a collaborative blog inspiring the next generation of musicians through explorations into creativity, innovation, holistic thinking and posts specifically for flutists
Through a chance meeting on myspace, a unique duo was born. Brooklyn based Flutronix is a classically trained pair of outstanding flutists that have made the crossover into a widely appealing electroacoustic fusion. Allison Loggins-Hull and Nathalie Joachim are combining their passion for the flute and composition and forging a new way, creating more accessible pathways for people that may not otherwise know about classical music and engaging new audiences as a result.
I was pleased to receive a copy of their Kickstarter funded debut album. Mesmerized from the onset by the layers of sound in Joachim’s piece “Crazy,” the album delivers a diversity of styles in each track from electronica to hip-hop to reggae. As a fan of Steve Reich, I particularly enjoyed the loops in “Stacked” which is reminiscent of Reich’s “Vermont Counterpoint.”
This album was arranged to showcase the duo’s multiple influences without tiring the listener. The vocals in “Aware” and “Wander” further showcase the duo’s compositional and multimedia abilities to produce two intriguing duets between flute and voice. I also enjoyed the more virtuosic flute pieces, “Bit of Everything” and “Pray.” For flutists, the licks sound so familiar (like Taffanel and Gaubert familiar) but made cool by pairing with electronica.
As a classical flutist with a non-musician spouse, I am constantly searching for music that will appeal to my husband while also being able to appreciate it for its artistic value. He enjoyed Flutronix’s offerings as did my brother-in-law. I was excited to share this with them if for no other reason than to give them an example of great flute playing within a context they could appreciate.
I hope that Flutronix will continue this project, and that their creativity will inspire others to pursue their unique projects. You can purchase Flutronix’s album from their website in addition to iTunes and Amazon.
I’ve been re-leafing through The Gilbert Legacy by Angeleita Floyd, and now armed with my ever-growing understanding of the body through my Body Mapping and Alexander Technique lessons, I’m realizing how much Geoffrey Gilbert thought about the body and gave very clear and detailed indications that every flutist, from student to teacher, can benefit from. I’ve already benefited from re-visiting this marvelous resource, and below I’ve included some items from the book’s chapter on Principles of Fundamental Technique that particularly resonated with me.
Regarding placing the flute to the mouth: “Gilbert stressed that, when playing, it was necessary to create some space between the body and the flute. Hold the instrument straight out in front of the body and bring it in towards the body with the left hand. The right arm should be further away from the body at half extension, creating a right angle between the forearm and the upper portion of the arm.”
Regarding the position of the body: “Stand away from the copy…at least a flute’s length away from the music…the nose should be aligned with the center of the copy (music) with the flute and the stand in a parallel line. The feet should be placed about twelve inches apart, with the left foot forward and the right foot back. The player’s weight should rest on the right foot. Remember that the flute is parallel to the stand, and the player’s body should be turned to the right, allowing the shoulders and hips to create a 45 to 60 degree angle with the stand. The shoulders and feet should also be in line.”
Furthermore, “flutists should stand straight, without leaning forward. Leaning forward may hinder breath control as a result of either dropping the rib cage or pressing on the diaphragm. One of Gilbert’s favorite demonstrations was to have a student stand straight, with back and heels against the wall. The shoulders and upper body remain against the wall as the right arm pushes the flute away from the wall and parallel to the stand. Gilbert often stated…”Pushing the flute forward (away from the body) will often free the sound” and “Pulling the right arm back toward your shoulder is very crippling.”
Other body related suggestions include: “flutists should keep their heels on the floor…elbows lifted and held away from the body…the head should be held up and tilted slightly to the right…the right shoulder should be lower than the left, in line with the natural slope of the flute and the head.”
From the Breathing chapter, I’d like to mention Gilbert’s way of explaining breathing through four simple steps–it seems one of the best and easiest ways of really explaining all we need to know about breathing!
Step 1: “Exhale, leaning forward, allowing the rib cage to collapse and air to escape.” (the photo in the book helps here, but imagine your arms hanging heavy in front of you)
Step 2: “Place the fingers beneath the rib cage, inhale while straightening the body, expand the abdominal region, and left the rib cage. Inhalation is more efficient when dropping the jaw and not disturbing the upper lip.” (again, the photo in the book helps, but your hands should be above your “belt-line”)
Step 3: “Begin to exhale, pressing against the sides with the fingers to assist contraction of the abdominal muscles. Try to maintain a balance of resistance from the abdominal area without quickly collapsing, keeping the rib cage lifted.”
Step 4: “At this point it is possible that the rib cage may collapse as in Step 1. For efficient breathing, practice taking a very quick breath, inhaling and expanding before the rib cage is allowed to drop.”
This highly recommended book is jam-packed with marvelous information, with chapters devoted to areas of importance for flutists, such as breathing, embouchure, technique of sound, dynamics/tone/color/vibrato, articulation, practicing and more.
I’d be curious to know if you find the above reminders and explanations helpful in your playing or teaching.
The book’s full title is The Gilbert Legacy: Methods, Exercises and Techniques for the Flutist, and is available on Winzer Press by Angeleita S. Floyd.
Video of the week, from an El Sistema inspired program in Philadelphia, TUNE UP PHILLY. The trombonists in this video have only been playing for six months! Bravi!
by Brian Pertl, reprinted with permission from the author, originally posted on Savvy Musician
My guess is that the title of this blog caught your attention, because it seems so incredibly unlikely. The world of business and the world of music appear to have very little in common. What on earth could playing a Mozart symphony have to do with leading a budget proposal meeting? Most of us would say, “absolutely nothing at all.”
At one point in my life I would have agreed, but from where I sit now, as a conservatory trained trombonist, the current dean of a major conservatory of music, and a former senior manager at Microsoft with 16 years of experience in the business world, I see the connections between conservatory training and core business skills from a unique vantage point. Over the years, as I analyzed the reasons for my successes as a business manager, it always came back to the skills I had learned as a musician and had honed at my conservatory of music. Now that I am back in the world of the conservatory, many worried parents of prospective students ask me what good conservatory training will do if their child doesn’t happen to become a professional musician. So I thought it might be helpful to devote this blog to the subject.
When hiring employees, Microsoft and every other successful company looks for an underlying set of skills that will bring the most benefit to the business. These skills are easy to list, but very hard to find in a single individual. For this discussion I will focus on five of these traits. The perfect employee should be:
Focused
Self-motivated
Collaborative
Communicative
Creative
So let’s start by putting aside all of our own preconceptions about music being concerned only with the expression of emotion and beauty. Instead, we will now take a cold hard look at what goes into creating a successful musician.
Focus & Self-Motivation
In most conservatory settings, a student has one hour of intense one-on-one instruction during their weekly lesson. For the rest of the week, they spend 3 to 6 hours a day, all alone in a small practice room steadily working towards that week’s goals. That averages out to about thirty hours of practice for every one hour of instruction. This is not an easy task, either physically or mentally. The student has to develop her own strategies to maintain focus, overcome obstacles and achieve her goals. Focus and self-motivation are vital to success. The goal of any successful conservatory is to help students develop the skills of self-criticism, self-motivation, and self-focus to the point where, upon graduation, they can become their own best teacher. For a business manager, having an employee who can work for days at a time with minimal instruction, solving their own problems and working steadily toward their goal isn’t just nice, it is a dream come true!
Collaboration
In the world of music, learning to work well with other musicians is key. In a quartet, for instance, the four musicians discuss how they want to approach the work before even picking up their instruments. Opinions may differ and there could be disagreements, but the process of collaborating as a team to reach mutually agreeable solutions is key to a successful performance. As you can imagine, this type of collaboration occurs every day in the world of business. But you may be surprised to discover that most employees have nowhere near the depth of experience with the process as musicians!
But for musicians, this is just the beginning of their collaboration skills. Once the discussions stop and the music starts, teamwork moves to a whole new level of refinement. Each musician must be acutely aware of everyone else’s input while still being completely focused on her own individual contribution to the whole. The ability to really hear all facets of the group’s performance while making instant micro-adjustments to create the best performance possible is an amazing skill to master.
You probably agree with that statement, but aren’t quite sure how that particular skill translates to the world of business. After all, meetings where everyone is talking at once should be the exception rather than the rule. This is quite true, so luckily these skills have little to do with handling meetings that have spun out of control! Instead, this highly refined listening ability has everything to do with success at the extreme ends of collaboration, negotiation, and communication. When negotiations or collaborations become difficult and delicate, being able to pick up on the slightest cues and then react instantly and appropriately can mean the difference between success and failure. That minute waiver in a voice could indicate a tentativeness that will give you the chance to step in and lead the conversation; or that hint of aggression, may cause you to step back and calm the waters.
The skill also lends itself to one of the core functions of management–understanding people. As a manager at Microsoft, I spent a great deal of my time listening to people. Often times the real crux of the matter at hand isn’t contained in the spoken words. Someone may be talking to you about diminishing workloads, but their real worry is job security. The key here isn’t the act of listening, it’s the art of hearing. It’s what musicians do every day, and it can help make the difference between a good manager and a great manager. The business world would be better off if every manager spent a few years playing in a quintet!
Communication
Communicating your ideas and thoughts to groups of people is also a critical part of business success. The presentation may be to a meeting room of five co-workers or an auditorium full of conference-goers. In either case it is vital to communicate your point clearly and convincingly. Whether your proposal or idea is adopted can hinge entirely on the effectiveness of the presentation. I have seen many good ideas fall by the wayside because of bad presentations.
As musicians we have a natural advantage. For us, these aren’t presentations, they are performances, and all the same rules should apply. The performance should be engaging, captivating, interesting, and clearly communicate the core ideas. The conservatory provides the perfect training for this important business skill. You would be amazed at how many people in the business world are terrified of standing up in front of an audience to speak. How lucky a conservatory student is to get all of that great performance experience under her belt! When a critical presentation is coming up, who would you rather have delivering the message: a professionally trained performer or an accountant?
Creativity
Finally, let’s consider creativity. A new study by IBM just identified creativity as the most highly valued leadership quality for success in business! Creativity! Isn’t that both wonderful and amazing? Now I know that studying in a conservatory does not guarantee that you will emerge a creative person, but it certainly is an environment that provides ample opportunities for creative exploration and development. From composition to improvisation to the interpretation of musical masterpieces, creativity is at the core of what we do. This topic is so rich it definitely deserves its own blog, but for now, I’m sure you get the point: creativity at the conservatory can translate into creativity in the board room.
Conclusion
The bottom line is not to sell conservatory training short when it comes to developing skills that extend well beyond the realm of music. Whether in the concert hall or the board room, conservatory graduates can give truly great performances! Our challenge as musicians is to successfully convey this message both to disbelieving conservatory students, and to disbelieving HR departments of leading businesses. If we are success in our efforts, we can help change the world!
—
Brian Pertl has led the life of a savvy musician. He lives by the motto: “be prepared for anything and anything just might happen!” He received his BM in trombone performance and a BA in English from Lawrence University. Then the fun really began! As a Watson Fellow, he studied didjeridu in Australia and Tibetan sacred music in Tibet, Nepal, and India. While pursuing higher degrees in ethnomusicology, he lectured on world music themes and performed widely on didjeridu, trombone, shell trumpets, as as a harmonic singer.
When Microsoft called in the early 90s to get a 30 second didj sample, he managed to turn that opportunity into a full time job as an ethnomusicologist at Microsoft! After 16 years at Microsoft, first selecting music for the Encarta Encyclopedia, then as a high-level manager, he was asked to return to Lawrence University to give a recital. This visit back to his alma mater got the Lawrence faculty and administration talking about a crazy idea: what if Brian left Microsoft and returned to Lawrence to become the Dean of the Conservatory of Music? And this is exactly what happened! He is now the Dean, and he is thrilled having the chance to help the current class of students “get savvy!”
Before I continue this post, I would once again like to state that I am not a licensed medical professional and this post is not intended to treat, diagnose or cure any medical injury, disease, cause, condition or ailment. If you suffer from any type of pain you should seek the cousel of a qualified medical professional. A partial list of these professionals is located in the second half of the first post. The information in this blog is given with the intent to educate but not diagnose and I am not liable and do not claim responsibility for any emotional or physical problems that may occur directly or indirectly from the content of this blog.
What are some things I can do on my own to address my shoulder pain?
Allowing that you do not have an injury and we are dealing with muscular issues, there are several things you can do. Again, before attempting any type of self-diagnosis or treatment, if you have pain you should seek out the advice of a qualified medical professional.
Stretches
To even start to begin to correct this, we first have to stretch out the antagonists (chest and front delts) before we can begin to strengthen the posterior chain (rhomboids, etc.). You can see all these stretches in a previous post here: Stretching Adequately Before/During/After Playing
Doorway or Wall Chest Stretch – will stretch your chest
Scapular Wall Slides – these will activate your lower traps and rhomboids
Arm Circles – be gentle on these
Upper Trap/Levator Scapulae Stretch
With this exercise you can perform it standing and your non-moving arm can be extended straight down with thumb pointing towards the ceiling for a greater stretch
A foam roller cannot take the place of a massage therapist, but if you cannot afford to go, this is your best option. You can cover a wider area with the foam roller, and get more specific with a tennis ball, hitting your own trigger points. Remember, pain is not necessarily at the point of discomfort, it can be “referred” from another part of the body. When you press on a trigger point, you may feel that pain shoot through the body to where you felt discomfort. Dr. Perry gives more examples of this in his guest blog post Shoulder Pain Secrets.
Guidelines for foam rolling: roll over the muscle to find the most tender spot. Once you find it, lay on it for 20-30 seconds until the muscle begins to relax. Then, roll the entire area. Repeat if necessary.
Tennis Ball Work
This video from Synergy Athletics tells some of the do’s and don’ts of using a tennis ball. Actual usage is towards the end.
This is a really good description of how to use the tennis ball on trigger points in not only the shoulder but the neck. As I have just recently found out from Stop Chasing Pain’s Dr. Perry, if you have shoulder pain, there is a good chance your scalences or SCM (or other deep neck flexors) could be too tight, as well.
In any case, this next description of how to use a tennis ball, I actually found on a message board. I’m sorry that I don’t know to whom I need to give credit for this!
Use the following diagram for an idea of what muscles are being treated.
This is how you treat your (upper) trapezoid muscles.
This is how you treat your rhomboids (down the trapezoids and between the shoulder blades) as well as your infraspinatus. You must squat down to apply pressure. You won’t get enough pressure on the ball if your legs are straight.
This is how you treat your side deltoids (you can do the same with the anterior and posterior deltoids). Put your bodyweight behind it.
This is how you treat the clavicular head of your pectoralis (the upper part of your chest):
Now, this is the tricky part, the side of your neck, the sternocleidomastoid muscle (the one that usually pulls to one side screwing things up.)
For this to work, you need to use the corner of a wall. Furthermore, you need to really drive your bodyweight. This is one of the strongest muscles. Don’t kill it but work on it.
Wanna Free E-Book?
You can’t get much better than this: Mike Robertson put out a free e-book on Self-Myofascial Release using foam rollers, The Stick AND tennis balls. It starts with lower body and the upper body tutorials are towards the end, but if you have a foam roller and a tennis ball, you can really work yourself all over with the help of this book. There is even a section on helping the wrist flexors!
As we have just learned, muscles of the upper back tend to become weak and stretched, due to hours of doing things with our arms in front of us, which leads to tight pectorals
Image via Wikipedia
(and Serratus Anterior, I forgot to mention). This means these muscles need to be strengthened and one of the absolute best ways of doing this is resistance training.
Any kind of motion that counter acts the pushing motion (which is what your tight chest muscles are already doing) will help.
These motions are primarily any type of rowing or pulling motion. If you think of these exercises in planes of motion, you have two choices: horizontal pulling and vertical pulling.
Horizontal pulling would be things like seated cable rows, 1-arm dumbbell rows, barbell rows, T-bar rows, X-cable crossovers, Face Pulls, etc.
Vertical pulling motions would be things like Pullups, lat pull downs, althernating pulldowns, chin ups, etc.
All of these exercises will be helpful to strengthening the back muscles. The biggest thing to remember when performing these exercises is to get the form right. What do you need to remember? Retract and depress your shoulder blades and keep them that way THROUGHOUT the movement. This means that when you are doing any kind of pulling motion, when you let your arms extend back, they should not be able to full extend because you still have the bottom of your shoulder blades pinched together. This activates your rhomboids and lower traps and allows them to do their proper job of stabilizing your shoulder girdle.
For these movements you will have to have equipment of some kind, be it a pullup bar, bands or dumbbells, and that is really the only limiting factors of these exercises. I have some great links to the kinds of bands I use on my website at http://fluteangel.net/links.htm if you want to go pick up some. They are very inexpensive and portable and can come in varying strengths.
Prone Lower Trap Raises
These have to be one of my absolute favorite exercises I had never heard of. They look deceptively easy until you try to do them and realize that just lifting your arms without any weight is heavy enough! In fact, this is such a good idea, I might just do a blog post all about activating the lower traps…
Here is a version you can do at home if you don’t have a bench:
Ideally, this exercise is performed face-down with your chest-supported on an elevated flat bench (i.e. longer legs, so that you’re higher off the ground). However, if you don’t have access to such a bench, you can do it bent-over; just make sure that your upper body remains parallel to the floor at all times (no cheating!)
Hold a dumbbell in one hand with a supinated group (the thumb points up at the top of the movement). Begin with the arm dangling below you on the bench. Horizontally adduct (think reverse fly) your arm while maintaining the thumb-up position. At the top, your arm should be at the 9 (left) or 3 (right) positions, and the upper arm and torso should form a 90-degree angle. Throughout the movement, concentrate on retracting the scapulae while keeping it tight to the rib cage (no winging).
Rotator Cuff Exercises
There are an awful lot of these exercises, however, one thing to make sure you realize when performing these exercises is that it’s not about how much weight you can lift. The SITS muscles are small and if they are causing you pain, they may not only be weak, they areprobably tight and stretched which means you need to be even MORE careful. 1-3 lb. dumbbells will be PLENTLY for these exercises.
The two you probably recognize are internal and external rotation exercises. Stand perpendicular to a pole with a band attached. While keeping your elbow tucked in closely to your side rotate your arm inward, pulling the band and then slowly back. Turn the other way and now you are pulling the band across your body.
Soup Can Pours
In a standing position, start with your right arm halfway between the front and side of your body, thumb down. (You may need to raise your left arm for balance.) Raise your right arm until almost level (about a 45° angle). (Hint: This is like emptying a can.) Don’t lift beyond the point of pain. Slowly lower your arm. Repeat the exercise until your arm is tired. Then do the exercise with your left arm.
Preventative Measures
Gerald Klickstein’s book The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance and Wellness is an excellent book on just those subjects. In Chapters 12 and 13 (and reposted on the blog) he mentions 12 Habits of Healthy Musicians:
The Twelve Habits of Healthy Musicians by Gerald Klickstein
1. Increase playing or singing time gradually
2. Limit repetition
3. Regulate hand- or voice-intensive tasks
4. Manage your workload
5. Warm up and cool down
6. Minimize tension
7. Take breaks
8. Heed warning signs 9. Take charge of anxiety
10. Keep fit and strong
11. Conserve your hearing
12. Care for your voice
The Musician’s Wayspecifies ways in which you can incorporate these twelve habits into your lifestyle. Here are a few highlights:
#1: To avert overuse injuries, restrict any increase in your total playing or singing time to a maximum of 10-20% per week (p. 12).
#4: Respect your physical limits and ask a mentor for advice before you take on an overload of duties (p. 243).
#5: Pages 37-39 present a six-step process for warming up thoroughly and efficiently.
#6: Two sections in Chapter 13 – “Balanced Sitting and Standing” & “Meeting Your Instrument” – depict how musicians can form easeful habits. Forty-one photos are included.
#7: In solo practice, play or sing no more than 25 minutes before pausing for a 5-minute respite. The Musician’s Wayitemizes six restorative movements that help to invigorate breaks (p. 75-82).
#8: Injury symptoms can be subtle, as are the social issues that come into play when unwell musicians who are expected to perform need to rest instead. Pages 237-241 untangle these topics.
#9: Anxiety doesn’t just scuttle musicians on stage but also impels some to overpractice to the point of injury. Strategies to neutralize anxiety interweave throughout The Musician’s Wayandcome to the fore in Chapter 7, “Unmasking Performance Anxiety.”
#10: Music making requires mental, physical, and emotional vigor. Healthy musicians, therefore, mind their nurtrition, rest, exercise, and other self-care needs much like top athletes (p. 245-246).
#11: Strategies that thwart music-induced hearing loss are summarized in my post “Hear today. Hear tomorrow” and fleshed out on pages 277-291.
#12: A section titled “Voice Care” encapsulates vocal hygiene under seven headings, the first of which is ‘Drink plenty of water’ (p. 268-277).
Postural Considerations
As flutists, a good many of us suffer from poor posture, made worse by long hours of playing without being in tune with our bodies. If you are “stuck in your head” and not paying much attention to your body by being so focused on the music, you may notice that when you finally stop playing, you are sore, tight, hurting, and in terrible posture – slouched to the side, front, or otherwise not upright.
Besides understanding your individual body map and taking the time to be aware of your posture WHILE playing, let me propose a postural alteration. Many of you may do this, but many of you may not:
When playing, take note of your arm position. Do your elbows “fly” away from your body? If so, this puts tremendous stress on the little muscles of the rotator cuff, which are not well equipped to deal with this type of endurance activity. Let your arms hang from the flute, keeping the elbows closer to the body and also making sure the left arm is really under the flute. When you sit, make sure you are BALANCED on your sit-bones with your feet FLAT on the floor. This should help keep you in the proper position while leaving your deltoids and biceps to do the hard work of fighting gravity instead of your little rotator cuff muscles.
Dr. Susan Fain has some great information in her dissertation, and I highly recommend you check it out! You can also hear the both of us at the National Flute Association Convention in Charlotte this August speaking with Lea Pearson and Karen Lonsdale about pain prevention.
Additional Resources and Articles
By the way, there is an EXCELLENT 5 – article series called Neanderthal No More: Fixing Your Caveman Posture by Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson over at T-Nation. It can be a bit advanced for some, but if you are looking for a lot of information by people who know what they are doing and you wouldn’t mind a full week’s workout laid out for you, I’d check it out. Not only does it have a full description of anatomy, it delves into body awareness by asking you to check out your own posture in different ways and then testing it to examine your own posture and movement patterns. In part 3 they give client analysis – see if you can determine what’s “wrong” with these guys.
Please, tell me if this addresses your shoulder pain and if you found this helpful, leave a comment below. Let us know what pain you are dealing with, what has worked for you and if you have anything to add to the post, let’s hear it! Look for some guest blog posts dealing more with these issues, soon!
And feel free to link your own articles to this blog, down in the comments section!
About the Author
Angela McCuiston is a classically trained flutist with a Masters in Music Performance from FSU. She has studied Body Mapping at Barbara Conable’s “What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body” workshop, studied Alexander Technique with Janeke Resnick, Alexander Murray and at Appalachian State University and is a Certified Personal Trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. Angela has been involved in weight training since the 1990′s and has been a personal trainer since 2009. You can find out more information about Angela through the “About Me” tab at top or via her websites: http://fluteangel.net and http://www.MusicStrong.com
Reposted from an email from Angela Beeching, from journalist Lara Pellegrinelli:
Dear Friends,
Being a sporadic twitter user, I’ve never done anything to promote my
feed @iveheardworse. This week, however, I’m up to something special: live tweeting as I shadow Claire Chase, an extraordinary musician – words I do not use lightly – and the executive director of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). Claire has won numerous awards as a flute player and taken ICE from a little start-up to a trailblazing new music group with a budget that is fast approaching a million dollars. I wanted to see how she does it all. And I figured, what better way than to walk a mile in her shoes? So starting tomorrow at 8:30AM, I’ll be with Claire from nearly sun up ’til sundown for seven days–or until I collapse from exhaustion, whichever comes first. The result will be a feature I’ll produce for the NPR Arts Desk (air date and show TBA). So I invite you to follow me and Claire @iveheardworse (#chaseclaire). If you’re not on twitter, you can find still track us on the web: twitter.com/iveheardworse
For a vault of audio to stimulate innovation, click here. For more on creativity from Adam, use search field (top left) or click on keywords (bottom right) on his Innovation on my Mind blog.
Let Me Tell You Something
What if I lifted both of my arms
up from the sides of my body
dug my elbows into the wall
and catapulted myself forward, feet first
toward you?
Would that lure you from the whirl?
What if you were distracted by a fly near your eye
and you turned to see my body falling on its spine
my body crawling one vertebra at a time
toward you?
Would that disturb your pattern of chatter?
Let me tell you something:
I would like to tear the colors off my skin
and spread their yolk over my face
until I spit rainbows
I would like to turn to the wall,
arch my body
and throw back my head,
until you see the spidery reflections of my lashes on the ceiling,
until they fall like warm sugar into your eyes
and become questions you already know
the answers to
One of the most common ailments among musicians, especially flutists, is shoulder pain. I myself suffer from it due to a myriad of reasons. Sometimes it can be helped, sometimes not, but most of the time there is hope for us that we do not have to play in pain. Before we can attempt to fix the problem, we have to correctly identify the source of the pain and just what might be going on. Let’s do a little body mapping.
Most of the pain that flutists complain about (and myself personally experience) comes from what we call the left shoulder. If we’re to get specific about it, most of the pain usually originates from the rear of the shoulder in the muscles of the rotator cuff and the rhomboid, specifically.
The Culprits
If you look to the left you will see the muscles that lie on top. If you look to the right, these are the muscles that lie underneath. Look at this picture, can you identify exactly where your pain is?
The Victims:
Where you probably experience pain the most
Rhomboids
These lovely little muscles can be the source of a LOT of pain for people. As you can see, the connect the inside of your shoulder blade to your spine, and their job is to cause the blades to retract, or come together. Pinch your shoulder blades together and that’s the rhomboids doing their job.
When your chest muscles are too tight, these guys can get stretched and weak. When this happens, you might get a sharp pain that can travel through your shoulder and even down your arm. You might even have a knot here.
Teres Major/Minor/Infraspinatus/Supraspinatus
With the exception of the Teres Major, these muscles make up the rotator cuff. I’m sure you’ve heard of it before, but had no idea what it does. It does a lot of things, but for our purposes here what you need to know is how it works so you can play your instrument. The rotator cuff muscles main job is to lift and rotate your arm and keep your shoulder stable within its socket.
For flutists, this is why the left shoulder tends to hurt more than the right shoulder, because we bring our left shoulder up and rotate it in front of us to be able to play. This is the job of the rotator cuff muscles. As you can see, they are very tiny muscles, and holding up an instrument for a long time, especially when their assisting muscles such as the lower traps and rhomboids are already stretched out and weak puts a great strain on them. Compound that with overactive traps and chest muscles and you have a recipe for disaster just waiting to happen.
Actually, this will show you exactly how the shoulder blades. As this video is playing, put your hands on the muscles that are moving and do the movement yourself. Do you see how your own body works?
The Antagonists: The ones partially causing the pain!
Pectoralis Major/Minor
These muscles may be less thought-of as contributing to the problem of shoulder pain but may in fact be the main cause. Most Americans now spend a large part of their day in front of their computers, sitting and driving. What do all these have in common? The arms are in front of the body. What main muscles bring the arms forward? The pectorals. Of course we have assistance muscles such as the front deltoids, so do this with me:
Put one hand on your chest, near your shoulder.
Bring your other arm in front of your body and feel which muscles move
You probably notice that the front of your shoulder tightens and so do your chest muscles near the shoulder joint.
Now, exaggerate that motion.
Put both arms in front of you like you are typing
Squeeze your arms in towards your body
hunch your shoulders and slouch your upper body
Does this resemble how you might look after spending too long at the computer, or driving? If you hold this exaggerated position for long, things will start to hurt. You’ll notice pulling in your rear delts, and your chest will get sore.
What’s going on here is a chronic muslce imbalance between the front of our bodies and the back of our bodies, called the frontal plane (or frontal chain and posterior chain). What happens is that the muscles bringing the arms forward cause the muscles in your rear shoulders/back to get stretched. Over time, these rear muscles become weakened due to being in a stretched position for so long and not being contracted. The frontal chain muscles of the chest/front delt get tight because they are contracted for TOO long.
See how this works?
More antagonists:
The “Shrug” Muscles: Trapezius and Levator Scapulae
As you watch these videos, can you see the motions you use to play your instrument, drive, type, eat, fold laundry, etc. and how doing so much of one movement, and not enough of the opposite can cause you pain?
The jobs of the traps and levator scapulae are to shrug the shoulders upward and the job of the lower traps is to bring the shoulder blades downward. The traps are actually divided into 3 sections of fibers: upper, middle and lower. Most people have overactive and/or overdeveloped upper traps. Please don’t do shrugs, there’s no need. What you NEED to do are get your lower traps firing, because not only are most people not aware that they are there and have a separate job to do, most people’s lower traps do NOT do their job, which is to bring the shoulder blades downward.
Try this:
Roll your shoulder blades backwards
Right before they roll forward again, squeeze the bottom of your shoulders together
if your shoulders come up towards your ears, you’re doing it incorrectly.
Done correctly, you are performing shoulder blade depression and retraction and activating the lower trap fibers and rhomboids.
Your chest should stick out and there should be space between your shoulders in front.
Does that feel weird? If so, good! You’re probably doing it right! This position is the first position of good form for all weightlifting exercises. I’ll cover that in another post, but knowing about it now can save you a world of hurt, just by understanding how these muscles are designed to function.
Now that we know where and why, how do I stop the pain?
There are a couple of things to note. You have to know is your pain a muscle pain or an actual injury? If this is something that has been bothering you for awhile, I highly recommend going to see a doctor of some sort first before self-diagnosing.
Who to see
You have a lot of choices, I’m going to name a few for you from which to pick:
General Practitioner
This type of doctor can, of course, tell you if anything else is wrong with you. Your source of pain could not be what you think it is and it could actually be a nutritional deficiency or other abnormality. This doctor can also tell you if what you have is an actual injury. If you have an injury, you may or may not want to take medicines prescribed to you by this type of doctor (such as muscle relaxers) and you may also get prescriptions for further testing such as an MRI or a script for therapy from a Physical Therapist.
Physical Therapist
These people will treat your injury by strengthening the surrounding muscles and rehabbing the injury itself. (PT’s out there, feel free to chime in here on what else you do!) They may treat you with various modalities including stretching, light weights, heat, ice, massage or electrical stimulation. If you have a real injury, this may help.
These two are NOT the same, do not get them confused. A massage therapist also does more than “feel good massage” or Swedish Massage. Most of the massages I have had in my lifetime were anything but “feel good”! A massage therapist may provide techniques such as deep tissue massage and trigger point therapy. They can manipulate the fascia around muscles if it has become stuck, trigger point will release knotted muscles and besides freeing up an injured area of knots, massage will also increase blood flow to the area and increase lymph flow, which takes away waste materials from the muscle. Trigger points are sometimes thought to be areas of waste materials that have gotten blocked.
ART is different in that you may remain fully clothed and there is a lot more movement. The practitioner will stretch you and press on different areas while moving your muscles and/or limbs to break down scar tissue. It is particularly helpful in treating overuse injuries. You can find out more information at http://www.activerelease.com
Now, if you have an injury, you must get that rehabbed first, or get a doctor’s note to provide to your personal trainer letting them know exactly what is wrong and what you can and cannot do. If you are not injured, you may be suffering from either Overuse Syndrome or Muscular Imbalances, either of which can be helped by a personal trainer.
A good trainer will not only educate you in stretches that will help you release the antagonists that may be causing your problems, they will also show you corrective resistance training exercises that will strengthen your weak muscles. When your rhomboids and rotator cuff muscles (among others) are stronger, not only will you be able to play for a longer time without pain, you can become and stay injury-free! Add to this the benefits of better body awareness and you have a body that is better prepared to deal with the demands of being an instrumentalist.
As a shameless plug – I have availabilities for in-person and online training so you can get one-on-one training programs designed specifically for you.
See the next post: Shoulder Pain Part 2 for stretches and exercises you can do on your own to alleviate shoulder pain.
(This post was just getting too long!
This post is made with the knowledge that I am not a medical practitioner of any sort, and therefore cannot prescribe anything.
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