Musicians have long known the powerful benefits of incorporating Alexander Technique when playing their instruments. It is very common to find Alexander Technique teachers working within important music institutions. Even just after a few lessons, musicians can hear an improvement to the sound they produce on their instrument when engaging with the Technique.

Excessive habitual tension during long hours of practicing and performance can frequently lead to pain and repetitive strain injuries for musicians, leading to setbacks in their careers. In fact, a study found that 86% of orchestral musicians experienced pain in the past 12 months while over 50% of the musicians reported living with chronic pain.

Often musicians unknowingly translate musical tension into physical tension so they can feel connected to the music. Engaging with Alexander Technique helps musicians to understand the need to change their physical approach to their instrument to relieve the pain, heal injuries or improve their playing. They learn to recognize and let go of their repeated muscular holding, commonly found in the neck, shoulders, arms, and back.

Musicians use Alexander Technique to move their bodies in a manner that is healthy and holistic to optimize their technical and expressive abilities. The Technique is well-suited to musicians as it helps improve attention, sensory awareness, and confidence, while mitigating performance stress. Musicians find that their musical tone becomes more expressive, their control improves, and their listening ability is enhanced when they can quieten the mind and body and work with the flow of the music instead of against it.

The Technique’s training in awareness also can help musicians notice how frequently they may practice on “auto pilot” where they let muscular memory take over when repeating a musical passage several times without necessarily engaging their minds. When this happens the musician is neither solving the technical problem of the passage nor in control of the music.

Since musicians are very sensitive to tonal changes to their instrument, they quickly hear the positive changes that are made when they use Alexander Technique in their practicing and performances. After a series of Alexander lessons, musicians will often find that they are able to tackle technically more challenging repertoire that had previously been inaccessible to them as a result of reducing unnecessary muscular tension.

As Gabriella Minnes Brandes astutely observes, “Musicians are the instruments that make sound. A piano, guitar, violin, cello or drum does not make sound until a musician utilises them. The ways musicians move and breathe determine the quality of contact between themselves and their instruments, and thus determine the quality of sound that is produced. When artists see themselves as the vehicle for their expression, as the instrument through which they express themselves, AT can provide them with specific ways to tune their instruments, creating spaces for new and creative explorations through music making.” (The Congress Papers – The 11th International Congress of the F.M. Alexander Technique)