Running After What is Behind You — by Selma Gokcen

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Running After What is Behind You — by Selma Gokcen

Much of our training as cellists has us working long hours, working hard, but are we working smart? Do we know what is productive and what is counter-productive in our manner of working? How do we know? Is it possible to know?

Many years after my cello study at the Juilliard School, I hit a wall. I could not go further in my work with the traditional methods of cello technique, cello etudes, additional lessons and hours of practice. It seemed I was going round in a circle. I finally realised that solution to problems at the instrument might lie somewhere beyond the green pastures I had hitherto spent my life exploring. I said to myself: Maybe the study of music is like science. You have to go into the Unknown to find the answers.

So I began reading far outside of music: sports psychology, the science of consciousness, accelerated learning literature, until I stumbled across the Alexander Technique. In Alexander’s own books, he speaks about his struggles to understand the psycho-physical nature of habit. Psycho-physical was his term for what we call today the mind-body connection. A century ago he already knew that there is no such thing as a purely physical manifestation in human movement. The mind informs every gesture and there is a capacity for becoming aware of our movement at a completely new level.

Our conservatoire training is based on models dating back to the 18th century. Musicians were rigorously trained in the craft of playing an instrument as well as the art of making music, and the candidates would have been selected from a populace who lived close to Nature. Life was active in a way we cannot imagine. People walked several miles a day or rode on horseback on a regular basis and thought nothing of it. I collect pictures of musicians in both traditional societies and from centuries past. One thing they share in common…they are embodied. What does this mean? From the way they wear their heads to the upright state of their backs and spines and their feet planted on the ground, one sees the same presence and attention as one can see in the natural animal (not the domesticated one!) The eyes are gazing from a quiet within, the body is poised and ready to move. The natural was once the norm.

In 200 years, modern life has given us many benefits but it has also corrupted our connection to Nature, particularly if we live in cities. Today’s music student is likely to have grown up spending many hours in front of television, computers and video games as well as riding around in cars and buses. Sitting and looking at screens is the modern affliction. The harmful effect on our sensory awareness, on our proprioceptive sense (the feedback we get from movement and body position) is incalculable. The first generation to live mostly from the neck up is here, and of course virtual reality is a delight for such people. Who needs a body?

Artists do, musicians do. The rhythm of music is in the body first. The arc of a phrase lies in the natural curve of a movement. Embodied musicians make music on an entirely different level, one which speaks to the oldest and deepest part of our consciousness. The Alexander Technique re-awakens the rhythms of the body, its sense of movement, and its fundamental ability to coordinate itself. We can move as beautifully and gracefully as animals and enjoy the sense of our movement, but even more important, we can become conscious of how our ‘thinking in activity’ can work for or against us.

So that brings me back to the first question…Do we know what is productive and what is counter-productive in our manner of working? By becoming aware of the principles of good coordination (and the accompanying quality of attention), we have a standard of measurement in our daily work. We can learn to recognise psycho-physical habits which interfere with these principles and which are therefore counter-productive.

In the meantime, get to know some of your habits at the cello…the worst ones can become your best friends, in that they will offer the richest material for work on yourself. Next column: learning to read the signs.

By Selma Gokcen|2017-10-08T02:41:22-04:00May 18th, 2011|Categories: Alexander Technique for Cellists, Playing Healthy, Self Discovery|Tags: Coordination, nature, Alexander Technique, Spine, Gokcen, sports, training, Selma, sensory awareness, artistry, artists, back, productive, body awareness, Habits, gestures, balance, head|

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.