Somatics for Musicians
Injury Prevention & Rehabilitation
Increasing Performance

Somatics for Musicians

As a musician, recreational or professional, you spend many hours of your life singing or playing your instrument. Practicing many hours per week is not unusual for many and can be very hard on your system. For singers, it is important to have full control over your voice. When the tension in the muscles of your neck changes, so will your breathing pattern and your voice. At the same time, you want to be able to present yourself to your audience with confidence and ease. Singing requires an optimum balance between all of the above. Understanding and embodying the somatic concepts will create a greater awareness within your own body. When you will have become self-sensing and self-correcting, you will have developed:

• a more efficient breathing pattern
  
• the skill to recognize and change your own spinal alignment. Spinal movement enhances (or unfortunately in many cases restricts) breathing patterns
  
• the skill to detect how a change in posture will cause a change in your voice
  
• a larger lung capacity
  
• a body that will work with you to perform at a higher level.
  
• a body that is more comfortable at presenting itself to others

For musicians who play an instrument, many will have noticed that their muscles will tighten up during or after playing. For playing instruments, it is often unavoidable to have to maintain your body in a certain posture for a long time. This can easily be the cause of discomfort and restrict your potential as a musician. When you are more at ease with your instrument, its music will sound more effortless too. When you are at disease with your instrument, you will have to work yourself and your instrument harder.

Many musicians look for methods that will improve their performance, while others might be looking for relief from overuse injuries. Somatics and Somatic Rehabilitation can become the turning point for you and the way you experience music.

‘Somatics for Musicians’ – Workshops can be organized in your area and be specified to your needs. Please contact The Somatic Health Center for further information.

Injury Prevention & Rehabilitation

If you have been injured, your body will have reacted with a pattern of ‘protective’ tension that is apparent throughout your whole system. This pattern of tension, which is not yet recognized within the existing world of rehabilitation, is often the cause of a slow and sometimes not satisfactory recovery. This tightness is a subconscious process, meaning that you are not able to sense this yourself either. It will not be until you will regain control over your organic movement patterns that your complaints will start disappearing. Somatic Rehabilitation recognizes these patterns of tightness immediately and reverses its damaging effects within only a few sessions. Incorporating the somatic concepts within your process of rehabilitation will not only give you the skill and understanding how to recuperate and regain your maximum potential, but it will also give you the tools to prevent injury in future times.

Somatic Rehabilitation has significantly reduced the ‘estimated time for rehabilitation’ for many musicians. After their process of rehabilitation, many musicians actually perform at a higher level as before injury due to increased awareness of their own movements and potential. Continuation of the Somatics program in their future will significantly reduce the risk for further injury: back pain, muscle tears, ankle- or knee sprains, tendinitis etc. will not only clear up, but will also become obsolete in your career as a musician.

‘Injury Prevention’ - Workshops or ‘Somatic Rehabilitation’ - Workshops can be organized in your area. Injury prevention is very important for musicians. Rehabilitation sessions or programs for individual musicians can be organized as well. Please contact The Somatic Health Center for further information.

Increasing Performance

Somatics has increased the performance of many musicians. To understand movement becomes essential when performing at a high level. To be in balance with your own movement and with the movements of your instrument & fellow musicians is not easy. Even though you as a musician will think that you are at your peak, it is not until you will have experienced a somatic retraining program that you will truly achieve your maximum potential. Understanding and embodying the core fundamental movement patterns for human existence (eg. breathing) in combination with an increased awareness of your voice, your instrument, your fellow musicians or towards your audience will create more ease within your body that up to now has been unknown to you.

‘Musicians – The Next Generation’ – Workshops can be organized in your area for you and your musicians. Individual sessions or programs for musicians on a one-on-one basis can be organized as well. Please contact The Somatic Health Center for further details.