The Musician's Body

3.0 credits

This course combines a critical-historical survey of movement strategies for musicians with experiential practice. As we explore how bodily theories and techniques were integrated with music pedagogy from the late eighteenth century to the present, students will immerse themselves in different somatic practices through group and individual study. Along the way, we will touch on questions that have long occupied music pedagogues—what is the proper role for conscious awareness and control of the body in music-making, which Western culture alternately represents as the free outpouring of feeling and the result of rigorous discipline? How have both bodily knowledge and bodily practices been put to use in teaching musicians better ways to “use” their primary instruments—their selves? We will focus on both the emergence of scientific understandings of the performing body and perspectives that emphasized more “natural” forms of movement and performance. Practitioners such as François Delsarte, Émile Jacques-Dalcroze, and F.M. Alexander developed methods that sought to both tease apart and reintegrate the connections between will and action, gesture and sound. Their methods have given birth to a plethora of somatic practices still in use today—practices that are routinely taught to musicians as keys to activating creativity, producing more beautiful sounds, and maintaining mental and physical health. This course will involve a experiential component as well as reading, writing, research, and discussion; therefore students should wear non-restrictive clothing and be willing to move (always within the bounds of their abilities) during class.