Into the Centre
An exploration of posture
in young string players

by  Ruth Phillips

When I was at University in America, after an impressive performance of the Mozart E^b Trio in my degree recital, my cello  teacher, Timothy Eddy, expressed concern about my eyes. He went on to explain that my eyes were too open; my posture too forward; my endpin too long; that I was too eager in my communication with my colleagues for the music to come through. There was, he was intimating, more Ruth than Mozart. Having experienced an exciting level of communication during the concert and feeling on top form I was rather confused. I trusted him, however, and it was not until 10 years later, having developed a passion for playing the (endpin-less) baroque cello, and then seeing in one of my most eager students the same posturing Tim cited in me, that I understood what he meant.

Whilst coaching on a course this summer I found myself working with string players who were discovering the Brahms A minor Quartet for the first time. The level was high, and high too was their commitment to making the first steps in possible careers as chamber musicians. But finding myself observing a ‘posture party’ in rehearsals it provoked some interesting questions of these young musicians and their psyches.

The cellist, Kirsty, was an eager student. Her eyes were always wide open, watching me or the conductor intently for recognition. I certainly recognised her from my eyes-wide-open self of 10 years back! Her body too was wide open in the front, which made for a beautiful looking, though weightless, bow-arm … to this too I could relate. However, when we are open in the front, we are often closed in the back, and this was the case here: Kirsty’s lower back was hollow – the empty shell of her ambitious self, I wondered? After one of the rehearsals in which she continued to look eager and smile, but having had a bit of a wake-up call from myself and the resident Alexander teacher, she collapsed, unsurprisingly, in tears, suffering from agonising lower back pain. When I approached her she sobbed “But I am going to be a professional cellist, I can’t have backache…” She was 17.

What Kirsty explored in the coming session took courage. It took facing a self that was projected mentally into her future as a professional cellist, and that projection was expressed physically by a projection forward in space. It took acknowledging that there was wisdom in the cry for attention from her lower back, and that drawing back in space would help her come into the present. Her openness to the world and her teachers  (the open posture in the front of her body) sabotaged the attention to herself and her inner voice as she was constantly looking and listening outwards to the voices of others.

Kirsty was not alone in her discoveries. The two violinists happened to be at opposing ends of the postural spectrum. Had they been cellists one have them would have a long endpin and the other none at all. Let me explain in an historical context:

In all folk and rhythm/harmony-based traditions (Indian, Irish, Jazz, Baroque etc) the violin is angled down rather than up and it meets the body at the level of the heart rather than the neck. The result is a natural physical affinity with the vertical element of music and also, I believe, the ‘human’. This change from a vertical to a horizontal approach to making music is illustrated most clearly with the development of the endpin on the cello which device, in baroque music, was non existent. It came into being as music became more romantic and demanded long sustained melodic lines.* The higher the endpin the more the arm is forced away from the natural swing and onto the horizontal plane. Thus the struggle of so many cellists with which endpin length to choose to suit all the music they have to cover in a single programme.  (A similar struggle goes on with violinists, I believe, though less apparent): high or low? horizontal or vertical? The struggle is not a merely a technical one but relates, as Kirsty’s posture did, to the developing ego of the musician: proving oneself; feeling ‘behind’ a sibling; being ‘pushed down’ by Mum; trying to 'rise' to Dad's standards… All the postures that would come out in words on a therapist’s couch are there for all to see in the very posturing of the aspiring musician.

Here were two violinists who could either fight one another on an ego level or help one another to break through such attachments in order to meet at the centre of the music.

Interestingly, the second violinist was a pupil of a man whom I knew to play folk music and to be a deeply human musician. It was no surprise therefore, with these influences, Andrea was naturally folky in her physical and consequently musical approach, grasping the punchy syncopated rhythms in the opening of the last movement like a barefoot drummer. Her colleague, Faith, had been appointed the leader of the orchestra and ‘lead’ she did, seemingly with her nose. She was having difficulty in touching the earthy quality in Brahms’ Hungarian-inspired music. Her violin was up; pointing to the heavens and negating any natural swing she might have; her belly was blocked and she breathed from her neck as she struggled with the phrases, as if trying to perfect an African bush dance en pointes. As we talked, and I encouraged her to breathe from her belly, taking on a bit of Andrea’s physicality, she was clearly challenged with her deepest beliefs about  her relationship to her violin. Although I knew nothing about her, the violin appeared to me to be a way for her to rise to elegance and set a high example. In our session she dared -as so many young people can before such associations become unbreakable- to explore the opposite of this persona; the often terrifying shadow of everything she held on to. As she encompassed the uninhibited swing by feeling the impulses come from her belly and letting her posture descend more towards the earth, her sound doubled and her rhythm began to pulsate. Perhaps the most exciting development was that there emerged a new way of leading which connected to the impulses she, and the others, felt and became obvious through breath and gesture. In a few moments there  was even a fleeting appearance of the ‘fifth’ member of the group; the member seasoned quartet players talk about as being the real leader – the breath or the soul of the music. It was very exciting but also, by replacing the traditional leader's movements, meant that Faith was out of a job.

Then came the lyrical transformation of the theme into a legato phrase which seems never to land as it reaches up and up into the heavens. Whilst our stomping friend Andrea was fighting against gravity, Faith was spinning the phrase out into eternity! This aspect of the music was allied with the more conscious aspects of Faith’s personality and consequently her posture fitted its  musical and technical demands. This was where she could be of help to Andrea. I encouraged Andrea to take a wing from Faith's dance; to lift her fiddle to access the horizontal plane of her arm movement and open up in the front of her body to allow for more scope for long phrases. Needless to say, this was not merely a technical exercise for Andrea as it demanded that she too touched upon aspects of her shadow; possibly the unconscious part of herself that was ambitious, a soloist soaring above the world in all her glory. As Andrea took off and flew with the long phrases,  she and Faith began to rise and dip in perfect harmony through Brahms' music.

What was beautiful to me working with these young people was, given a bit of encouragement, their willingness to explore, through the demands of the music and then through their individual dance, the parts of their personalities not normally expressed in their daily lives. Luckily these particular musicians were on a course run by a man who has the soul not the ego at heart, and who gives the children the opportunity in a short week to explore as many aspects of music as possible, from improvisation to drumming, music theatre and Alexander Technique. If they manage to continue in this way they may well be some of the few who manage to go into the profession with open hearts and enquiring spirits.

We have the opportunity, through music, to sing the unsung melodies and dance the undanced rhythms of our psyches. Through exploring the boundaries of ‘personality’ our minds can become less fixed on one psychological attitude, more flexible, centred, and open to whatever the music demands. Similarly physically, by exploring all the different gestures, allowing for an easy flow between them and not holding on to a single posture we can start the journey towards the place of stillness at our centre. I believe this place, a place of non-attachment, is a spiritual place. It is akin to the Buddha-self, and to me it is the finest place from which to make music.

Music, where the unspeakable and the unspoken are both present, is possibly the most powerful arena in which to encourage young people along what could be a spiritual path but which is certainly a path of love.

*I know of no current traditions in folk music where the cello is used regularly and suspect it may have died out with the lengthening of the endpin.

The students’ names have been changed