inquiring of that mystic trinity...

..."body, mind and muse", as John Donne metaphysicked in a Letter To R.W.  I am back from the gym and a sadistic trinity of lifting weights, leaping around and faking sit-ups at the back of the core stability class.  I'm going to be, like, the world's fittest harpist.

It is a curious paradox that, for a profession that involves the physical so heavily, musicians often pursue highly unhealthy lifestyles and keep quiet about their injuries.  The obvious reasons for drinking too much, eating junk and not exercising are the stress and irregular routines;  and if it gets out that you aren't in good shape, you will lose work, because like a racehorse you are little use off-form. 

The reasons for this poor situation are both simple and, in their clarity, hard to resist.  Nonetheless, as in Donne's intricate imagery and like half the fiddle section's shoulders, the injury problem is knotted, entangled in minds and hearts alongside aching bodies.

Learning technical exercises is dull and so usually sold to us, thus:  the right technique will allow to you express whatever it is you want to do artistically, and it will also stop you getting injured.  To have good technique, then, is fundamentally essential, and full of emotional investment, pride and personal dignity.  If you have no technique, you are a bad musician.  If you get injured, by implication, you must have had bad technique;  and, by extension, likewise be a poor musician. 

Like the reasons for living unhealthily and denying problems, all of the above about technique is, broadly, true.  But again, the reality is subtler.  Technique, at the highest level (one that will sustain your body though a small repetitive action for six plus hours a day), has to be honed to your own physique.  You learn the general principals from a teacher, but you also have to be aware how best to manifest them yourself. 

Yehudi Menuhin picked his technique apart.  He realised that what he had done unconsciously as a young man would, without genuine understanding, soon unravel (as always happens if you decide to go on stage and "trust your fingers" to perform from memory a piece you have only learnt mechanically).  Menuhin also recognised that music is an unfinished journey, intellectually, emotionally, and physically.  Your body changes as you get older;  with time it is easy to develop bad habits.  And what causes one person no problems might give you RSI, because some people are tougher than others.  Anybody who says "but surely you don't need to worry about technique any more now" thinks amateurishly.  If it's a journey good enough for one of the world's greatest musicians, it's good enough for me.

Without Menuhin's saintly disposition, it is the most terrific bore to take apart a technique that took years to learn, and it is not enjoyable to confess that you might not be feeling fine.  But, of course, when injuries are not admitted to early and properly investigated, they grow far more debilitating than they need to.  Arm pain is often caused by a trapped nerve in the back, not by how you move your wrist as you play the violin.  But you have to have a certain awareness of anatomy and be prepared to talk to enough physicians to discover this. 

I live near the excellent Islington Chiropractic Clinic.  Last year they diagnosed a locked joint in my back in five minutes (typically, there was nothing wrong with my arm); my spine was adjusted back into line with a gratifyingly fortissimo crack, and I walked out pain-free.  I had some follow-up sessions but it was miraculous.  Newly enlightened into the mysteries of the nervous system, I made a minor adjustment both to my general posture and when I play, which took all of five minutes to master.  And I am fine, playing for hours every day, and the whole business has been so easily resolved:  without drugs, without surgery, and - crucially - without ever having to dep a gig out.   

The Royal Ballet dancers get two weekly sessions of pilates and daily physio as a matter of course.  Menuhin did yoga as he reworked his technique (I'm learning yoga as well, so I will not only be the world's fittest harpist, but the calmest).  Body-awareness like this and the Alexander technique are now, happily, being taught in conservatoires. 

Apart from anything else, a spot of exercise affords an agreeable break from staring at harp strings.  Although the stomach crunching session was definitely a mistake.  Everyone else looked like a body-builder, with abs stronger than my legs.  I can hardly stand up.

PS: ACD helpfully points out my spelling mistakes, and my British inflection. Awfully decent of you, old chap.

 

Comments

[Paul Cantrell]

I often complain that we treat technique too much as a measure of a musician, an end in itself, but I hadn't considered how that kind of judgment actually encourage musicians to ignore their injuries. I think you're spot-on.

I've been taking Argentine tango lessons for the past eight months, and it's made me realize (never having danced before) how little aware I am of my body beyond the hands ... and how bad my posture is at the piano. Incredible how independent musical intelligence and body intelligence are.

[Anonymous]

Though I wouldn't follow in Menuhin's footsteps - his playing post-dissection (post-mortem?) doesn't compare to his earlier playing!

[Helen]

Some argue it doesn't have the same sweet tone, certainly. It's a complex issue, though, and the unconscious facility you can have when very young is not something that lasts, so as a musician you have to decide what you are going to do about it. My favourite Menuhin recordings are, with Kempff, the humility and wisdom of the Beethoven sonatas.

[A.C. Douglas]

Menuhin had a cripplingly bad bow technique, the result of some never-corrected bad habits acquired during his early training, that he was never able to overcome (although he sought help from several sources), and in his later years was unable to compensate for.

Damn shame, actually. The man was a genuine poet on the instrument.

ACD