OVS Blog

For those of you who may not know yet, in addition to being a vocal teacher for many years, I am now training to be able to add Alexander Technique lessons to my teaching as well. I am already certified to use Alexander Principles in my vocal teaching, so many of my students already get some of the benefits of using AT at this time. If like most you've never heard of it, Alexander Technique has been around since the early 1900's. Alexander lived from 1869 to 1955 and as a recitator, he began having issues with losing his voice at every performance. He saw many doctors and tried many things, and after having been guaranteed that complete vocal rest would solve the issue before an important performance (which it didn't!) he decided that the issue must not be medical but rather something that he was doing while he performed. This was the start of him working with himself to figure out the problem and also the beginning of the Alexander Technique.

In my classes we are constantly talking about what AT is, and part of the problem is that it can be so many things to different people, so it's almost something that has to be experienced. Once you have had an experience and begin studying, it can be truly life changing. (Yes, I said it! And...I truly mean it.) I'll throw out a few thoughts here that will hopefully help to give you some idea of what it is. Many call it a re-education system, but I've also heard it referred to as an unlearning system. We're born with our bodies already programmed to know how to do certain things. A physical therapist was heard to say that when it's time to teach a child to walk, you don't need to teach them - you just need to give them a safe space to do it in. Our bodies are so intelligently designed that they just know how to do what we do. Over time, though, and with certain things like injuries, we lose the coordination and the ability to do things as we once did. We start to notice discomfort, pain or inefficiency. If you consider someone who has injured a leg, re-learning to walk when you've never thought before about how you did it can be challenging. Many people think their walking is still as perfect as it was when they were young, but injuries aren't the only things to interfere and we often have a false idea about what our bodies are actually doing.

In a lesson, a question the teacher might ask is "what would you like to make easier today?" You'll then go through some explorations or experiments where you experience inhibiting your old patterns, and then learn how to direct your nervous system in a new way to create new patterns. Our nervous system is important here because it is the software system that controls our hardware system - i.e. our body. During an in-person lesson (AT can work well online, too, because our nervous systems don't know the difference between what is real and what is not - that's why we can go into fight or flight in a perfectly safe environment!), the teacher may use non-manipulative hands-on to connect their nervous system with yours, which will help you in giving your body these new directions faster. Isn't that cool?!?

So, you might have already guessed that this works SO well for singers (and instrumentalists, performers of any kind, but also just humans...) because we're giving our body directions all the time. If you've ever had a voice lesson, that's pretty much what we do the whole time. You tell the teacher what is challenging you or what you've noticed that you'd like to change, and then they guide you in helping to change that pattern and do something new. Hello AT!! Being able to truly notice things and knowing how to direct your body in an effective way can help make changes that stick and also help you know how to do things on your own in the future. 

The other really helpful thing for singing is that most of the time an issue is coming from an area that is not directly related to the voice. Think of it like functional medicine. You can take medication to mask the symptom you're having, or you can find the root issue and solve the problem altogether. Alexander helps to find the root of the problem, rather than trying a vocal exercise to address the symptom. (Here at OVS, we DO use vocal exercises as well. We use all the things to get the best results possible!) This means that it works especially well for tension or things you've come up against that don't really seem to be helped by traditional vocal exercises. We also work a lot in the realm of the present moment and space, so AT can be really helpful for things like stage fright, too.