This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Singing (Singers’) 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 singing 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)
Over the years as I’ve taught singers, there is a term that keeps coming up, and that word is PREPARATION. It is a term that has been defined by the singers I’ve worked with as that moment right before singing, when the singer prepares him or herself to sing well from the very first note.
I’d like to Alexanderize the term. In fact there already are two terms in the Alexander Technique that together beautifully capture the concept of preparation when singing. These words are DIRECTING and INHIBITION.
To DIRECT is to release your neck and allow your spine to lengthen right before you sing. To INHIBIT is to let go of what you DON’T want to do before you sing. I’m expanding the concept of inhibition in this essay to mean ALL you don’t want to do before you sing, rather than the traditional meaning of inhibition. The strict Alexander Technique definition of inhibit is to choose ONE habit to NOT do right before you sing, that isn’t serving you.
What is it that most singers do right before they sing that they call preparation? THEY STRIKE A POSE FROM HEAD TO TOE AND FROM SHOULDER TO FINGERS, THAT THEY HAVE CHOSEN AS THE BEST JUMP OFF POINT FOR SINGING.
Is this good or bad? STRIKING A POSE before you play is bad from the Alexander Technique perspective. Why?
BECAUSE, WHEN YOU STRIKE A POSE BEFORE YOU SING, YOU ARE IMMOBILIZING THE WHOLE BODY IN PREPARATION FOR SINGING. You are tensing and locking up and taking the space out of all of your joints before you sing. This is what causes wear and tear to the body, and it also negatively affects how well you sing.
There is another huge problem associated with tensing before singing. Most singers do not have good posture, so that the moment of preparation before singing is an immobilizing of the whole body in preparation to conduct with POOR posture.
What the vocal cords and diaphragm do is usually more thought out by the singer, so that the vocal cords and diaphragm are prepared consciously, for better or worse, before singing.
Let me define what the Alexander Technique considers conscious proper preparation right before you sing.
RIGHT BEFORE YOU SING, DO A FULL BODY INVENTORY OF UPWARD RELEASE FROM HEAD TO TOE AS PART OF YOUR TECHNIQUE. RELEASE THE VOCAL CORDS AND DIAPHRAGM AS PART OF YOUR SINGING TECHNIQUE.
So, preparation from the Alexander Technique perspective is preparing the WHOLE body to sing just before you sing. By physically releasing and expanding in all directions, the whole body is “poised in release” to sing.
THIS MEANS YOU MOVE INTERNALLY FIRST, JUST BEFORE THIS INTERNAL MOVEMENT MANIFESTS AS SINGING.
I have never ever seen a singer who has not done any Alexander Technique do this internal release right before singing. They “lock and load” (literally), as they say right before a marksman shoots a rifle.
There is a mental/psychological reason for preparation before singing. At that very moment before singing, you bring all of your attention, awareness, and focus to the music about to be sung.
When I think of focusing on something, I instantly think of narrowing my attention to only the task at hand. If I’m really honest with myself, my habit is to hunker down to block out the world, especially if I’m about to play the guitar or do and complete any task perfectly. I now choose not to do this.
“Hunkering down” is what I see in most singers do in conjunction with what they call preparation. This means that the singer does this contradictory combination of conscious technique and postural positionings right before he or she sings. The singer ties conscious technique choices to unconscious hunker down habits to block out any distractions, either from the audience or to suppress feelings of fear.
I’m asking you to do the opposite of what just about every other singer does the very moment before singing. RELEASE!
By choosing to define your singing technique as “POSITIONS OF RELEASE” right before you sing, then you are doing what most singers do not do right before singing. Release any unnecessary tension and physical habits out of your body, and sing on these physical expansions throughout the whole body.
What is so extraordinary about doing this is you are preparing to sing by trusting an expansive body to sing accurately. You are NOT tensing for precision and NOT immobilizing your vocal cords and diaphragm before a whole assortment of refined movements, which is called singing.
