Dear Musicfriends,
Day one of our Body Awareness Music session has been a nice introduction. Even though this workshop has been targeted at flute players, and a renowned flautist, Liisa Ruoho, is giving masterclasses, there are many other people here who are not flute players: bassoon, piano, percussion. This is, in fact, quite a diverse crowd!
RECITAL
The day began with a faculty recital, to which I contributed, playing the first movement of Mozart's Sonata in G-major, K 283, and a jazz piece (I Hear Music). I haven't checked in with you all since last summer regarding my playing, but I now feel very much like a "normal" piano player. While I can hear lots of places where I want to improve, I no longer feel like I'm missing a fundamental concept. Now, instead of wondering what's wrong with me, I'm beginning to ask myself how I might make a better sound on the instrument. I cherish that normalcy.
CONSTRUCTIVE RESTS
After the recital, we had a short introduction from one of the Body Mapping/ Alexander teachers about how to take Constructive Rests. This is a way for the coordinators to let the participants know they are to take care of themselves by resting when they are tired instead of pushing on, and giving them explicit physical instructions on how to do so (ie. - Lying on the floor with the knees up; Draping the body over a chair; etc.)
MASTERCLASSES
Following dinner, Liisa, the Finish flute instructor, began giving Masterclasses. I hadn't intended to watch these, as I am not a flutist, but I changed my mind and watched 3 of the 6 students. I'm glad I did. Liisa said a number of things to the students which changed their sound immediately and radically, and which I could apply to my instrument.
1) Liisa asked the first participant to "turn her ears back" and listen to the air behind her as she played. This made a huge difference in her sound. She also asked the student, who was playing Bach, to lean casually against the piano as if she was at a party and play the Bach that way. The intention was to take all the anxiety and deliberateness out of the playing so that she was "just playing Bach, and doing nothing else." Despite the fact that the student was not in the taught "flute pose," her playing suddenly became much more musical. She was instructed to take this "just play" state into a more traditional pose.
2) In contrast to the first student, Liisa asked her third student to keep her active engagement with the music. But her approach was to ask the student, who was showing a lot of aggression in her playing, "Where does your biggest emotion sit? Where is it in your body?" In this case, the student, playing Piazzola, was doing a lot of bird-pecking with her neck. There was a lot of force up there. Instead of leaning this student against the piano, Liisa said "Do not release the head, but put your emotions elsewhere." In this case, she wanted to keep the intensity of the playing, but wanted to globalize the effort. It worked. The student kept the intensity, but it was a body-intensity now, and the body was free to move.
TOMORROW
I give my first ATM (group session) on using the large muscles of the trunk for effort and eliminating superfluous efforts in the limbs, lengthening the body for work instead of contracting it.
Love,
Adam