Exercising Freedom Part II

Since my intent was to explore my freedom in this practice session, I began with an Alexander Technique lie down as  this simple yet powerful process opens my body and mind. From there I moved onto a little vocal improvisation, a bit goofy & scat-like by my untrained voice. From there onto a guitar improvisation, not as free as the vocal one, but exploratory, even fun.

I sat down and began working with some of Balk’s Facial Mode Exercises.  Playing the opening sections to the three pieces I’ll be performing at The Field, I worked with taking in the room with my eyes, then eyes closed,  and eyes and mouth wide open.  I also played with a couple facial expressions.  Though I’m not sure I’d ever perform with any of these, certainly the eyes and mouth wide open, it is the freedom to do so, while playing them I am looking for. Next I moved to standing and repeated this sequence.

Moving onto exercising the kinesthetic mode things got a bit playful. I was playing while standing on one leg and then shifting to the other one, when the Alexander Technique  arrived uninvited by myself into my thinking.  I wondered was my neck free?  From here I began to direct my use actively while still playing with standing on one leg. When both legs were on the floor I would direct myself forward & up, long and wide; then lift the opposite leg for a few seconds and repeat.  An energetic shift and a new sense of freedom arrived.

From here I began to work with playing each piece in a different order than the set.  While also working with exercising the three modes as Balk describes them - the facial, the kinesthetic, and the emotional in a manner that would support the individual piece.  Moving about my practice space, sometimes gracefully, sometimes with detachment, other times  seductively, I explored these choices.  Activating the face and emotions to support the movements continued to add to this energetic shift. 

While playing through Forget-Me-Knot I turned towards the dining room and saw the flowers on our table.  Such pure and simple beauty penetrating me as I played.  My motion stopped as the notes flowed.  I completed the piece and gently took in the process.

Soon the thought arrived to play through the set.  Instead I decided that I was free to choose to not do this, not just yet.  I could continue to explore and expand my freedom of choices while being in no hurry to measure their success or not.  This felt very right.

Moving onto a new idea that recently arrived I explored the theme with some new twists.  Seated without concern for Balk’s exercises just  playing with the notes.  Satisfied I moved onto a piece I’ll be performing next week that has a  very thorny section in it.

I took on this new piece of work in a seated position and played a bit with the facial exercises seeing if this might disrupt my habitual playing of this section.  I focused solely on this section and slowed my playing way down.  Randomly moving  through the section I would play a few bars and then apply AT inhibition. A few times, even at this slow pace, I found myself flinching and or tightening my neck.  Then I slowed the playing even more, looking for smooth and fluid execution from a free body and mind.  Then I stood and began to slowly move as I played with random measures, sometime recombining ideas, oftentimes inhibiting my next action.  A freshness arrived as this came alive.  Similar to the shift that had occurred earlier I wanted to play through this piece and measure the results  Instead I choose to do an AT lie down and let the changes settle in.

Exercising Freedom

In 19  , Robert suggested to our group of local crafties a book - The Radiant Performer, by H. Wesley Balk, which is an approach to exercising different parts of a performer, particularly as  demanded by singing-acting.  I dutifully found a copy and for years maybe even over a decade, could not really make heads nor tails of how to apply this to myself.  Yet I am persistent and would investigate the work at different periods.  First I had to work through my severe entanglement wrought by fear during the lead up to and through the act of performance.

The past few years I periodically work with applying some of Balk's exercises with the intent of freeing myself to the act of performing music.  Approaching freedom comes in various ways - meditation, the Alexander Technique,  and a disciplined approach to learning a piece.  Balk's approach uses exercises that deal with the physical and emotional centers of the performer and provides ways to access and develop these. My interpretation of some of his exercises is my own, as I have never  worked with anyone versed in his approach.

Recently I've been reading parts of this book again and was captivated by these words:

  The performer can develop a freedom of performance choice that will give his every action a different quality than if he did not know that freedom of choice.  This is a somewhat mystical but down-to-earth principle that one of my very bright students christened "the synergy of the known but unused."  It means that each individual choice has power in proportion to the number of other choices that could have been made even if these choices have not been actually practiced.

One choice I move between is do I perform seated or standing?  In a relatively short performance of 10 minutes as I am facing with The Field/DC this week, there is little difference to me.  Overall I tend towards more freedom in my body and perhaps my emotions when standing, but over a longer time period of performing my focus holds up better when seated.  Having spent much more time both practicing and performing seated than standing I may also have developed more habits, both useful and not, that have built up over time.

Today I choose to exercise myself both seated and standing and tossed in some playing while moving for good measure. An interesting energetic shift occurred which I lack the time to detail now.  More coming very soon.  Stay tuned.