one's posture, and coax the brain into reorganizing the complex arrangement of muscular contractions and relaxations that animate one's playing. He does this with extremely small, slow and gentle movements, enriching sensation by reducing effort. This is the level of activity at which the brain can best perceive and learn.

As he explains it,

"Your sound improves when your connection to your instrument is more organic – in Feldenkrais terms, free from parasitic contraction. Both stiffness and relaxation are superceded by vitality, where you are actively engaged in producing a sculpted, resonant, expressive sonority. The functional components of this movement style can be learned through lectures, listening, explanation, and experience – the feeling of linking physical organization to musical conception. At times the teaching is wordless: a gentle touch, one that senses and guides without intruding, that joins the hand fluidly to the instrument to create a tone both rich and immediate, is enough."

"This physical focus always stays in touch with the music. Each physical strategy has an affect on the sound, the phrase shape, the musical and emotional expression. Mapping the movement of your physical structure onto the musical structure, you move better while mastering musical content more effectively."