This submit is a component one in every of a sequence.
Not too long ago, I’ve had a rise within the variety of college students, lecturers, {and professional} brass college students who’ve written to ask me a few hesitation in commencing to sound a notice on their instrument. A lot of them have referred to this phenomenon as “musical stuttering” or the Valsalva Maneuver. The time period Valsalva Maneuver refers to a respiration approach used to decrease blood stress, and appears to have been adopted by brass gamers to speak about various totally different points in regards to the blocking of the airway when enjoying the primary notes of a phrase. Some widespread descriptions are that the difficulty both issues the throat or the tongue, stopping the airflow when a musician is enjoying alone, not when counted in, or performed by one other particular person. As a result of this phenomenon solely takes place when the musician doesn’t set up a tempo of their thoughts earlier than enjoying, it has change into thought to be a psychological problem. In my expertise, the phenomenon is a results of the activation of involuntary muscle constrictions that come about in response to a way of worry or perceived menace of not with the ability to sound a notice. The very preoccupation with the worry of not with the ability to start the tone elicits the muscular contraction that has change into a recurring response to worry of lack of management or hazard.
In instructing music college students and teaching skilled musicians, I’ve come to base a lot of my method on analyzing how and the place the musician holds tensions of their physique. From the outcomes of my expertise in observing psychotherapy sufferers and musicians, I’ve change into very delicate to observing the place a person habitually holds pressure of their physique and the way this pertains to their general character construction and musical efficiency. Generally, a inflexible or authoritarian character sort who admires the self-discipline and precision of navy or marching music will maintain their our bodies in a inflexible and military-like manner. A musician who takes a extra laissez-faire, or laid-back, type of music typically presents in physique language that displays this type. I’ve discovered that an individual’s physique language is usually congruent with their attitudes and beliefs. That is additionally noticed within the congruency between musical style, character construction, type of enjoying, and physique language. I want to share the theoretical background, observations from instructing, and a few sensible strategies that I exploit to assist musicians obtain a pure and free expertise in music making.
The concept that we habitually maintain tensions in particular areas of our physique is named physique armoring and was developed by the depth psychologist Wilhelm Reich. In his 1933 textual content, Character Evaluation, Reich describes how, from infancy on, we develop distinctive concentrations of muscle pressure that change into bodily seen and function a constricted protection from perceived threats to autonomy and security. This physique armoring, which may be noticed in how an individual holds themselves and thru their physique language, is the inspiration of what turns into an individual’s expertise of themselves on the planet, what Reich known as character armor. Character armor is the distinct manner an individual involves work together with the atmosphere as skilled by means of their psychological defenses for preserving a way of an autonomous and volitional self. In different phrases, our expertise of who we’re is predicated on habitually shaped tensions inside the physique that change into the sources of how we come to work together with the environment, others, and with our sense of a constant selfhood.
One in every of Reich’s college students, Fritz Perls, developed these concepts of analyzing physique and character armoring right into a sensible psychotherapeutic approach generally known as Gestalt psychotherapy. Up to date Gestalt psychotherapy offers us with various strategies which are efficient in serving to musicians change into conscious of their recurring physique armoring, how this shapes one’s sense of self and expertise with the atmosphere, and the way to undo maladaptive habituations of each bodily and emotional selfhood. The objective is to extend a way of autonomy and volition in a single’s expertise of creating music.
Along with Gestalt psychotherapeutic strategies, I’ve discovered that Alexander Method bodywork (physique mapping) is an ideal complement to the processes of elevating consciousness and a way of autonomy within the performing artist.
I’ve discovered that Gestalt psychotherapy, mixed with Alexander Method physique work, has been useful in serving to musicians to beat points together with efficiency nervousness, musical tics corresponding to musical stuttering or stammering (typically referred to as the Vasalva Maneuver in wind enjoying), and bodily illnesses together with muscle cramping, pinched nerves, and complications. The next is a pattern case examine that can illustrate how I’ve labored with a musician to beat points which have affected their music-making expertise.
An adolescent trombonist named Jane got here to me, describing an intermittent lack of ability to start sounding a notice whereas enjoying alone. The problem first introduced throughout her weekly classes together with her common trainer, and later appeared whereas taking auditions for school. Jane described how she would start to provoke a tone, and her throat would shut and “lock” in a constriction that prevented free airflow. I requested her to recall the earliest time she might recall having the difficulty happen. As she described this primary expertise, I paid shut consideration not solely to what she was saying, however to how she was saying it. I additionally saved an consciousness of what her physique language was speaking in relation to her phrases. As Jane started telling me of her earliest consciousness of her lack of ability to start a notice, I famous that her face grew to become flushed and her respiration grew to become heavier. The emotional expertise of tension was manifesting in her physique as she described the expertise. She instructed me that the primary time she skilled the shortcoming to play was throughout a lesson together with her common trainer. The trainer had requested her to play an etude that she had been engaged on for a number of weeks. I requested Jane not solely to recall the story however to inform me as if it have been occurring now. It is a Gestalt approach by which contact with the expertise is enhanced by talking of it within the current tense, fairly than linguistically distancing oneself from the expertise by utilizing the previous tense. As Jane described her expertise, I delivered to her consideration sure bodily modifications that I noticed. I requested Jane what she was experiencing emotionally once I noticed her face flip purple. I requested her to pay attention to the truth that she repeatedly touched her chest together with her hand, as if to guard herself, whereas she described a way of being critically judged by her trainer. I requested Jane to “bear in mind of what’s occurring now” as her phrases grew to become shaky and weak whereas describing her sense of inadequacy within the eyes of her trainer.
Along with verbally bringing a scholar’s physique language to their consideration, An efficient technique used within the Alexander Method is to the touch the musician’s physique whereas they play, to carry consideration to areas of the physique the place they’ve recurring pressure, and to broaden their consciousness to areas of their physique which are blocked out of consciousness. You will need to clarify this system to the coed beforehand and ask their permission so that you can contact them.
