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music & feldenkrais

I plan to use this space for subjects that apply principles of the Feldenkrais® Method to music and vice versa.

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workshops for musicians

Embodying Music workshops: Monthly three-hour workshops focusing on enhancing expressive and technical abilities. Please email for details and to join a mailing list.

Summerflute workshop for flutists: What Every Flutist Needs to Know about the Body. Includes Body Mapping, Alexander Technique, and Feldenkrais classes and individual lessons in all three methods, as well as performance masterclasses. July 14 to 18, 2008. details

1 Pencil on the head: imagine that there is a pencil on top of your head which is an extension of your spine. The pencil extends upward toward the ceiling. Draw a very small circle on the ceiling with this pencil, clockwise. Then pause and draw the circle counter-clockwise. Feel your whole spine participate and notice how the weight shifts on your sit bones.

2 Feet and legs: place your feet squarely on the floor. Without tilting the knee a lot (it will move a little), lift the inner edge of the right foot, then the outer edge. Feel as if you’re ironing the bottom of the foot out on the floor. Try this with the left foot, then with both. See what movement you sense in all the leg bones, in your spine and pelvis.

3 Sensing the spine: count your vertebrae from the tailbone to the top of the spine. Imagine that you can actually touch each vertebra from the front with a finger. The tailbone and sacrum form the back of the pelvis. Above the sacrum are your five large lumbar vertebrae, then twelve thoracic vertebrae (the ribs are attached to these), then seven cervical vertebrae which form the neck. If you can’t sense individual vertebrae, just pretend you can – it’s equally beneficial.

4 Rounding and arching: tilt your pelvis back slightly, look down, and let your whole spine round. Then look up, let the pelvis tilt forward, and arch. Think of the whole spine, and see how many vertebrae you can pay attention to simultaneously as you do this movement. You can do this movement very small and slowly even as you’re playing.

5 Side-bending: tilt your head to the right, and also bring your right shoulder and your right hip toward each other, lifting the right side of your pelvis a little off the chair. Then do the same to the left. Sense your whole spine. See how small a movement you can make that still involves the whole spine.

6 Circles: Round forward. Begin to make a circular movement combining the previous two lessons – rounding, side-bending to the right, arching, and side-bending to the left. Make a very small, slow movement, and sense your spine.

7 Circles with sternum: point to a spot on your sternum (your chest bone in front). Slowly move this spot up and down, tracing a vertical line. Stop for a moment, and then move it left and right, drawing a horizontal line. Pause again, and then begin to make circles up, down, right, and left. Pause again and change the direction of the circle.

8 Shoulders: make a very small movement sliding your right shoulder up and down. The shoulder blade is not attached to the ribs in back by any bones. Sense how the shoulder blade slides across the ribs in back. Try this with the other shoulder.

9 Breath: during a rest, sense how you breathe naturally – what moves in your ribs and abdomen? Then intentionally direct the air to different places as you breathe in. Think of breathing and directing the air so that the right shoulder gets wider, then the left. Then direct the air elsewhere - the lower ribs, the abdomen, the pelvic floor, the feet, etc.

10 Jaw - feel the pull of gravity on your jaw, and let the jaw sink down a very slight amount. You can do this with the lips closed or open. The teeth will come apart slightly. Let your tongue and lips be very easy.

This is a continuation of the short turning lesson on the Feldenkrais page. Before reading on, it is important to read and follow the instructions for that lesson.

After doing the turning lesson, begin to think about how you can explore these turning movements with the flute. Raising the flute to your lips requires turning in one direction or the other. Some flutists turn their heads to the left and their arms and shoulders to the right; others turn everything to the right or left. Playing the flute requires a complex twist which will be slightly different for each flutist. There is no right or wrong way to turn. Improving your awareness of how you do this movement will improve the movement and increase the ease in your playing.

Sit comfortably at the edge of your chair with your feet flat on the floor and your flute in your lap. Lift the flute a few times as if to play, and notice which direction your head turns. How do your shoulders turn? Your hips? Rest for a moment.

Put your flute aside, and turn simply to the left and to the right. How much of your spine can you sense as you turn? Beginning at your tailbone, sense up the length of your spine as you turn right and left. How many individual vertebrae can you sense?

Pick up your flute again. Begin to bring the flute up as if to play and then bring it back down again, repeating this movement several times. How do you sense your spine now? Can you sense individual vertebrae? Is it easier or more difficult to sense the spine while holding the flute? Rest again.

Now take a moment to figure out how to bring up the flute to the other side, so that it extends out to your left. Without worrying about touching the keys correctly, try to put your hands on the flute in a mirror image of what you usually do, so that your right hand is close to you with the palm facing toward you and the left hand is farther away and facing outward. Lift the flute several times on this side, and set it down again. Is it easier or more difficult to lift the flute on this side? Is it easier or more difficult to be aware of how you are turning and how your spine is moving? Are you turning in a very different way from the other side, or more or less symmetrically? Rest again.

Bring the flute up several times, alternating sides, and compare the habitual side to the non-habitual side. Is the movement easier or simpler on the non-habitual side? What can your non-habitual side, which is experiencing this movement for the first time, teach your habitual side? Rest.

Put your flute aside once more and begin to turn your head and eyes in one direction and your shoulders in the other direction. When your head and eyes turn to the right, your shoulders turn to the left, and vice versa. Make a small, easy movement. As soon as you begin to feel the slightest stretch in your neck or anywhere else, stop and turn in the other direction. How much of your spine can you be aware of as you do this movement? Rest.

Pick up your flute once more and begin to lift the flute to one side and then the other. Does this feel different after doing the previous movement? Can you sense more clearly how your whole spine is involved in this movement? Can you sense the difference between the two sides?

Try playing a few notes on the flute, thinking about your whole spine. Do you feel more ease in your chest and shoulders? Is there a difference in your breathing or your tone? Try incorporating this lesson into a practice session, and see if you notice any changes in how you play and how you practice. Thank you for taking the time to do this lesson.

I am a classical flutist and a Feldenkrais practitioner - I recently completed my four-year training program, the Semiophysics Training directed by Dennis Leri. Traditionally, the second year of training focuses on Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons. In my training, we began our second year by doing many variations of one basic lesson, called the Pelvic Clock, for two weeks. We used this lesson as a springboard for discussing fundamental concepts used in ATM lessons.

A month after the segment was finished, I had a chamber music concert scheduled. I tend to be a perfectionist and worry about my performance, which often leads to stage fright and a less successful concert. For this concert, instead of responding to my nerves, I decided to go about preparing the music in a new way, and to apply some of the concepts I had just learned to this context. I borrowed two simple ideas from ATM lessons: thinking of the process rather than the goal, and making this process aesthetically pleasing.

Classical music performance is very goal-oriented. Often hours of practice culminate in a single performance, one chance to play as well as possible. Worrying about this final product can lead to obsessive practicing, repeating passages on automatic pilot, and adding excess tension to muscle through difficult passages - quantity over quality. To shift my focus away from the outcome, I decided to examine my own learning process. I observed each strategy I used when practicing: playing slowly, focusing only on articulation, or thinking about the shape of a phrase, for instance. The simple act of noticing strategies helped me choose more efficient strategies and learn faster.

I often did an ATM before practicing and tried to carry the feeling of the ATM into my practice. Before I picked up the flute to play, I focused on both the quality of my physical organization and the quality of mind with which I approached learning at that moment: was my weight over my heels or toes? Where were my shoulders? Could I feel my spine? Was I clear-headed, intently concentrated, distracted? I didn't realize this until later, but the five seconds it took to ask these questions, take a breath, and bring the flute up to play were very important for cultivating a quality of attention and an absorption in what I was learning that I had rarely experienced before. My practice sessions became more aesthetically pleasing to me - I was conscious of their form, like a musical composition. I was also more aware of what I was doing physically and able to avoid excess tension.

I was less successful at avoiding tension in rehearsals, but I tried to keep the focus on the process rather than the results. I didn't sound that great at the first few rehearsals, and normally that would have bothered me. But seeing each rehearsal as the process of becoming acquainted with the music changed my priorities. And when the concert happened, I realized just how drastically things had changed. I wasn't nervous - in fact, I really enjoyed myself! Whereas before I had focused on perfection to the detriment of the music, mistakes mattered less now, so I made fewer of them.

Most importantly, I enjoyed conveying musical ideas to the audience. Previously, the audience's opinion was often in the foreground of my mind while I performed, but this time I was saying something to them rather than trying to impress them. All my worrying about the goal of perfection had sidetracked me from the obvious: in the end, my process of preparing for performance, and the aesthetic quality of this process, were generated by and served the music itself.

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Stacey Pelinka | info @ staceypelinka.com | 415.751.5613 | san francisco