Jazz or Rock Guitar – Splinting (Musicians, Electric, Psychology, Pain, Strain, Injuries, Posture, Alexander Technique)(Albuquerque)

This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Jazz and Rock Guitar 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 guitar 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)
I recently was giving an Alexander Technique session to a client who is a medical doctor, and she used the term SPLINTING to describe a posture that a musician, or anyone in any specific activity, assumes to do the activity over a prolonged period of time.
She said that she had observed in her patients postures that reflected the bad posture of playing an instrument, and had become a permanent part of the person’s general everyday posture.
Example: If a singer, instrument player, or conductor practices for hours and hours slumped over and hunkered down leaning to one side, then he or she will wear this poor posture all of the time.
This isn’t truly a completely new revelation for me as an Alexander Technique teacher, but it is a new framework for my looking at how clients use their bodies in everyday and specialized activities.
This very perceptive doctor had made a connection between what her patients do for hours and hours in their specialized activities, from making music to working at a computer all day, and she had become aware of how the specialized activity had distorted the patient’s posture the majority of the day.
Working with performing or conducting musicians is a wonderful way to use the Alexander Technique to help create a balanced elegant posture all of the time. Why?
BECAUSE IT MEANS THAT THE PERFORMER OR CONDUCTOR WILL HAVE A HEALING/TRANSFORMATIVE EFFECT ON THEIR POSTURE 24/7, WHEN THE BODY IS BALANCED PLAYING, SINGING, OR CONDUCTING.
Why does playing, singing, or conducting maybe only a couple of hours a day have such a profound negative effect on the person’s overall posture?
IF THE PLAYER, SINGER, OR CONDUCTOR IS REALLY DEDICATED TO BECOMING A FINE PERFORMER OR CONDUCTOR, THEN THE TENSION OF PERFECTIONISM WILL TYPICALLY CAUSE POWERFUL HOLDING PATTERNS THROUGHOUT THE BODY.
This is what SPLINTING is. Splinting is the carryover of doing something regularly with great intensity, tension, and bad posture, and locking that poor posture into the body causing a permanent loss of range of motion.
So, a player or singer, or conductor who plays hunkered down for years will find it impossible to stand or sit fully upright. This will be experienced and viewed by many bodyworkers and others as a permanent part of the performer’s or conductor’s posture. Is it? NO!
If a player, singer, or conductor goes to an Alexander Technique teacher and is splinting, what is it that the Alexander Technique teacher does that can reverse this loss of range of motion in the performer’s or conductor’s body?
THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE TEACHER TEACHES THE PLAYER, SINGER, OR CONDUCTOR HOW TO PERFORM OR CONDUCT WITHOUT LOCKING THE BODY INTO RIGIDLY HELD POSTURES, IN AN ATTEMPT TO CREATE ACCURACY IN PERFORMING OR CONDUCTING.
I want to say at this point that hunkering down and immobilizing the body to perform or conduct is not something the musician is usually conscious of. In other words, the player, singer, or conductor from the beginning, as a beginner, unconsciously evolves a posture that seems to get the job done but DOESN’T!
Let me be clearer. If you become a fine player, singer, or conductor with a splinted posture, then you’re still a fine performer or conductor, but for how long? By definition a splinted body is a body in a permanently poor posture and a limited range of motion. If you continue to live this way, then you will get into physical trouble. Probably by 50-years-old you will begin to hurt constantly, and your playing, singing, or conducting will deteriorate.
The splinted posture of a player, singer, or conductor is a carryover into mastery. This means that the performer or conductor is still trying hard to stay in control of performing or conducting, as if he or she was still a beginner.
So, even after mastering the instrument or conducting, you may still be embodying the hunkering down of the frightened beginner. PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY THIS IS BEING A BEGINNER AND A MASTER OF YOUR CRAFT AT THE SAME TIME.
This cannot be sustained, and you will begin to hurt constantly. You will attribute this hurting nonstop and not performing or conducting as well to getting older, but this isn’t true if you’ve been splinting.
WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY GIFT IT WOULD BE TO YOURSELF IF YOU WERE A TRUE MASTER OF YOUR INSTRUMENT OR A CONDUCTOR, WITHOUT BEING A COMPROMISED COMBINATION OF SPLINTING BEGINNER AND EXPERT!

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An Alexander Technique Approach to Jazz and Rock Guitar Technique

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Ethan Kind

AUTHOR, TRAINER "When you change old habitual movement patterns with the Alexander Technique, whether in playing a musical instrument, running, weightlifting, walking, or typing at a computer, you create an ease of body use that moves you consistently into the zone." - Ethan Kind Ethan Kind writes and is published extensively on all of the above activities. He teaches musicians, athletes, and computer operators how to stop hurting themselves, by showing them how to use their bodies with ease and coordination. He brings a unique perspective to his work, having been a musician and athlete all of his life. After training for three years at the American Center for the Alexander Technique (New York, NY), Ethan received Professional Certification credentials.

4 Comments

  1. Heimo Trixner on June 13, 2015 at 2:25 pm

    Dear Mr. Kind,
    I am a professional guitar player and guitar-teacher at the University for Music and Arts in Vienna,Austria;Europe. Thanks for your book about Alexander-Technique -Jazzguitar-book!
    It is very inspiring. I would like to change by picking to rotational-picking, but I don`t understand how I should rotate….Do you mean the arm rotates from the biceps around the “axis”,which moves ulna and radius …like opening a doorknob, up and downstroke? In your interview, you said to move the arm back and forth – like a steam loco?-..which then looks like “circle – picking”. It would be great if you could help me. I recommend your book to all my students. best regards Heimo Trixner



    • ethankind on June 18, 2015 at 11:52 am

      Thanks very very much for the kind things you said about my ebook and for recommending it to your students. Also, no need to apologize, I really like to answer questions like this. Keep asking questions after my explanations until you understand what I’m saying.
      So many guitarists believe that the best way to move the pick back and forth quickly across a string is to do so with the wrist. There are 2 much better ways to do so even faster. The first is with the rotating forearm and the second moving the forearm with the upper arm. You asked about the technique of rotating the forearm, but I also want to talk about moving the hand/pick from the upper arm as a really great way to play a string or strings quickly.
      First, the rotation of the forearm. The different heads of the biceps take turns contracting and releasing to rotate the radius and the ulna. This means the hand holding the pick is also rotated at the end of the arm. The wrist isn’t held rigid, but the hand/pick is treated as an extension of the arm, so the hand does not move up and down.
      The rotation of the forearm is minimal, since all you have to do is move the pick a very very small distance from one side of the string to the other side and back again continuously. The rotational technique is better with single string playing.
      The second way to move the pick quickly back and forth across the string or strings is with the upper arm. Again, this means that the hand/pick is treated as an extension of the forearm, and the hand does not move side to side independently of the forearm.
      Many guitarists think that they should move the hand back and forth at the end of the forearm, because they believe that using smaller muscles and just moving the hand is faster and more accurate. This just isn’t so.
      You can move the forearm/hand/pick with the musculature of the upper arm across a string or strings with incredible speed and precision, by allowing the biceps to move the forearm inward and the triceps to extend the forearm very fast, like a nervous twitch. This back and forth of the forearm is very very minimal, given how small the distance is going back and forth across the string.
      But if you’re moving the forearm/hand/pick across 4 or more strings, then the amplitude of the forearm movement is greater. This means the biceps and triceps has to move the forearm/hand/pick a greater distance, but this can still be done very quickly.



  2. Heimo Trixner on June 19, 2015 at 1:17 pm

    Thanks a lot for your detailed and defined answer!!! Now it is very clear!
    I have one more question: Which position of the thumb, when I play with the pick, would you recommend? Straight, bend down or slightly bend up, like holding a pen?
    I have observed, that my thumb is slightly moving up and down, when I am picking….maybe because years ago I changed my picking-motion to make my down- and upstrokes
    from my thumb..“bending the MCP joint down and up“….. the thumb is now very loosely, when I don`t try to squeeze the pick a little..maybe I am holding the pick a little to loose….
    Do you have an idea how I can keep my thumb in one position and stop this additional motion?
    Thanks a lot again for your help and all the best from Austria



    • ethankind on June 19, 2015 at 1:25 pm

      Slightly bent. I have a feeling if you pay close attention to what you’re doing, the index finger is also bending as the thumb bends. Bending the index finger would cause the the thumb to bend or visa versa.
      There is a term in the Alexander Technique which is inhibition. It means if you inhibit or stop bending your index finger as you play, the thumb won’t bend. Let me know if this is what is happening.
      Don’t tense and squeeze the pick harder to keep from loosing it. Play as if your thumb and index finger are super-glued to the pick. This is a mental trick, but it works and helps you to do the least amount of work necessary to hold the pick.