What Does Posture Have to do with Sight-Reading Music?

My sight-reading miracle.

As an Alexander Technique teacher, I’ve had the experience of people learning what I do and then suddenly feeling like they have to stand up straighter! While I’m happy that they’ve heard of the work, I feel frustrated that what’s trickled through the collective understanding is that the AT is mostly about a limited experience of posture; the common belief being that good posture is effortful and doesn’t necessarily feel good. I feel even worse that people think I might judge them for however they were standing before (I don’t)! While people definitely experience changes in the way they stand and move when they take Alexander Technique lessons, these are brought about by un-doing years of postural and movement habits that get in our way, not by making an effort to stand up straight. Natural easy posture is wonderfully and effortlessly UP, but that’s just one benefit of the work.

When I started studying the Alexander Technique many years ago, I was a violinist with chronic upper back and neck pain, as well as some problems with playing that no amount of practice seemed to solve. I remember being surprised by the feeling of lightness and ease in movement after Alexander Technique lessons. After a while, I began to notice that playing the violin felt easier too, even though I hadn’t worked with the instrument in my lessons. Not only did I feel physically different after lessons, but I was often happily surprised by a calm clear-headedness that I couldn’t quite explain.

Years later, during my years in Alexander Technique teacher training and afterwards when I was assisting on the training course, I was also a working musician and violin teacher. It was a challenging time, but the clear quality of attention that was part of the daily work on the training course was benefitting other areas of my life.

During those years, I played in an orchestra almost an hour and a half from my home. At the beginning of one long week of evening rehearsals and performances, we were given an extra piece of music that we hadn’t seen, but was on the program for the end of the week. It wasn’t difficult, but I had never been a very good sight-reader, so this could have ended up being an additional burden in an already busy week.

Normally I would have been dreading the first run-through and the fact that I had more music to learn, but I had arrived at the rehearsal feeling unusually calm, clear, physically at ease, and in a good mood. Warming up, I could hear and feel that my sound was free and open.

I remember nothing about the rehearsals or the concert, but this; when the first run-through of the new piece started, rather than my usual experience of the fast passages being a panicky blur, I saw and played every (or almost every :-)) note. The music appeared clear and crisp, and the notes seemed larger than usual. It really felt as though time had slowed. Playing felt easy and fun! It was a completely different experience of sight-reading than what I was used to.

What. Just. Happened?!?!?

Time hadn’t slowed, of course (it really felt like it had!!!). I believe that my reaction to the stimulus of sight-reading changed. The panic that I had probably learned early in my musical life never materialized. I wasn’t suddenly equipped with a new ability. Putting it simply, I think I stopped preventing myself from being able to see and play the written music. It seemed clear that the panic wasn’t just a response to my being a bad sight-reader, as I’d previously thought. It was more than likely part of the cause. The strange thing is, I hadn’t arrived at this place through working on sight-reading, but through my deepening practice of the Alexander Technique in the daily work of training to become a teacher. It was the less-reactive quality of my attention every day; the gradual easing of layers of habitual responses, mentally and physically, that carried through my life and made a difference. The benefits were more surprising and far-reaching than I ever could have imagined!

My experience was a perfect illustration of what FM Alexander discovered over a century ago. We can un-learn some of the habitual ways that we hold ourselves back. This may, indeed, lead to better posture and easier movement. Even more wonderfully, it can bring a better sense of presence, awareness, choice, and possibility in the daily unknown.

 

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