Double Bass Body Mapping

[David Potts]

Hi, I have just come across this topic having heard that it is on the agenda at a forthcoming conference here.The author of a recent book on the subject is an Alexander teacher, and will be be guest speaker.

Latest News from the AUSTA National Conference

Brisbane Grammar School

3-6 July 2015



What is BodyMapping?

Even for a cellist, stumbling across Jennifer Johnson’s book What Every Violinist Needs To Know About The Bodyhas been one of the most valuable discoveries I have made. I am lucky to have been well taught in my youth, and never experienced injuries or “problems” from playing, yet this book, based on the principles of Body Mapping, has still helped me enormously in my playing and changed the way I teach. So what is Body Mapping?


Developed by husband and wife, Alexander Technique teacher Barbara Conable and cellist William Conable, Body Mapping is a body awareness programme which works from the inside out. Rather than have a teacher physically guide one through various movements as with Alexander Technique and other programmes, in Body Mapping one learns through self-awareness and through an accurate understanding of the structure of the body and how all the parts function. Well-meaning, common but inaccurate phrases like “sit/stand up straight”, “good posture” and many other things we are told as music students can create a lifetime of misunderstanding and poor body use. But through accurate mapping between the mind and the “hardware” of our bodies, and the concept of inclusive awareness, we can learn to use the body with grace, elegance and efficiency.


AUSTA is privileged to have Jennifer present at the 2015 National Conference. Her vast knowledge and passion for the subject will be evident to anyone who has read her book, and her sessions promise to be of great value to all.


Jennifer will present the following topics at the AUSTA National Conference:

• An Introduction to Body Mapping
• The Six Places of Balance
• Arms and Hands
• Breathing
• Leg movement
• Teaching Body Mapping to Very Young String Students

For more information about the conference, visit:

Link Removed


Untitled Normal Page

Any comments

DP

 

[Steve Freides]

The idea is a good one, and nothing new. In many areas of physical endeavor, an improved understanding of how our body works can aid performance.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Very interesting stuff. My own fascination with "body mapping" as relates to the bass is the motion of the shoulder. I won't go into extreme detail, but in two of the martial arts I've studied over the years, the focus was always on the hips and how everything flows outward from that point; those who had great control of this "center of strength" could remain much more relaxed along the smaller elements of the chain leading to the points of contact between the two participants. The hips are of course controlled by a very strong core of the abdomen and lower back muscles.

For bass playing, I think of the shoulders as basically "the hips of the upper body", and gaining control of them is central to playing with power and still being relaxed. The "control center/core" of the upper body would then be the pectorals and deltoid groups in the front, and the deltoid, trapezius, and lats in the back. Naturally, this same chain can be connected back to the central core of abdomen and the lower back. I tend not to worry too much about the mapping of the hands and arms except insofar as they learn to efficiently transfer the energy and force generated by the core (obviously, there is a lot of work to be done in this area, but I think of it as links in a bigger chain). In general I think that an awareness of how the body facilitates the playing of any instrument is absolutely of paramount importance no matter whether the player understands the terminology or not. Fascinating stuff.

 

[ctrlzjones]

aha, so now I am hearing something new to me ... body mapping ...
As I obviously cannot make it to the workshop, would one of you two (or anybody else) care to elaborate on what this means for musicians, or to point me to resources for that?

appreciated.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

I read the 2nd link and it seems pretty relevant to proprioceptive learning. Sounds like the idea is to stop and get to know your body and how the parts works together before attempting to learn something new. And when that learning is done, you're aware of the parts that are moving, hopefully in new ways. The unfamiliarity of new movements would be encouraged since all new techniques should feel foreign to the body until it's learned.

Sounds pretty smart to me. It has "slow and deliberate learning" written all over it.

 

[bassfox]

I had the privilege of studying Alexander Tech. and Body Mapping with William Conable while in college. Body mapping's goal is for you to have a better feeling/understanding of how your body parts move in correlation to each other and as well how those bodies parts interact with playing the bass, walking upstairs etc. One phrase we used quite a lot was having a 3D understanding of the body and indeed it is in a large about slowing down releasing tension and allowing the body to move unhindered of habits we have acquired over the years.

While you spend time discovering various parts of the body it is important to add the parts back to whole of the body system. When you play the play the bass you are really engaging all of your body to play the instrument. Chris I whole heartedly agree the the shoulder collarbone "griddle" is the "core" of our arms movements, this school of thought would encourage you to take all the energy you but into finding/freeing your shoulders and continue that exploration into really knowing your arms and hands.

The following are links to the Conable's two books the first is more text oriented the second uses a lot of pictures. If you exploring this concept without the aid of an Alexander teacher I would recommend the first book.

How to Learn the Alexander Technique: A Manual for Students/G6517: Barbara Conable: 9780962259548: Amazon.com: Books

What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body:The Application of Body Mapping to Music/G6518: Barbara Conable, Benjamin Conable: 9780962259562: Amazon.com: Books

 

[ctrlzjones]

slow learning ... release tension ... sounds totally right.

I find the most interesting aspect is to emphasize the individual learning process to be seen as a very personal experience your body & brain is making ...

This is more obvious for the body part, as the different physical disposition are more obvious; but I feel that it good way of dealing with the intellectual learning path too.

Tough I still wonder where to locate the field of 'hearing', body or brain. Nah, the two not so opposite as they wanna make us think, even so there seem to be some fancy control circuits involved, managing how one deals with the other.

I always had a hard time learning something 'the way it is done', but to understand what's behind it, to involved emotionally (and what is more emotional than the body?) helped a lot, both for the motivation and the economical issues (no not monetarywise [when you start to think about how money works, you can get lost very easily] but for effectiveness while learning music and the instrument to play it).