A colleague loaned me a book about what’s called “body mapping” for musicians. Even browsing through it revealed some fascinating information to help me in teaching and playing.
Did you know posture is not about having a straight back? Or that your hand doesn’t rotate around the middle finger? Did you know your arm has four joints, not three?
Below, I’ll outline the answers to these questions. These are just a few of countless interesting and important points about how our body actually works, versus how we might imagine it works.
In teaching violin, for example, I find that students who imagine their hand to be parallel to the fingerboard feel it’s impossible to separate their fingers to play notes correctly, so they make awkward hand adjustments to compensate. Students who understand that their palm actually faces more towards their shoulder are able to straighten and bend their fingers much more easily as they play higher or lower on the strings.
For a fuller exploration, check out What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body, by Barbara Conable. The book is based on a course taught on the subject (see this website for info, links, and articles). Body Mapping for Flutists, by Lea Pearson, contains excellent general explanations of body movement useful to all musicians even though specific exercises are geared towards flutists. A similar book for pianists is What Every Pianist Needs to Know About the Body, by Thomas Mark.
As to those body questions I mentioned–Do you think your back should be straight? I know a yoga teacher who walks around as if her spine is a pole. I guess she thinks this is healthy, but it never made sense to me, and this book confirms that. In fact, your spine needs its curvature and flexibility, and if you try to straighten your back up, you actually put weight and stress on the back side of the spine, which is where the nerves are, rather than the front side of the spine, which is the weight-bearing side. One thing that gives you good posture is the balancing of your head. And balance means just that: the ability to move your head in all directions, but always be able to come back to the balancing place. You don’t want your head fixed in a rigid, “correct” place.
Pianists, and in fact, any musician, might find it interesting to note that the hand does not rotate around the middle finger. In fact, because of the way the forearm twists, the axis of rotation is around the little finger. If you imagine your hand rotates around a different part of your hand, then you might be straining something.
Lately in teaching fiddle, I’ve found it interesting and helpful to point out that the bow arm has four joints, not three. This usually surprises students. We know about the wrist, elbow and shoulder, but did you ever stop to consider that the first joint of the arm is where the collarbone connects just below your chin? This is what allows the shoulder to lift.
This basic “mapping” of the body, for yourself and your students, can be a tremendous help in teaching the very physical tasks involved in playing music.
You wrote an interesting article. Voice students have to maintain a correct stance, and guitar players need to strum with their wrist, not their arm. Great article. It got me thinking.