On Reserve.

Oh, hello there! This is my flute practice/recovery blog. I am currently a double music performance and psychology major, hoping to become a music therapist some day. This blog is going to be dedicated to how i'm dealing with my shoulder injury, and bits with the Alexander Technique, body mapping, exercises, my rants, and useful reading materials.

 

 

bodyalive: “Pain and body image are closely related. We always experience pain as projected into the body. When you throw your back out, you say, “My back is killing me!” and not, “My pain system is killing me.” But as phantoms show, we don’t need a body part or even pain receptors to feel pain. We need only a body image, produced by our brain maps. People with actual limbs don’t usually realize this, because the body images of our limbs are perfectly projected onto our actual limbs, making it impossible to distinguish our body image from our body. “You own body is a phantom,” say Ramachandran, “one that your brain has constructed purely for convenience.”p. 188 THE BRAIN THAT CHANGES ITSELF by Norman Doidge, M. D.

bodyalive:

“Pain and body image are closely related. We always experience pain as projected into the body. When you throw your back out, you say, “My back is killing me!” and not, “My pain system is killing me.” But as phantoms show, we don’t need a body part or even pain receptors to feel pain. We need only a body image, produced by our brain maps. People with actual limbs don’t usually realize this, because the body images of our limbs are perfectly projected onto our actual limbs, making it impossible to distinguish our body image from our body. “You own body is a phantom,” say Ramachandran, “one that your brain has constructed purely for convenience.”
p. 188

THE BRAIN THAT CHANGES ITSELF

by Norman Doidge, M. D.

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Flute Hurt-For both the Hurting and the Presently OK by Pauline Mancuso ⇢

Ideas/information on how to modify your flute to make playing more comfortable!

Lesson I I had my first lesson of the semester with Melanie yesterday, and we did some body awareness.  First, I sat and was to find a balance. It went something like this: Remember that there are 4 legs on a chair, plus the two on your body. Those four are there to support you; they aren’t going anywhere. Now, find your sit bones and  try to find a point where your pelvis balances over them.  (I always think of myself as a tree, where my legs/chair legs are rooted into the ground, helping me feel safer and sturdy.) Now, find that point where your head feels balanced over your entire body. At that point, the shoulders should feel free.  We also worked on sitting/standing, making sure the head was always leading, and when sitting, the bottom’s always leading without hunching. It makes it a lot easier.  My forearms were not mapped properly-I was turning from the wrist or shoulder, when in reality, the easiest motion is from the elbow to the pinky. Thinking that the rotation is pinky-side made it much easier to rotate my lower arm freely. Melanie also noted that many people tighten their glutes while standing and playing, and that results in wrong hip/femur mapping, along with lesser balance. She’s going to create something like what is pictured above for my left/right hands, to see if that will help with the wrist tension I have been feeling in my right hand, and with the shoulder tension I bear with my left side. 

Lesson I

I had my first lesson of the semester with Melanie yesterday, and we did some body awareness. 

First, I sat and was to find a balance. It went something like this:

Remember that there are 4 legs on a chair, plus the two on your body. Those four are there to support you; they aren’t going anywhere. Now, find your sit bones and  try to find a point where your pelvis balances over them.  (I always think of myself as a tree, where my legs/chair legs are rooted into the ground, helping me feel safer and sturdy.) Now, find that point where your head feels balanced over your entire body. At that point, the shoulders should feel free. 

We also worked on sitting/standing, making sure the head was always leading, and when sitting, the bottom’s always leading without hunching. It makes it a lot easier. 

My forearms were not mapped properly-I was turning from the wrist or shoulder, when in reality, the easiest motion is from the elbow to the pinky. Thinking that the rotation is pinky-side made it much easier to rotate my lower arm freely. Melanie also noted that many people tighten their glutes while standing and playing, and that results in wrong hip/femur mapping, along with lesser balance.

She’s going to create something like what is pictured above for my left/right hands, to see if that will help with the wrist tension I have been feeling in my right hand, and with the shoulder tension I bear with my left side. 

What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me … is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.

It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

-  Ira Glass (via thatkindofwoman)

(Source: mademoiselleaki, via fixingtheflute)

List of Alexander Technique Blogs for Students, Teachers, etc. ⇢

amusiclibrary:

Danse de la Chèvre - Arthur Honegger

Flute: Emily Beynon

Click here to see the sheet music for Danse de la Chèvre

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My situation is that the infraspinatus tendon is being protected by all of the other muscles, tendons, etc. and everything around it is irritated beyond compare.

My situation is that the infraspinatus tendon is being protected by all of the other muscles, tendons, etc. and everything around it is irritated beyond compare.

anatomiebrute: Infraspinatus & Supraspinatus

anatomiebrute:

Infraspinatus & Supraspinatus

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bodyalive: Do you know the laws of the spine? All movements of the torso are spinal movements and follow these basic precepts:1. The head leads the spine. 2. The vertebrae must follow in sequence.3. The spine must be free to gather and lengthen.4. Spinal movement should be distributed across the whole spine, not just a concentrated part.Follow the laws of the spine and you will protect your back and move with the grace of a dancer. :)[Laws excerpted from What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body by Barbara Conable] [via Inform Alexander Technique LLC]

bodyalive:

Do you know the laws of the spine? All movements of the torso are spinal movements and follow these basic precepts:
1. The head leads the spine. 
2. The vertebrae must follow in sequence.
3. The spine must be free to gather and lengthen.
4. Spinal movement should be distributed across the whole spine, not just a concentrated part.
Follow the laws of the spine and you will protect your back and move with the grace of a dancer. :)
[Laws excerpted from What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body by Barbara Conable] [via Inform Alexander Technique LLC]

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Blog ⇢
I’m currently reading this book (yes, I’m aware that it’s meant for dancers). Robin Gilmore presents different ways to think about movement, posture, freeing oneself of tension-I’m actually THINKING about how movement occurs! Tis fascinating.

I’m currently reading this book (yes, I’m aware that it’s meant for dancers). Robin Gilmore presents different ways to think about movement, posture, freeing oneself of tension-I’m actually THINKING about how movement occurs! Tis fascinating.

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FLUTE/MUSICIAN INJURIES

Bringing this blog back.

I feel like as music majors, we feel the need to push ourselves to unrealistic maximums because of the competitiveness of our field. I was that way last year, and in April, my posture changed and started to cause problems and pain with my left shoulder. I’ve been suffering ever since, and now I’m getting help. 

I’m going to post my rambles and shenanigans about my shoulder recovery this semester, and anyone can add their performance related injuries and information here. 

I’m not in ANY bands this semester  and I’m not doing piano proficiency until my senior year now (ughhh).

I’m going to post the exercised I have been doing, and the books I’ve read/will be reading to help.

My diagnosis was “Infraspinatus Tendinopathy” in my left shoulder, and because of the pain it has caused during the last semester, I have been heavily relying on mental practice, physical therapy, massages, my flute teacher Melanie and her experience with body mapping and the Alexander Technique…

Needless to say, I have lost a LOT of strength in both of my shoulders/rotator cuffs. My teres minor (right side) is all knocked out of whack, and my posture is terrible. I’m a flute performance major, and well, I kind of need to be able to play my flute for that. I am a STRONG advocate of mental practice. I’ve also gained quite a bit of body awareness, as that comes into play with many things. 

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING ISN’T NECESSARILY GOOD.

I started to practice, but then I found things on the back of my throat and got really upset :( :( 

Practiced for about an hour and a half today. I started a journal to keep track of everything I’m doing, and length (for warm-ups). I think it will help when I have a lesson with Melanie when school starts (Lessons probably won’t start until about a month from now). Then she’ll know what I’ve been doing to recover.

I MISS HER.

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da-capo-al-fine: Tumblr on We Heart It. 

da-capo-al-fine:

Tumblr on We Heart It. 

(via tumorsandmusic)

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