Fish, Anatomy, Alexander Technique
Author: Ted McNamara
12 pages, bibliography
Ted McNamara is an Alexander Technique teacher of wide experience who is presently working with music students at London’s Guildhall School of Music. Now that lessons in the Alexander Technique are an accepted part of the curriculum in the UK’s conservatories of music it seems appropriate to include an article around the subject. However, this article is intended to be accessible to readers unfamiliar with the ideas and methods of the Technique.
Introductory and explanatory material on F.M. Alexander (1869–1955) and his Technique is now easy to find in books and on the Internet, and suggestions for further reading can be found in the article’s bibliography. What is offered here is a kind of supplement to the very guitar-specific writings that make up the remainder of the journal. It does not attempt to explain again what has been explained so well in the many books on the Alexander Technique, but rather to provide material and insights for all those – not only musicians, to be sure – who are looking for a different use of themselves, whatever their practice. It is taken as axiomatic in this article that to play the guitar requires the same holistic use as all activities: there is no specific technique for guitarists.
In this article Ted McNamara mixes story-telling and references to a wide range of musical and spiritual traditions, challenging us to re-evaluate notions that we take for granted in our teaching and practice – to understand afresh what it means to try, to listen, to stop, to relax, and to direct