Removing barriers to musical freedom...with nail polish remover!

I'm on an unending quest to uncover freedom and ease of movement when I play. How do we find the physical and mental freedom to uncover and enjoy musical freedom? This post will recap the latest discovery that I experienced.

I had a COA completed on my flute recently and while the work done was fabulous, the technician took my nail polish off! I had a strip of polish on the barrel and on my headjoint so that I could easily assemble the flute and know that the headjoint was in the correct position. The nail polish was a prop that once removed, moved me along in my discovery process. Initially, I wasn't so happy about this.

Although I know where the headjoint "feels" good and had marked it with the nail polish, I had to experiment a lot with rolling in and out to find the best place for a sound I liked. As I did this, I had good tone days and bad ones. I also noticed some stiffness and tightening in my neck muscles as I experimented but the reason for this wasn't completely clear. I stopped playing each time I noticed my neck stiffening up.

On one particularly good day, I looked in my mirror as I played and noticed that my keys had rolled back and I hadn't even noticed. What element dominated my awareness so much that I wasn't aware of my hands rolling the flute in?

In a recent Body Mapping lesson with Lea Pearson, she noticed that I appeared to be lacking freedom at my A-O joint when I played. For perhaps the first time ever (now that I was aware of it!), I experienced a free A-O joint during that lesson. What I didn't think about at the time was the connection of embouchure to hand position, the source of my latest discovery.

From wikipedia.org

Flutists, like singers, become mesmerized by their sound and a good sound day is fantastic and a bad sound day can make you feel like the world should end. Locking in to the sound and setting to hang on to that sound can create physical changes in the body like muscle tension. It can also diminish our inclusive awareness.

Music is sound, but when we lose awareness of the elements that create the sound, we run into trouble. Our sound is connected to our embouchure which is connected to our hand position. Our entire bodies are connected to the sound. Resonating chambers inside the body (chest, mouth, nasal passages, sinus cavities, etc.) impact a flute's sound just like a singer.

What I experienced in the practice room is locking up even in just one part of the body can impact your sound and cause automatic adjustments to occur (such as rolling the keys in). If we bring the flute to our lips with awareness of the A-O joint and we immediately settle and lock into the sound, we're restricting access to that place of balance and impeding whole body balance.

While the headjoint position felt correct, I was not able to maintain the comfortable angle to produce a good sound across the low, middle and high registers. My hands then became involved in the correction process. Losing freedom at the A-O joint created tension which I was able to feel. My discovery reminded me of how losing awareness of the A-O joint made finding a good sound more difficult. This led to the adjusting which I noticed only when I looked in the mirror.

I am on a mission to find freedom at my A-O joint (and always putting discoveries within the context of the whole). I am reading and researching to find the freedom necessary to connect a free and flexible embouchure to a balanced hand position that supports the flute but also allows me technical facility. Consistent practice is the first step in this process, which I'll write about next.

When you find a good sound, trust it (don't be afraid!). Let awareness of your A-O joint enter into your inclusive attention and let it rest there as part of your sound awareness. Remember that the A-O joint is a place of balance in the body. If we lose awareness or we lock ourselves into a "proper playing position" to keep a good sound, we will go out of balance in other places of the body.

The hands and mouth are two parts of the body flutists may take for granted and link to good sound production, but what would happen if you included them in the whole? Effective practice sessions can help us keep removing the barriers to musical freedom.

Current surveys ask for musicians' opinion on bullying and injuries

The injury rate for musicians is estimated to be somewhere around 75 percent (google "musician injury rate" and a wealth of information appears for you to research this yourself). This is a huge and very scary number. For any number of reasons, some musicians speak publicly about their injuries with colleagues and students while others remain silent.

I'm one of the injured, and I'm not afraid to talk about it. I'm also not afraid to talk about the other issues that commonly plague musicians like performance anxiety and gnawing periods of self doubt. It's a part of being human. With performing arts medicine and somatic disciplines such as Alexander Technique and Body Mapping helping performers return to their instruments pain and injury free, why are we still so secretive? Why does it seem that most musicians discover this information on their own when they need answers?

Performing arts medicine is a field that all musicians should make themselves familiar with. Injury is a deeply personal thing that can humiliate the musician especially if it seems that no one else around them can relate. With adequate awareness and education, music students should feel comfortable enough to discuss issues with their teachers so that accommodations can be made. Just like an athlete eases up on their training if they pull a muscle, musicians should listen to their bodies and ease up if something feels wrong. A support network of trusted individuals can help make this process easier.

There are two surveys currently making their rounds on the internet. The first is a study on bullying in the arts and contains sections regarding injury and asks musicians about their comfort level in discussing them. I'm very interested in seeing the results of this survey and I encourage you to complete it for yourself. You can find the survey here. It is being conducted by Robin Kish, MS, MFA.

The second is a more informal survey entitled The Healthy Musician. The nice thing about this survey is you can instantly see poll results. This website was created by someone named Molly. The survey seems legitimate and while I'm not sure what will be done with the data collected on this site, the ability to see instant poll results is catering to a present need and can help musicians feel less alone.

Take a look at the surveys, and I encourage you to contribute. These are two safe ways of sharing your opinions and experiences which will benefit us all.