Category: ARTICLES

Most of players describe playing discomfort as tension. They associate the tension within motional blocks, hardly coordinated hands, pains, stress, frustration, expressional limit and lack of joy. Players even feel demotivation or even disgust to practice, because they are already in tension before real work starts. They are more or less afraid of their performances, because they lack of self-control within their own body-mind system. This tension is of course not only of physiological basis, but also psychical. These outcomes usually have more roots and the origin may vary for particular players, but in the end, they influence each other and tend to regression. We need to consider them always as psychosomatic. How does our playing become over-tense?  We will focus on perspectives within playing itself: Lack of awareness to…

Introduction to Instrumental Playing through Laban/Barteineff Movement Studies Music is simply an audible manifestation of human motion happening through musical instrument. It raises from body motion and its sensory motor functions. Motion is not a part of instrumental playing, it is a basis of it.  We need to consider that sound is mechanical waving that starts with motional impulse. Like finger-flicking to a row of domino pieces, our particular touch on instrument sets the chaining of sound with particular qualities, such as articulation, dynamics, spatial factor and even emotional print. It carries our tension or motional freedom further to the ear of a listener. Our music may be organic, lively, breathing, but also very tense, bound, narrowed and frightened. The tones become our prolonged body. Our music is as such…