Playing a musical instrument is a physically demanding pastime.
Lifting and holding an instrument for hours at a time, month after month, places huge physical demands on the body. And with those demands, fatigue and unhelpful playing habits can easily creep in.
Whilst you might be taught the basics of how to a hold an instrument when you start studying, every person is different and what feels right and comfortable for one person, may not necessarily feel the same for another.
The two frameworks
It’s therefore important during the years of studying (when a young person is still growing) and thoughout a career (when day to day life, stresses and strains can impact and affect the efficiency of a person’s musculature) to assess not only the basic position in which you hold and play your instrument and the use of larger muscle groups in the body (the Physical Framework), but also the quality of the connection between your hands and fingertips, the rest of your body and the instrument (the Sensory Framework).
In Montessori education (the educational method for children founded by Maria Montessori), children spend significant time focussing on small objects and developing the fine motor skills in the fingers and hands that are needed to lift, move and organise them. This gives children the chance to explore and put into use the thousands of nerve endings in each fingertip and explore optimum ways of holding, lifting and moving little objects. It also prepares the ground for a child being able to explore their strength when tackling lifting and carrying larger objects.
Beware of the slump
In other education systems, whilst there may be emphasis on motor skills in the sense of learning to write or use a computer keyboard, the subtleties of the sensitivities of the fingertips are often overlooked. Furthermore, the increasing use of mobile phones and computers, constant scrolling and dopamine hits keep the focus on the screen, rather than focusing on the quality of use of the fine motor skills, which contributes hugely to people slumping over their screens – and inevitably that slump can creep into holding and playing an instrument in a detrimental manner.
What the Sensory Framework can reveal
When learning an instrument, the primary focus is typically the Physical Framework – how to hold the instrument – whereas the fine detail of the Sensory Framework can be overlooked. For example, if you hold your instrument and very, very gently press down on a string, or a key, or a valve, can you feel any tension in the rest of your body, or any connection through your to your neck and back? What happens if you press a little harder?
Any tension revealed by the Sensory Framework can be an indication of excess tension in the Physical Framework, which can then be worked on to improve the efficiency of the strength of the core muscles needed to lift an instrument into place and hold it. And by improving the Physical Framework it can also help to release any excess muscular tension in the fine motor skills of the hands and fingers.
Conversely, focusing solely on lifting and holding an instrument correctly can take the spotlight off the importance of the Sensory Framework and lead to numbness of, or a lack of sensitivity and connection through to the fingertips, which can hamper both the effectiveness of the fine motor skills and distort the feedback loop that the nerve endings in the fingertips provide to the central nervous system.
Exploring the subtleties
So if you find that you are suffering from excess tiredness or physical fatigue, or navigating a piece of music feels difficult, try pausing and very softly explore the connection between your fingertips and your instrument.
In doing so, you may find that by very subtly activating the nerve endings in the fingertips, it shows you where you might be holding too much muscular tension in the body. And in turn, that may open up new ways of exploring how to perform with less tension and fatigue – ultimately making music making more enjoyable again.