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)
CAN A SINGER CREATE A COMPLETELY NEW SINGING TECHNIQUE AND POSTURE WITHOUT HAVING TO STOP PERFORMING AND START OVER? YES!
But it has to be by evolving degrees of change to your technique over time. Let me explain. For the average singer, technique is not something that continues to evolve over time. So, by the time a talented committed singer has sung for five years or so, the singer’s technique is not changing.
And the odds are it won’t change unless the singer either gets into physical trouble or becomes unwilling to accept his or her inability to sing the most difficult vocal music without pain, injury, or strain.
WHAT IF YOU SAT OR STOOD AND SUNG AND LOOKED AT EVERYTHING YOU BELIEVE IS GREAT SINGING TECHNIQUE WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF AN ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE TEACHER WHO WAS VERY CLEAR ABOUT THE INSEPARABILITY OF POSTURE AND SINGING TECHNIQUE?
What would be the result?
You would find yourself creating a gently evolving singing technique that would only allow you to become a better and better singer.
But this doesn’t answer the problem stated by the title of this article. Simply, the title of this article asks, “Is it possible not to do what you’ve done when you sing without disruption to your performing?”
BY DEFINITION IF YOUR SINGING TECHNIQUE IS IN AN EVOLVING GENTLE STATE OF CONSTANT CHANGE, AT SOME POINT YOU WILL HAVE NOTHING OF THE OLD TECHNIQUE LEFT.
A couple of points here: I want to address the issues of an evolving singing technique being an unstable singing technique and of eventually “having nothing of the old technique left”.
We have a saying in the Alexander Technique, “DO LESS!” What does this mean? It means that your posture and singing technique will be in a constant state of evolving into something better, if you use your warm up each day to let go of excess tension. In other words, every time you sit or stand to sing you do a physical inventory of release, so that you use less and less muscle to sing better and better.
Is this a radical approach to singing technique? NO, but it is a PRACTICAL approach for two reasons. First, if you don’t do this, it is very likely that your singing posture and technique will devolve into greater and greater slumping and tension. What I just said is the basis for why some days your singing is working, and other days why it isn’t.
If every time you sit or stand to sing you guide yourself into postural and technique balance, then at the very least you are allowing more and more days to be good practice or performance days. Second, at the best you’re creating a very very subtly evolving singing technique and posture that will not interfere with how well you sing here and now. And in fact, this subtly evolving singing technique based on “doing less and less” will most certainly guarantee better and better sung performances, which means a growing faith in yourself to sing well in front of others.
What does it mean to realize you aren’t doing anything you did the first five or twenty years when you sing?
IT MEANS THAT EVEN WITH IF YOUR EVOLVED SINGING TECHNIQUE DOESN’T LOOK ALL THAT DIFFERENT TO THOSE YOU’RE SINGING FOR, YOU HAVE CHANGED SO MUCH HOW YOU INHABIT AND USE YOUR BODY TO SING, THAT YOU AREN’T THE SAME SINGER.
You have brought your singing posture and singing technique into such amazing alignment, by using less and less muscle to allow this, that you don’t feel like yourself. THE BODY ALWAYS TELLS US WHO WE ARE. What do I mean?
All tension, all good or poor posture when you sing, all good or bad conducting technique, is your own creation. None of this is done to you. It is all the result of all of what you believe about yourself, what you believe is necessary to sing, and what you believe about others, brought to singing.
Inherent in the above is that you have ALL OF THE POWER to evolve your singing technique, not cling to a potentially stagnant technique, or watch your singing technique and posture devolve over time.
Here is a spiritual example: It is possible you know someone who is an enlightened being, but you don’t know that this is their level of awareness. Because on the outside, he or she looks like and acts like everyone else.
What is the experience of a brand new singing technique?
MOST OF THE TIME YOU EXPERIENCE A SENSE OF PHYSICAL WELLBEING WHEN YOU SING, AND YOUR TECHNIQUE ALLOWS YOU TO CREATE WITH EASE WHEN YOU PRACTICE OR PERFORM WHAT IS IN YOUR HEAD.
