What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body
What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body is a six-hour course for performers and educators. What Every Guitarist Needs to Know About the Body is also the title of a forthcoming book by guitarist Jerald Harscher. All of the information in this work is effective in saving, securing and enhancing musical careers with accurate information about the body in movement.
HOUR ONE: PUTTING MUSIC TRAINING ON A SECURE SOMATIC FOUNDATION.
Training musicians’ movement by cultivating an accurate and refined Body Map. Training sensory discernment and responsiveness. Training inclusive attention, a musician’s essential skill.
HOUR TWO: MAPPING THE CORE OF THE BODY AND THE PLACES OF BALANCE.
How to sit and stand free of tension.
HOUR THREE: MAPPING THE STUCTURES AND MOVEMENT OF THE ARMS.
Your four arm joints and how to use them. Whole body support for the arms.
HOUR FOUR: BREATHING
Mapping the structures and movements of breathing, including a dynamic, lengthening and gathering core that preserves the sensation of free and buoyant arms.
HOUR FIVE: MAPPING THE LEGS
Leg freedom in playing. Cultivating or preserving the reflex that gives free musicians a spring in the step and a stable, supported relationship with the floor.
HOUR SIX: PRACTICAL APPLICATION
Experiencing the benefits of Body Mapping while playing. Bring your instruments!
If you would like to attend or inquire about this course please contact us:
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The Poised Guitarist 
[…] COURSE is scheduled for Sunday, August 30 – Harvard […]
Dear Jerald,
The Body Mapping workshop yetsrday was wonderful in so many ways. The direct experience was paramont but also, being in Cambridge, in that neighberhood and with a group of guitarists was heart warming and rejuvenating.
I was a student at Longy from 69 to 74 and taught at Longy from 74 to 85. I had so many meaningul experiences and relationships in those years. I studied AT with Joe Armstong in the 70’s and almost took the AT teacher training. I do hope to take some lessons from you in the near future. I see the potential for great improvement through expanding attention and reorganizing everything in the field of awareness. As a guitarist, I have in the last few years realized the importance of “warming up” before playing. What I think may be missing, for me, is warming up the attention. I am going to attempt to focus less on the individual finger movements at the beginning of each session and instead establish awareness of the tactile, the kinesthetic and the full (including peripheral) vision sense. After that the fingers. But really, I think you showed me yesterday that once the fingers/hand/arm/whole body have done something (played a note or chord or whatever) successfully, focusing the eyes too much on the hands is really not necessary and probably puts a constriction on the musical expression. The kinesthetic sense must be allowed to work unfettered.
Sorry for getting carried away but I’m excited!!
BTW – interesting book by Joe Armstrong and Vivien Mackie “Just Play Naturally” (not sure if I spelled Vivien’s name right) Both are/were Alexander teachers. Vivien also is a Cellist who studied with Casals at Prades. Much of the book focuses on parallels between Casals’ teaching and Vivien’s experience at the Alexander training school in London.
Warming up attention is making a difference. I think “waking up attention” might also be a way to think of it. Having read the testimonial by the drummer you helped, I realize that the opportunity for working on attention exists at every moment. His statement regarding, ” a new way of walking…” etc points to the possibility of improved attention as a means of working on a better body map at any time throughout the day. So, when practicing with better attention I find it liberating and not possible to do lots of rote exercise. This is good because practice time is dear and and I sense the possibility in the future to make positive change not without work, but by means of trusting my kinesthetic sense to remember the best ways of acting. There’a always a psychological component to every physical act I think. As a musician with a puritan work ethic (or what ever – no pain no gain kinda thing) I’ve had that “use it or loose it” thought process deeply ingrained. Again, not to say that work’s not required, I think I need to come to a different understanding here. Abby Lincoln on her “Turtle’s Dream” CD, on which Pat Metheny plays great, has a song called “Throw it Away” that contains the lyric, “Cause you can never loose a thing if it belongs to you.” I like that because it addresses that fear that can cause people to do things for understandable but not always rational reasons. The truth that the Kinesthetic Sense is not realized, much less valued, can not be understated!
Thanks and Cheers!