F. M. Alexander’s work is most widely known among performing artists, and is currently included in the curriculum of many performing arts programs, including Juilliard, New York University, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute, the Mannes College of Music and the Royal College of Music in London.
The Alexander Technique is not a vocal technique, and does not address resonation, voice placement, or the artistry of interpreting material. Rather, the Alexander Technique is a method of learning to recognize inefficiency in muscle effort during activity. For the singer, this offers an indirect means to address habits of breath management, vocal and other tensions, and issues of performance anxiety.
The Basics
To work with a singer, I begin where I would with any other student: exploring habits. The Alexander Technique is a unique tool to learn to bring greater efficiency and ease to the task of living by knowing how to identify the overuse of muscles, mental energy, and physical energy, and how to lessen that overuse.
With any new student, I begin with the simple activity of getting in and out of a chair (chair work). This is a rich “laboratory” in which to bring habits of thought and movement to light for students and teach them how to interrupt those habits, allowing for new and more effective patterns of movement to develop.
The process of learning the Alexander Technique asks students to suspend their interest in being right. F. M. Alexander learned, through his own exploration, that in trying to reason out a solution to his vocal problem (chronic hoarseness) he was using his sensation to tell him whether he was right. He was relying on his sensation to tell him if he had the correct amount of muscle energy, the proper alignment, and the appropriate volume of voice to gain his end: reciting text. However, the way he used his voice habitually had felt right to him all along, and using his voice that way was how he had created his vocal problems to begin with.
F. M. soon realized he would have to “ignore” sensation to find a solution to his self-created misuse. That meant things would very probably feel wrong. So, I repeat: The process of learning the Alexander Technique asks students to suspend their interest in being right.
For singers, whose greatest desire to be right is associated with the technique involved in producing sound with their voices, the task of giving up on trying to get it right is most challenging in the activity of singing. However, the skills they use when addressing those activities will be the exact same skills and processes they learned in chair work. Through the seemingly indirect route of addressing the overarching use of themselves (moving around all day in activity), they will make changes in their use of themselves during the activity of singing.
The Specifics of Working With Singers
When working with singers, I introduce specific activities to assist them in gaining awareness of their breath management habits early on in a course of lessons. Before looking at singing technique, however, we work with how they speak, to reveal those habits.
Most singers have a fairly well-developed awareness of what they are doing, and of their overall level of tension or ease when they sing. I find their habits of breath management and vocal use in conversation are much more entrenched, and have a more detrimental overall impact on how they use their voices. All of us talk all day long, so I find it very effective to give singers the tools to begin to change habits they have in conversation, to facilitate an overall improvement in their use of the voice. This carries over into how they use themselves in the activity of singing.
One common use pattern among singers is overcontracting their musculature too early in the course of a phrase, which cuts down on their ability to get more breath in and out. This greatly reduces their range of motion in the ribs and the muscles, and an isometric type of immobility can set in. I work very physically with singers, having them increase cardiovascular output and activity in muscles to make greater demands on the system while they sing. This helps them release postural setting and allow a greater range of motion through the ribcage, muscles and abdominal system, which amounts to less interference with the efficiency of the respiratory mechanism.
Another benefit of the Alexander Technique is improved poise and deportment on stage. Dealing with heavy costumes and staging can place additional demands on a singer and the skills attained through the Alexander Technique can help. Whether it is the need to recover from a dropped phrase, managing the integration of all the technical aspects of a full-scale production, or learning greater physical ease just standing still while singing, learning to be efficient is the key.
Consider these three examples that illustrate how the Alexander Technique can aid you as a singer.
Example 1:I had a singer in my studio who would run out of air and experience his throat tightening at the end of a phrase that calls for a crescendo and a rather high note. I observed that as he approached that moment, he would tighten more and more in his abdominal muscles and his throat. I asked him to do a karate-like hitch kick for the high note, and he was able to support it with more strength and less tension.
My reasoning was this: What felt like strength and power to him was actually an isometric, static gripping in his muscles. When a muscle is not continuing to move through its range of motion, it is not doing any work. By having him add movement to his singing, his muscles were dynamically supporting his singing. I had him sing the phrase again,keeping in mind the concept of not gripping, and he found he had more support for the sound.
Example 2: I was working with a woman who had a habit of muscularly pulling air in to prepare for each phrase. Her neck would tighten, her shoulders would raise and her lower ribs would narrow and fix (this was visible from the back). As we worked, I employed the use of sighing on the vowel “ah,” and at what felt like the end of her breath, I would have her sing a simple arpeggio. To her surprise, even though she felt empty, she had more than enough air to sing. I was addressing a common habit: the focus on taking a “big enough breath.”
I find many singers aren’t using the air they have in their bodies efficiently. The concern about having enough breath to get through a phrase creates a holding pattern that makes it difficult to allow air to flow easily out of the body. In an attempt to ration out the air, singers often hold through the glottis, abdominal muscles and the pelvic floor, which pulls down on the vocal mechanism. What feels like breath management and conserving air is actually an isometric hold and interferes with an efficient outflow of breath.
Example 3: A student of mine was touring in a production of An Evening of Andrew Lloyd Weber. She sang primarily in the chorus. When she returned from the tour, she told me people came up to her after many a performance and said she had amazing stage presence. When she was just standing on stage, they said they couldn’t take their eyes off of her. She told me all she was doing was thinking about her Alexander Technique directions as she was waiting on stage night after night.
How You Can Work on Your Own
I highly recommend that after learning skills through classes or lessons in the Alexander Technique, you set a specific time span aside during practice (10 or 15 minutes) to explore applying your Alexander skills to warmup exercises, or repertoire, and then allow certain technical issues to “fall apart.” For example, you may let go of having to keep to a particular tempo, and allow yourself to practice inhibiting your habits, working with new breath management ideas, or creating a place for exploring where there is no pressure to produce the right sound.
As you gain greater and greater skill at releasing habit patterns, you can use your Alexander Technique skills on your own to improve technique, manage stress and work productively through challenging material.
