Sound body, beautiful sounds

Scott Quackenbush raised the trumpet to his lips and played a few notes from a Haydn concerto.

The music quickly filled a practice room inside the Holland Performing Arts Center. But his sound was pinched.

“I sensed my body sinking down to the right,” Quackenbush said.

The principal trumpet player of the Omaha Symphony, Quackenbush was at the Holland Center on a recent Friday afternoon to work with a physical therapist.

“Our musicians have to play a lot and, like athletes, they can suffer physical injury,” said Angela Cassette, the orchestra’s general manager. “We want them to be healthy professionals.”

To promote that goal, the symphony earlier this year began offering its musicians occasional sessions in the Alexander technique.

A kind of alternative medicine, the technique is specifically designed to help performing artists reduce physical tension when they play. Over time, musicians who perform with a lot of tension can suffer repetitive stress injuries such as tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome, Cassette said.

F. Matthias Alexander, a late 19th-century Shakespearean actor, created the technique to deal with physical tensions that had crept into his acting. Whenever he began an extended soliloquy, his throat tensed and his lines croaked.

Doctors could find no medical reason why he was losing his voice. So Alexander began watching himself perform in multiple mirrors.

He noticed his whole body was needlessly stiffening before he spoke or recited lines. Specifically, he noticed his head tended to droop.

Poor head posture tends to compress muscles in the neck and shoulders, which in turn tenses muscles in the chest, midsection, hips and even legs. The old song about the head bone being connected to the neck bone actually became a kind of guiding principal of the Alexander technique.

“If the head is held appropriately, then the rest of the body will naturally move better,” said John Macy, the physical therapist working with Omaha Symphony musicians. “That’s just how we’re designed to move as vertebrates.”

Macy initially works with all the musicians the same way, regardless of whether they play violin, tuba or — for that matter — a computer keyboard.

He begins with the musicians sitting in a circle without their instruments. They discuss their tension.

Quackenbush feels strain in his neck and shoulders. Libby Barnette, a French horn player, tenses in her midsection.

Next, Macy has the musicians walk.

Therapists trained in the Alexander technique first watch how their subjects move. They then use their hands to identify places where good posture needs to be maintained and tension released.

Macy places his hands on Barnette’s sides as she walks. He does not apply pressure, but rather uses his hands to guide and remind Barnette to walk smoothly and erect.

“I feel taller,” she says at the end of her walk.

Barnette then pulls out her French horn and plays a perpetual motion exercise. It doesn’t take long before her face turns red and her lungs run out of air.

Macy stands behind Barnette and places his fingers at the exact spot where her skull connects with her neck. Barnette straightens her head. Her neck and shoulders relax and there is less compression in her chest muscles. As a result, she gets more air and, on the second go-round, easily performs her perpetual motion piece.

The Alexander technique is designed to help muscles relax and work more efficiently, Macy said. It is not a medical treatment, however, and will not cure injuries such as tendinitis or carpal tunnel syndrome.

“People need to go to their doctors or chiropractors to treat injuries,” Macy said.

Mary Bircher, the symphony’s principal harpist, sought medical treatment when she felt pain and tingling in her hand and shoulder. She suspected a possible nerve compression injury. Therapists at the Cleveland Clinic, however, came up with a different diagnosis.

“They said the pain was the result of my posture,” Bircher said.

Bircher now practices yoga and participates in some of the symphony’s Alexander technique sessions.

Cassette, who is a classically trained violinist, said she has suffered from tendinitis and other repetitive stress disorders over the years.

“The pain doesn’t go away when you stop playing, because you use the same muscles for everyday activities,” she said.

During his Alexander session, Quackenbush is mostly interested in producing a better sound.

Macy places his hands on Quackenbush’s back and chest, reminding the trumpeter to release all tension in his midsection. Quackenbush plays the famous trumpet promenade from Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” His sound is bright and round.

“That’s the sound I want,” Quackenbush said. “It lets people know I’ve been playing trumpet for 22 years.”

Contact the writer:

444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com

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