As you know I’m a violist, and recently a colleague referred a teenage violinist to me.
Some of my favourite work (I like it all) is combining music making with Feldenkrais. So I’ve been enjoying working with her.
What’s in the self image?
In her lesson I observed her playing a little. I noticed that she didn’t include the top of the shoulder in her movement. And when I asked her about it, she said she didn’t sense it being part of the movement. In theory, she knew the muscles of the chest attach to the shoulder, but she couldn’t feel it.
She couldn’t feel the connection, so she didn’t include it. She couldn’t. As a result the arm movement was isolated from support at the front. Which if one wants to make a full sound, would be useful.
Sensation as Information
At that point, I asked her to put her violin down, and find her sternum with her fingers. I asked her find the top of it. And then to slide her left hand to the right side of her sternum, where it meets the ribs.
I then asked her to slide her right shoulder backwards, and feel the muscles moving under her fingers, pulling like elastic bands. We repeated this simple movement, as she moved her fingers down the side of her sternum lower and lower. So she could feel how big an area supports the front of her shoulder.
Try it yourself…
When she got to the base of her sternum, I asked her to leave her fingers on her abdomen. To feel how the sensation wasn’t there anymore. There’s no direct musclular connection. When she moved her fingers back onto the ribs she could feel the connection once again. She continued down the flare of the ribs to see how low the pectoral muscles reached.
Then she came back to her violin. Not only was it a different sound quality: richer and freer, but a movement that now included the area she’d been touching.
Theoretical knowledge doesn’t shift into active knowledge unless we can feel it, or visualise it. Feldenkrais helps you learn in a way so that you can feel yourself with more clarity. Once you can feel it, you can change what you’re doing to something better.
Transform how you move, feel and live 