This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Drum Set (Drums) Technique, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create the accurate drums technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
Opposition is an Alexander Technique concept that is about the physical relationships within one’s body, and your relationship to what you are doing. It is a concept put into practice that teaches you how not to collapse into your body and how not to collapse into what you’re doing.
Applied to the drum set, it means you don’t collapse toward the drums as you play the drum set. If you observe a 1,000 drum set players, you will see most of them not in a truly effortless postural upright balance to the drums. They are usually collapsing downward to the instrument and their hands, or arching away from the drum set, even as their heads are pulling toward the instrument.
The internal aspect of opposition means that as you collapse downward toward the drum set, it means you’re head is closer to your hands and your legs, as you pull your head down to control the instrument, which means you’re skeleton is not in opposition posturally and between your joints.
The psychological component of this is that you are trying to get your head closer to what you’re doing, to get control of your drum set playing. You unconsciously are attempting to be more accurate by being very close to what you are doing. It is actually physicalizing fear posturally, because you’re afraid of making a mistake.
Most of us learned to do this when we learned to read and write in school, attempting to read or write well for a good grade, with our heads two inches away from the book or paper. You also learned to do this when you were a beginner on the drum set, attempting to get control by pulling toward the drums.
WHEN YOU ALLOW YOURSELF TO SIT FULLY UPRIGHT AT THE DRUM SET WITH BALANCED POSTURE AND YOUR HEAD RELEASING UPWARD, YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR BODY, TECHNIQUE, AND SELF, AND YOU WILL ULTIMATELY BE IN GREATER CONTROL OF THE DRUMS.
Opposition is an extraordinary concept, that when put into practice, allows you to use your body in relationship to the drum set in such a balanced way, that you are able to do the least amount of work necessary to play the drums with effortless coordination.
Being in opposition to the drum set is also a physicalizing of how you want your relationship to be to the drums. What I mean, is if you are pulling downward and toward the drum set, then you are not conscious in the moment of how you are using your body. In other words, your desire to play the drums well is shaping your posture and your technique, and you are not in control.
When you consciously choose your posture and your technique and remain conscious of how you want to be in relationship to the drum set, then you are choosing also how you want to feel about the drums. This means as you sit fully upright at the drum set, aware of your head, neck, and torso balanced upward and flowing upward instead of toward the drums, and you send your hands and arms to the drum set instead of pulling your body downward to the drum set, then you aren’t playing with tunnel vision.
Tunnel vision leads to tunnel posture, which means as you play the drum set without opposition, your technique and posture is being forced on you, because you are trying to get the music right. Rather than you choosing to sit up and balanced and watching it unfold in the moment, you are using excess tension and poor posture to try as hard as you can to play well.
IT IS AN AMAZING FEELING WHEN YOU PLAY THE DRUM SET MAKING ALL OF THE POSTURAL AND TECHNIQUE DECISIONS, RATHER THAN THE DRUMS AND MUSIC FORCING YOU TO SACRIFICE YOUR BODY, BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF THE DRUM SET AT ANY COST.
