Alexander Technique & the Horn by Allen Spanjer, Cornucopia, March 2001

I have been using the Alexander Technique since I was a student at Juilliard. There are several aspects of playing that become much easier with the Technique: breathing, posture, and focus. The Technique makes certain unconscious actions and reactions more conscious and therefore more controllable.

Why is breathing so difficult to understand or control? Because it is an unconscious physical activity that we wish to use consciously. Why is it so difficult to find a comfortable and efficient position while playing the horn? Because it is not a natural position. The Alexander Technique helps you focus because when you become more aware of the interconnectedness of mind and body, you can use them to affect each other. For example, with the Technique we can learn to be physically more relaxed and less tense while playing, which results in the mind being more relaxed, which in turn results in an increased ability to focus and pay attention.

How is this accomplished? Most of what we do is habit: physical, mental, and emotional patterns. Since these patterns are how we define ourselves, they are difficult to change. Alexander saw that if you try to change a physical habit with the body, you are still going to be working within the old habit. This discovery that he could free himself from habitual physical patterns by using thought is the basis for the Technique. The result is a more natural flow of energy in the body, which allows us to use our bodies with more ease and control.

In a lesson, a teacher guides you through simple movements like sitting, standing, and walking. The teacher observes how you use your body, suggests thoughts for you to use to talk to your body, observes how you use these thoughts, and gives your body the experience of how it can work differently with their attention. This attention is their energy flow describing directly to your body with their hands how your body can work.

After a series of lessons, the connection between your thought and your body becomes stronger, so a teacher is no longer needed. It is a technique that, once learned, is yours to use always, not only for playing the horn, but in many other aspects of your life.

There are books and web sites about the technique. An organization of teachers called AmSAT has a list of certified teachers at www.alexandertech.com

If this sounds interesting to you, find a teacher and try a lesson. Alexander Technique has helped me and my students so much with horn playing that there is a very good chance that you will also find some value in it.

Allen is second horn of the New York Philharmonic. He has lectured on Alexander Technique at the 1999 IHS Symposium and the 2001 Northeast Horn Workshop (demonstrating with host Dan Grabois in the photo) and also teaches the technique. Email Al Spanjer

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