Somatic Exercises for Musicians: Tracing the Path

As mentioned in a previous article, I was a dance accompanist for 20 years. Regardless of style, most dance classes focus on attaining a discernible physical result by successfully applying the concepts taught that day. Dance is unique in that it is a performing art that transmits conceptual qualities through movement, potentially involving the entire body. As such, we can learn a lot from how experienced teachers break down highly complex and demanding physical tasks.

A frequently recurring theme I observed in movement and dance classes was the exploration, description, and subsequent discovery and experience of a movement's origin, an approach that I have since integrated into my own practice. This kind of exploration is useful for many other skills, which I will explore in this article. I will focus on its applicability to music instrumentalists, but as the article progresses, it will become clear that this practice can be transposed onto a wide array of tasks. I call this practice “Tracing the Path” because we are essentially analyzing fine motor movements from their origins in a kinetic chain.

Wave Propagation and Movement Origins

The first concept we should gain at least a cursory familiarity with is “Wave Propagation.” For our purposes, we can think of this as the way an action develops along a pathway. Think of the way a whip cracks: a slight movement made at one end is amplified along the whip’s path, resulting in the characteristic crack sound.

We see a similar phenomenon in tsunamis and seismic activity in the natural world. In each of these examples, a small event is transferred along a path that generates less and less resistance, allowing the initial impulse to amplify. On the whip, the diameter becomes thinner over its length; for the tsunami, the wave amplifies as it moves into shallower water; and in seismic activity, the impulse moves from dense rock to softer soil.

With this idea in mind, consider that about 1 degree of movement in the scapula (shoulder blade) moves your hand or arm 2 degrees.

Tension and the Kinetic Chain

A kinetic chain is a system of joints, muscles, and segments of the body that work together to produce movement. This is the system through which our wave of intended action propagates.

To build on our understanding of wave propagation, let us consider what happens when an impulse is not allowed to propagate. Many factors come into play when a kinetic chain is created in the body, and tension can impede the flow of energy just as a lack of interference can amplify it. We quickly conclude that balance is necessary to create the proper result. Attention to more than just the endpoint or resulting action is essential for fine-tuning the fine motor skills required to play a musical instrument.

Let us now examine how to take control of this wave propagation in our kinetic chain by discussing techniques that might not be immediately obvious.

Consider the Following Relationships

Proximal Stability for Distal Mobility

In human movement, proximal stability (control of the more significant, closer-to-the-core body parts) allows for distal mobility(fine control of the extremities). If the core, shoulders, or arms lack proper stability, the hands and fingers may compensate inefficiently or strain, leading to mishits or inconsistencies (Latash, 2012; Levy, Hallett, & Rapoport, 1997).

Compensation and Tension Transfer

If one part of the kinetic chain is unstable, another must compensate. For example, if a pianist’s shoulder is too tense or lacks proper engagement, their forearm, and fingers may overcompensate, reducing precision and accuracy (Feldenkrais, 1990; Krasnow & Chatfield, 1996).

Delayed or Imprecise Neural Signals

Proper movement coordination depends on the timing and sequencing of muscle activation. If there is instability further up the chain, neural signals may be disrupted or delayed, leading to errors in fine motor control (Schmidt & Lee, 2019; Fitts, 1954).

Energy Transfer and Control

When a drummer strikes a drum or a guitarist picks a string, energy travels through their body. If a joint along the way is too rigid (over-stabilized) or too loose (under-stabilized), this can throw off timing and accuracy (Bernstein, 1967; Winspur, 2005).

Balancing Kinetic Stabilization in Music Performance

As we read over these four key relationships, the idea of balance is reinforced. Take, for example, a drummer hitting a drum with a stick:

• With too little engagement or tension, nothing happens.
• With too much engagement or tension, control is lost, often affecting both volume and rhythm.

Here are just a few examples of how poorly balanced kinetic stabilization affects two core aspects of musical performance:

Rhythm

• There is too much tension: Rushing, dragging, latency in relation to an internal clock, and poor dynamics.
• There is too little tension: Poor consistency, weak tone control, and the above problems.

Pitch Accuracy

• There is too much tension: Missed notes, out-of-tune notes.
• There is too little tension: Fast passages lack clarity, quick dynamic changes are difficult to execute, and fast or intricate passages are inconsistently executed.

The Common Pitfall in Improving Motor Skills

When trying to improve on our instruments, we often analyze the results, for example, missing notes in a passage, and focus on the movement of our fingers or mallets. After all, it was our hand that missed the note, right?

This is not always the case. The misstep of the hand may be due to over- or under-stabilization somewhere further down the kinetic chain.

Why We Make This Mistake

We often try to correct mistakes by looking at the most observable point in our kinetic chain—usually the hands (or, in the case of the drum set, organ, and a few other instruments, the feet). Since the distal parts of our body appear to be doing the most work, it is natural to assume they are the source of accuracy or inaccuracy.

We make this mistake because these distal points are the most visibly in action.

Rectifying the Mistake

When we watch an elite performer, we naturally focus on their hands and feet since they move the most. However, we can expand our awareness by including the entire body as an integrated system. Instead of just observing the fingers, we can watch (or imagine) the entire pathway connecting the distal parts to the core.

The Exercise: Tracing the Path

The above rectification is essentially a summary of the exercise I call “Tracing the Path.” Since tension imbalances are most likely to appear in passages we are not yet comfortable with, use these exercises when you are stuck dialing in the details of your performance.

You can adapt this as needed—this is the basic framework:

• Release any sense of needing to play the passage perfectly.
• Hold your instrument in the playing position.
• Play the passage under tempo, focusing on your hands.
• Play the passage again, this time tracing an imaginary pathway from your hands through your arms. Notice any tension. Breathe and release tension if you find any.
• Expand your awareness from your arms to your shoulders and scapula.
• Continue visualizing the path down through your core, abdomen, and ribcage.
• Extend this visualization to your pelvis, legs, feet, and the ground.
• The final part of this pathway is your connection to the ground, whether through your feet, a chair, or direct contact with the floor.

Many times, simply taking a moment to recognize that the endpoint of the kinetic chain, or the body part that is most visibly performing the motion, is part of a larger whole is enough to release localized tension and redistribute the task more evenly along the entirety of the kinetic chain. This does not mean that the entire kinetic chain should move equally. Each part of the kinetic chain has its role to play. Think of a boxer throwing a punch: the best and most effective punch, utilizing the kinetic chain to its greatest advantage, will have the hand moving much more than the feet or knees. However, the muscles of the arm will not be forcing power into the punch that is better generated by hip rotation and foot connection to the ground. In fact, as muscles only contract, trying to amplify punching power with arm musculature will reduce the power and velocity of the punch. This is an example of the kind of problem that the Tracing The Path exercise is meant to help.

Why This Works

By conceptually integrating your kinetic chain, you ensure that you analyze the full range of possible causes instead of focusing only on the endpoint of movement. This allows for a more unified and integrated approach to improving your physical relationship with your instrument.

If you watch a great performer closely, you can learn much by mimicking their physical relationship to their instrument. Even without realizing it, this can help release unnecessary shoulder or back tension.

As I have often observed, students adopt their teachers' performance idiosyncrasies—for better and sometimes for worse.

Try this out and see if you have been focusing on the results instead of causes in your performance practice. This practice should be approached with a relaxed but diligent curiosity and can be adapted to various kinds of work.

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Works Cited

Latash, M. L. (2012). Fundamentals of motor control. Elsevier.

Levy, L. M., Hallett, M., & Rapoport, J. L. (1997). Brain imaging of musicians: A review. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 930(1), 42-51. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1997.tb52977.x

Feldenkrais, M. (1990). Awareness through movement: Easy-to-do health exercises to improve your posture, vision, imagination, and personal awareness. HarperOne.

Krasnow, D., & Chatfield, S. J. (1996). Development of the "core" in dancers: A somatic approach. Journal of Dance Medicine & Science, 1(2), 75-87.

Schmidt, R. A., & Lee, T. D. (2019). Motor learning and performance: From principles to application. Human Kinetics.

Fitts, P. M. (1954). The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 47(6), 381-391. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0055392

Bernstein, N. A. (1967). The coordination and regulation of movements. Pergamon Press.

Winspur, I. (2005). The musician's hand. Journal of Hand Surgery (European Volume, 30(4), 385-391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhsb.2005.04.008