Tai Chi for Musicians: June 1 lecture --Late Spring 2008

You’re maintaining positions for long periods so you have to figure out how to do that in as relaxed a way as possible without hurting the body; alignments become enormously important.”

The statement—by AgingBodies teacher Ruth Schechter, formerly a professional cellist—isn’t a promo for the upcoming tai chi Holding Postures workshop but commentary on an occupational hazard for musicians. “What would help a lot of musicians is an increased level of body awareness,” saysBTC student and concert pianist Ana Popa. “We use our bodies all the time but we don’t really connect all the parts.” The potential benefits of tai chi practice for instrumentalists go well beyond injury prevention. One of the people breaking ground in how movement dynamics influence artistic performance is Berklee College of Music jazz/classical piano professor and longtime BTC student Neil Olmstead, who will speak on the subject June 1. He has a “more than a little unusual” faculty fellowship for research comparing tai chi and piano techniques, the first ever formal comparison that he knows of. Most grants are more performance/composition-oriented.

Connecting from floor to fingertips is just one of the ways these two paths cross. Neil finds he can deduce what kind of sound will come out of the piano by noticing how the pianist sits down. Sitting back on the bench with a curved lower back produces a heavier tone simply because support of the torso isn’t assisted by the floor. The impact of positioning on tone is borne out by stories of other BTC students/musicians, of whom we have a significant subset who are either professional or serious musicians.

Carolanne Oller, teaching chi gung principles to violinists, has them hold their instruments while in a kwa squat stance, keeping the four points open. “It’s fun to watch their jaws drop open when they perceive that the volume, resonance, and projection of the instrument change just by correcting basic alignments in the body.” Sinking into the kwa, she says, gives greater depth to the bowing while rising up creates a more airy tone. Jazz drummer JohnCarranza used to leave his gigs feeling like he’d run a marathon. “Playing more from the tantien” was key in helping him not hold tension, along with keeping a good part of his awareness on the chair as part of his instrument.

The moment is ripe for research on the subject. The state of the art in the music world is such that next to nothing
about body awareness and injury prevention exists on most curriculums, even for
people in the most advanced degree studies. For vocalists, when the body is the instrument, some schools make a connection with Feldenkrais or Alexander Technique practitioners for injury rehabilitation, but anything comparable for instrumentalists is rare.

Exploring the impact of tai chi on injuries common to musicians—repetitive stress, tendonitis, carpal tunnel, and related tensions—could further offer benefits to people such as computer users who may be liable to similar stresses. Among the long-range results of Neil’s research will be lesson plans based on principles common to tai chi and piano performance, to show specifically how the body should behave at the piano, as well as lectures, articles, and perhaps a book. Early feedback on the project—from students as well as rehab centers such as Spaulding—has been most receptive.