As performers, we work physically hard to serve our art form.
Finding a way of staying healthy as a musician is really important.
There are often physical issues around playing, we feel we just have to live with.
These can cause pain, discomfort; stop you performing well, or lessen your enjoyment of being a musician.
This is where I can help. As a professional classical musician myself, I understand how we were taught our instruments, the pressures of standing in front of an audience and performing at the highest level. I’ll be speaking your language. I’ve toured and performed for over 20 years, so understand the stresses and excitements of that life from the inside out.
If you’re a musician: pupil, student, teaching or performing, I can help you.
You are your primary instrument.
What can I help with?
- Improving posture
- Restricted movement/ RSI / chronic tension
- Pain whilst playing or performing,
- Being able to play for longer in comfort.
- Performance anxiety/ Stage presence
- Freeing up artistic expression.
I work with musicians, individually, in groups, in weekly sessions just for you, or workshops.
I work with young musicians, and adults.
How does it work?
I use a process of organic learning, through moving and sensing, to help free up your habitual patterns. Our movement habits, embedded in our nervous system, often become outmoded or dysfunctional, creating unnecessary limitations.
We use gentle movement to get beneath the body’s defence system. We’ll improve your awareness of how you’re playing, to enable you to learn new patterns of thinking, moving, and sensing.
Specifically:
- Underlying movement and thinking habits that are getting in the way of efficient technique.
- Improving your physical set-up
- Adjusting technique to fit your anatomy.
- If needed, modifying instrument hardware (chin-rests/shoulder pads etc) to make the instrument fit you better
Benefits of working with me:
- Reduce tension, pain and discomfort
- Be the musician within that you know you can be.
- Improve your stage presence and posture
- Reduce anxiety both on and off stage
- Discover easier breathing and movement
- Find greater ease and freedom in your musical expression
In these practical sessions we’ll look at:
- How your whole body can support your technique
- Developing your self-awareness so you can feel what you’re doing more easily
- Learning to sense yourself from the inside out
- Discover skeletal movement and structure, and how to use it to better support your hands, shoulders, breath, voice and head.
You’ll learn tools for greater physical comfort so you can get better and easier musical results:
- Refining your sensitivity to how you are moving
- Reducing the effort & excess muscular tension for effective technique.
- Working with your body not against it.
- Improving your self image, (both physically and mentally)
- Learning new options for greater freedom of movement.
In my sessions and workshops we’ll look at:
- Developing your self-awareness and learning to reduce or prevent future discomfort/injury
- How work with your body not against it.
- How to lock into your organic learning abilities.
- learn new options for greater freedom of movement
I teach regularly for the Musicians Union. If you’re a member you have access via their events page.
For dates, details and booking: go to the StringMoves page
Register your interest:
String-Moves workshops:
Please check out the StringMoves page for specialist string players’ workshops; the workshops page for all upcoming workshops. You can check out the WellMusician page for my joint online 2 day workshops with Niall for all musicians, or the 1-to-1 sessions page if you’d like more individual attention.
Sign up to the mailing list above if you would like to be kept updated of new workshops or my monthly blog, have questions, or would like to try a class and discover more.
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