Questions — by Selma Gokcen

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Questions — by Selma Gokcen

“I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

—Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet (1903)

Einstein began his career working on his theory of relativity and then embarked upon a thirty-year voyage in search of the so-called “unified field theory,” also referred to as the Theory of Everything (ToE). He was ultimately unsuccessful and died leaving this grand question open to succeeding generations of physicists to explore.

We practitioners of the Alexander Technique face our own unanswerable questions. We search for a deeper understanding, we practise the work daily to refine our skills, but I know from my own experience that I make many assumptions about the Technique that have no scientific rationale as of yet. It doesn’t stop me from refining my skills, as the practical benefits are overwhelmingly obvious. But how the Alexander Technique works exactly I don’t know, we don’t know. I continue to explore this important question, as do many of my colleagues.

Living in question is the most creative and stimulating state of being. Doors are always opening in the mind, one is motivated to explore, to observe and to take note. Patrick Macdonald, one of the first generation teachers of the Alexander Technique whom I most admire (and is, sadly, no longer alive) used to say: “The Alexander Technique is, in one word, about attention.” So what is attention, where does it emanate from, is it a function of the mind alone or of the body too? Is it a manifestation of the senses? Is there such a thing as full attention, partial attention, strong, weak attention? Is it within us, beyond us but passing through us?

I am a novice in this field, just beginning to explore what it might mean to pay attention. Thanks to my developing work in the Technique, I had the extraordinary experience of coming into a completely different field of attention as I released layers of unnecessary tension. My attention expanded to include my surroundings even as I focused on playing the cello. It used to be that either I could concentrate on one or the other, not both. I am beginning to understand that too much tension interferes with the attention. Excessive tension makes it impossible to maintain a flexible and free state of alertness; it diminishes the quality of impressions, sensations and most of all, our ability to listen intently to what is around us. Maybe it is a question of available energy. Too much effort wastes energy. Attention is a manifestation of the energy passing through the body, therefore unnecessary effort interferes with and dissipates attention.

Bringing this question of attention to music, what could be more important to a musician than the ability to listen sensitively and accurately? It’s the basis of all music-making, and there the Alexander Technique can make an important contribution to awakening us to our surroundings, by releasing excessive tension and at the same time freeing our attention.

By Selma Gokcen|2017-11-24T03:16:42-05:00January 20th, 2014|Categories: Alexander Technique for Cellists, In the Practice Room, Playing Healthy, Self Discovery|Tags: Patrick Macdonald, partial attention, available energy, paying attention, motivation, creative, refined skills, Alexander Technique, daily practice, refining skills, Gokcen, deeper understand, releasing excessive tension, Einstein, Theory of Everything, Selma, free state of alertness, unanswerable questions, attention, full attention, wasted energy, Mind, impressions, effort, listening intently, flexible, sensations, living in question|

About the Author: Selma Gokcen

Selma Gokcen, born in America of Turkish parentage, has received critical acclaim for her imaginative programming. Along with Bernard Greenhouse and Jonathan Kramer, she presented a programme at London’s South Bank Centre, in New York and at the Kennedy Center entitled Pablo Casals: Artist of Conscience, celebrating the life and music of the legendary cellist.

Ms. Gokcen has performed with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Presidential Symphony in Ankara, the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony, the North Carolina Symphony, and the Aspen Philharmonia, among others. Her recital appearances have taken her to such cities as Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Charleston, S.C., and to Belgium, Italy and Turkey. In South America, she has toured under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. She has concertized in Australia and New Zealand, and given master classes in Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

In addition to solo appearances, she is an accomplished chamber musician and has participated in the Chamber Music West Festival in San Francisco, the Southeastern Music Festival, the Hindemith Festival in Oregon, and the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.

Ms. Gokcen holds the Doctorate of Musical Arts, as well as a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where her teachers included Leonard Rose, Channing Robbins, William Lincer and Robert Mann. She was awarded a First Prize from the Geneva Conservatory of Music as a pupil of Guy Fallot, and also studied privately with Pierre Fournier. In 1999 she was chosen by one of Spain’s greatest composers, Xavier Montsalvatge, to record his complete works for cello. She has also recorded Songs and Dances in Switzerland for the Gallo label.

In 1988, Ms. Gokcen became interested in the Alexander Technique, prompted by a lifelong fascination with the roots of habits and the difficulties of modifying them. Students often entered her cello studio seeking changes but unable to resolve their problems.

Eventually her reading brought her to the Alexander Technique, a discipline described by its founder as “learning to do consciously what nature intended”. She came to London in 1994 and enrolled in a teacher training program at the Centre for the Alexander Technique.

Ms Gokcen was qualified as a fully-fledged teacher by the Society for Teachers of the Alexander Technique in 1998. In September 2000 she was appointed to the faculty of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she is also a professor of cello. She works with string, wind and brass players, singers and composers. She also incorporates her Alexander Technique teaching as part of her cello studio.

The Alexander Technique embraces what is today called holistic thinking–an indivisibility of the mind-body connection and the awakening of awareness of what Alexander called the “use of the whole self”, which affects our functioning in all our activities, especially the highly complex skill of music-making. It is particularly useful in addressing breathing, coordination, and muscle tensions. Most importantly, the quality of attention developed through the practice of the Technique can transform a musician’s relationship with their instrument and their audience.

Selma Gokcen is also the co-founder and Co-Chair of the London Cello Society.