If you are a professional voice user, or a ´professional breather´ as I like to refer to the wind instrumentalists as well, at one point or another you learnt a thing or two about voice and breathing techniques. Bottom line is, professionally or not we all use our voices and we all breath. Which means that at one point or another we all had some thoughts on how to do it.
People learn different techniques on these subjects, and there is one thing in common with all of them: they all tell you how to do it.
People tell you how to breath, how to produce sounds, how to sing, how to sit, they even tell you how to stand and... you name it, there are plenty of guides and guidelines, recipes on how to do things and how to behave according to the environment.
However, about a century ago, there was a very stubborn man who thought: ¨what if I do not do any of the above?¨
And this my dear reader was the very beginning of the Alexander Technique.
Mr. Alexander´s technique does not tell us how to do things, instead it teaches us what not to do in order to get the best out of ourselves. That famous ´less is more´ idea is totally true, and that applies also to the use of the voice and of the whole body. This is of course of extreme importance when performing for an audience.
The great thing is that we all can relate to the principles of this technique because it is the most natural thing one can possibly imagine. It is actually so easy that it makes quite complicated to describe it in words, after all whatever I might write, the reader will only be able to understand it from his/her own perspective, and not from that unknown territory that we ´Alexander minded´ people like to visit so much.
It is true that singing or any kind of performance is about doings, of course one must know what to do whilst performing, and that is why I am so fond of the combination of voice work and the Alexander Technique, it is a great way of getting to do less in order to achieve much much more.
There are plenty of professionals in all areas that are also fond of working with this technique, if you search the web you will find plenty of quotes of famous actors, musicians, singers, athletes...
In fact John Cleese is one of my favorites. Every Alexander teacher and pupil with already some experience in the technique knows where his famous ´Ministry of silly walks´ and ´The silly olympics´ came from.
This is what John Cleese says about the technique:
¨I find The Alexander Technique very helpful in my work. Things happen without you trying. They get to be light and relaxed. You must get an Alexander teacher to show it to you.¨
If you are already following lessons in the technique than you know exactly what he is talking about, if you never had an ´Alexander experience´ find a teacher in your area and go do it.
Of course you can contact me as well, even if you are not in my area I keep on travelling and bringing my combination of voice and the Alexander Technique around: The ´uSing your voice and body well´ workshops.
And so I will leave you with one of my favorite Alexander´s phrase:
¨You can´t do something you don´t know if you keep doing what you know¨
