Alexander Technique Singing

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O rd er N u m b er 1331717
The application of the Alexander technique to the teaching and

performing of singing: A case study approach
Lloyd, Gwyneth, M .Mus.
University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), 1987
Copyright ©1988 by Lloyd, Gwyneth. All rights reserved.
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Internationa!
THE APPLICATION OF THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE
TO THE TEACHING AND PERFORMING OF
SINGING:
A CASE STUDY APPROACH
BY
GWYNETH LLOYD
Thesis presented in partial fulfilment

of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Music at the.University of
Stellenbosch
Supervisor t Miss Nellie du Toi fc
Submitted
December 1986
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©1988
GWYNETH LLOYD
All Rights Reserved
[ivfbl C c-«v
FREDERICK MATTHIAS ALEXANDER

1869 - 1955
THE F.M. ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE
The Alexander Technique is an important addition to man's

resources of self-awareness and personal education. Established by
F.MJUexander (1869-1955) in the late 1890's, the Technique is
valued in educational, theatrical and musical circles as a method of
psycho-physical re-education. Lessons in the Technique help the
pupil overcome patterns of bodily mis-use that interfere with poise
and free movement in all areas of activity. This encourages improved
functioning, both physically and psychologically, with attendant
benefits in co-ordination, health and well-being.
Issued by the Society of Teachers of the F.M.AIexander Technique.
July 1984
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Acknowledgements
Grateful thanks to the Conservatorium of Music of the University of

Stellenbosch with special acknowledgement to Professor Behrens whose
encouragement-made the study project possible. Also to Mr R. Botha of
the Department of Bursaries and Loans.
Bursaries received with grateful thanks:

Stellenbosch 2000; R.G. Willcocks; Harry Crossley; Anton Hartman;
The Cape Town Centre for the Alexander Technique and The Cape Tercentenary
Foundation.
Special thanks to my supervisor, Nellie du Toit, whose constant

search for knowledge made such a project feasible in her department.
I acknowledge an enormous debt of gratitude to Wayne Long, vocal

coach for the Cape Performing Arts Board, who imparted his knowledge
and experience with great generosity.
The Alexander Teachers:
Walter and Dilys Carrington, whose encouragement and constructive

advice was offered at a vital stage of the work.
Joyce Roberts, whose administration of the Alexander Technique
Training course made my own teaching a reality.
Vivien Schapera, who so ably directed my research towards relevant
material.
Joan Brokensha, who had the courage to take on my singing students
before my own Alexander Technique training was sufficiently advanced.
Yvonne Becker, who taught me so much by taking singing lessens herself.
Judith Youett, whose visit out from London occurred at precisely the point
where I was looking for an Alexander Teacher with experience of breathing
skills and music.
The Singing Students who gave so generously of their time and enthusiasm
to the collection of data: Ina Brand, Suretha Bouwer, Michelle Breedt,
Harvey Citron, Antoinette Theron.
The Doctors:
Dr Bernard Brom, Dr Brian Brokensha, Dr Raphael Schapera, Dr Kit Vaughan,
Dr Bob Bridger. Special thanks to Wendy Levy who helped me devise the
measurements. And to Mark Roffey, the medical student who spent time
on making up for my lack of anatomical knowledge.
ii
The Photographers: my father Geraint Lloyd, Neil Schapera and

Eleanor Shearing.
The Typist: Sylvia Collier who took over from me when the deadline
approached.
The Artist: Anton van der Merwe, whose inspired life drawings
add so much clarity to the text.
The Alexander Technique/Voice Teachers:
Beret Arcaya (private teacher in Manhattan, New York) who devoted

a great deal of time and energy towards helping me to experience
crucial releases in my breathing system and guided my thinking
towards more adventurous applications of the principles I had learnt.
Ron Murdock (private teacher in London, England) who encouraged me
to allow more releases than I thought possible in my legs and
breathing system.
Glyn MacDonald (teacher at The Constructive Teacher Centre, London)
whose voice classes demonstrated so successfully the value of
letting the voice go.
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Table of Contents
I INTRODUCTION Page
Statement of the Problem 1
Aims of the Project 4
II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 5-
III THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE
Defining the Alexander Technique 10
Alexander's Experience 14
The Concepts behind Alexander's Experience 24
IV THE STUDY PROJECT 29
Pilot Project 32
...My own Experience of the Alexander Technique 38
Alexander Lessons 1 - 3 0 43
Measurement Analysis 86
...Assessment of Results 95
V CASE STUDIES - Case A 96
- Case B 108
- Case C 111
- Case D 115
- Case E 119
VI CONCLUSIONS
Application of Knowledge Gained from Case Studies 122
...Interferences 124
...Breathing 126
...Balanced Stance 134
...Sitting Balance 136
...RefTex-Facilitated Breathing 136
...The Reality of Tension 140
BIBLIOGRAPHY 143
Tables
Table 1 34
Table 2 86
Table 3 -- 105
Table 4 108
Table 5 " 110
Table 6 115
Table 7 120
Illustrations
Illustration 1 39
Illustration 2 40
Illustration 3 41
Illustration 4 42
Illustration 5 135
Table of Figures
Figures 1 - 2 33
Figures 3 - 6 85
Figures 7 - 9 87
Figure 10 . 90
Figures 1 1 - 1 2 ' 105
Figures 1 3 - 1 4 106
Figures 15 - 16 110
Figures 1 7 - 1 8 112
Figures 1 9 - 2 0 113
Figures 2 1 - 2 2 116
Figure 23 117
Figures 24 - 25 120
1
I INTRODUCTION
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
I had been singing in London for seven years, initially in the

amateur field and latterly as a full-time professional. My
regular performing had started with solos in oratorios and
concerts and then extended to lighter operatic roles. It was
while performing in "The Marriage of Figaro" as the Countess
and "Faust" as Marguerite that I realised that I required a
far greater understanding of my whole psycho-physical
mechanism.
I decided to devote a year to examining my vocal technique.

After nine months I realised that there were certain habits
that were impeding my progress -
1. My torso gradually dropped forward and downward while singing.

I had started my singing career with this habit and had not
been able to overcome it, in spite of advice from my teachers
and my own efforts of will.
2. My arms were tense while I sang. This was also an old

habit which had improved since my first singing lessons but
not completely disappeared.
3. My jaw was not free enough for singing, and the exercises I
tried seemed to have little effect.
A. My lower back did not participate flexibly in the breathing

process and I seemed to have very little control in this
area.
These were the most noticeable symptoms of a singing technique

rhat was becoming unnecessarily effortful and therefore tiring. At
this stage I twisted my back and was told by the doctor that I
had a weakness in my lower back for which there was no cure.
As I was casting round for solutions, I noticed that other singers,

both students and professionals, also suffered from similar tension
habits. It was then that I remembered my brief experience of the
Alexander Technique and the idea of a study project evolved.
Each singer has his own combination of physical tensions and

the extent of the tension varies according to current stress
and the number of years that the tension habit has been used.
Common stress patterns among singers are:
1. Fixed neck - either with chin too high or too low.
2. Fixed eyes - habitually on the floor or directed over

the heads of the audience.
3- Stiff jaw - almost every singer has to pay attention to

this problem.
A. Pulling down the chest - another very common problem

which is difficult to solve.
5. Over-tensed diaphragm - the epigastrium (stomach wall)

remains tense after singing activities.
6. Rising shoulders - part of the pulling down in the

chest habit.
7. Lower back - either a rigid tension or total lack of

activity here.
8.. Pelvis - fixed either too far back or too far forward.
9. Tight thighs - often associated with the effort of high

notes.
10. Knees braced - tends to encourage rigidity throughout

the body.
11. Feet tense - also stiffens the whole body, right up to

the neck.
Details and combinations of such tensions vary with each

singer and the teacher has the responsibility for helping
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3
the student to recognise and try to eliminate such tensions.
The problem lies in the usual length of time devoted to

singing technique either in a music school or for private
tuition. Usually a singer will spend one hour a week with
the teacher and in that time the teacher has to train the
whole instrument, which, of course, involves the correct use
of the whole body. The common tensions outlined above have
been built up over the course of the singer's lifetime and
the teacher has one hour a week in which to try and reverse such
habits.
My own decision to work intensively on vocal technique for one

year convinced me of the enormity of this problem. Since
that year I have taught privately, within a music college
system and observed other teachers at work in Cape Town, London
and New York. It is my view that the incorporation of the
Alexander Technique into a singer's curriculum and performing
training is an urgent necessity.
4
Aims of the Project
1• To examine through case studies specific ways in which a singer migjit

increase his kinesthetic awareness through the Alexander
Technique and apply this to the art of singing.
2. To apply the findings of this examination to one further case

study with particular attention to ease of posture and breathing.
3. To examine four further case studies with attention to postural

changes brought about by thirty Alexander Technique lessons.
5
II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
F.M. Alexander began his personal search for a solution to

vocal problems because he was regularly losing his voice during
perfcrmarces. This experience is related in detail in The Use of
the Self (1932). Ke also published Man’s Supreme Inheritance
(1910), Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual (1923)
and The Universal Constant in Living (1941). These books
explain the profound implications of the system of body re-education
that he evolved throughout his lifetime.
I found references to the advantages of the Alexander Technique

in several books about training singers, but very little detail
about how the Technique was used in the production of the
voice. There was,- however , enough to indicate that other singers
had benefitted from the Technique.
G.C. Bowden, a British singing teacher, writes:
"There is always that difficulty the artist, craftsman or

player experiences of being out of touch with himself, off the
beam, empty of inspiration. And it is precisely here that the
Alexander Technique comes to the rescue."
In The Art of Song Recital Emmons and Sonntag make a very

clear statement:
"American actors’ training organisations today use F. Matthias

Alexander's discipline to achieve head-neck-torso alignment,
which gives physical freedom, which in turn gives psychological
freedom. Since singers, perhaps more than actors, urgently
need physical freedom as well as-psychological freedom, it
2
seems very foolish for them to resist such necessary training.".
In his contribution to the collection of articles on Tensions in

the Performance of Music Walter Gruner makes several interesting
points:
"... co-ordinated body control will remove tension-producing

3
anxieties."
"The student of singing has to learn what muscular relaxation

4.
means."
1. G.C. Bowden, F. tfetthias Alexander and the Creative Advance of the

Individual, p. 34.
2. S.Etams and S. Sonntag, Ihe Art of Song Recital, p. 117
3. C. Grindea, Tensions in the Performance of Music, p. 52.
4. Ibid. p. 63.
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6
In the same collection of articles, Leigh Howard outlines a

series of limbering-up exercises based on the ideas behind
the Alexander Technique and goes on to discuss awareness as
a key to the problem of tension:
"...first it is necessary to create a conscious awareness of

self in order to counter the ill effects which self-consciousness
brings:
a) Awareness of physical tension as a fact and a recognition

of its presence and the form it takes with each individual,
b) the practise of appropriate exercises which help to

establish a 'norm’ of freedom in body and voice,
c) the recognition of the free sound of the voice supported

on the constant flow of the breath stream."
There was also evidence of an international singer using the

Alexander Technique as powerful tool in his survival kit -
Alan Titus, the American baritone, attributes a significant
role to the Alexander Technique in his development as an
artist.
"Titus has formed an intricate support system... beginning

with his mother, his wife, his vocal teachers, his first
manager... and a number of friends...Add to this a number of
years of study of the Alexander Technique to achieve total
freedom of the body, from which evolved a focussed approach
to singing and being on stage. As he explains, 'There is an
Alexander principle that energy follows thought. '
With Alexander he's also found that a singer doesn't have to

'bleed' in every performance: 'It's a matter of keeping your
center. ' The ideal is to create the illusion of tension on
stage without actually becoming tense... But it is hard to
just let it happen...how do you do that and not have your
anxieties about whether you're going to make a top note
at the end or not? How do you not prepare but stay completely
loose in the moment of what you're doing and still have that
1. C. Grindea, Tensions in the Performance of Music, p. 83.
7
excitement?
The more tired I got, the more I used my Alexander Technique,
and the more I started getting rid of tension to keep up the
schedule. I get so boring about Alexander, but it's a shame
more singers don't do it... We're fighting against gravity
continually - gravity is pulling us down. We're always falling
into ourselves and the big secret - which is profound, because
it affects our concept about everything - is the contrast of
the tension, of pulling against gravity— We don't have a
language to describe this reality, but it is the 'up' you
feel when you have this Alexander experience." 1*
This was an expression of what I knew about the Alexander

Technique from my own limited experience, being conceptualised
by a successful and experienced artist. However, there was
still no direct description of how his years of study of the
Technique had accomplished this tremendous form of support.
Further indication that singers and singing teachers were

making use of the Technique came from Pamela Payne Lewis's
thesis, The Alexander Technique: Its Relevance for Singers
and Teachers of Singing. She conducted a survey in 1980 to
find out to what extent teachers of singing were using the
Technique and how they evaluated its effects on their pupils.
In July 1984 she revised the findings of her survey in an
article in the Journal of Research in Singing in which she
states:
"— additional surveys of teachers of singing and singers who

have had extensive Alexander training would be useful... the
impact of the Technique on those with minimal training is
remarkable. Additional studies that explored specific
relationships between Alexander principles and the act of
singing would do much to clarify the benefits of the
2
Technique for singers and teachers of singing."
1. R. Jacobson, OPERA NEWS, "Living the tfcment", pp. 11,14. & 43.
2. P.P.Lewis, JOURNAL CF RESEARCH IN SDGBG, "The Alexander Influence: A
Ganparative Study", p. 17.
3
It was these specific relationships which interested me and

became the aim of the study project.
Although Pamela Payne Lewis’s survey did not include anyone

who had studied the Alexander Technique intensively, during
the course of her study of speech for singers she points out
some crucial benefits that could be derived:
"As the Alexander student begins to discover for himself what

his habitual patterns of movement are, he can make conscious
choices about how to use his body. He does not have to rely
on inefficient habits as the processes by which to achieve
desired goals. The Alexander Technique thus becomes not
just a technique for singing or speaking but an orientation
to mind-body use that affects every dimension of one's activity.
Development of intellectual and kinesthetic self-awareness is
central to Alexander training, and is also essential to the
fine speaker or actor, dancer or singer."
One example of a pupil making a conscious choice about how

to use her body during the act of singing can be found in
Frank Pierce Jones's article "Voice Production as a Function
of Head Balance in Singers". Mr Jones conducted research in
kir.esthesis at Tufts University using multiple-image photo
graphy, electromyography and force/time records obtained
from a strain-gauge force platform to demonstrate the effect
of the Alexander Technique. He writes:
"The procedure for changing the reflex balance of the head

during a learned activity was developed by the late F.M.
Alexander as a method of dealing with vocal strain. The
pupil is trained to recognize and inhibit an increase in
muscle tension which tends to fix the position of the head
by decreasing the distance between occiput and seventh
cervical vertebra. When he is able to maintain this inhibition
during speaking or singing, he can exercise an indirect control
which facilitates voice production. The effect can be demon
strated experimentally by counterbalancing habitual head
displacement by manual pressure about the occiput sufficient
1. P.P Lewis, The Alexander Technique:Its Relevance for Singers and Teachers
of Singing , p.17.
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9
to prevent muscles attached to the head from shortening. If

the pressure is maintained while the subject is projecting his
voice, the neck can be observed to lengthen and the resonance
of the voice to increase."
Mr Jones proceeds to verify this increase in resonance by

using a tape recorder and a sound spectrogram.
Alexander Technique lessons are offered at most of the major

music and drama colleges in Britain and the United States.
I once discussed the subject with a singing teacher at
the Guildhall School of Music and Drama who said that she
encouraged all her singers to study the Alexander Technique,
but she admitted that she could see very little evidence
that they were able to use their skills outside the Alexander
lessons or in their singing. This probably means that the
students did not pay enough attention to the significance of
what they were being taught. The other possibility is that
co-operation and communication between the teachers concerned
with singing and Alexander Technique would help the students
to gain maximum benefit from the Alexander lessons. The ideal
is a singing teacher with a certificate in Alexander Technique
but these people are few and far between.
Certainly, there seems to be a need for the exploration of the

specific relationships between singing and Alexander Technique.
The literature indicates a wealth of potential avenues for
progress in the realm of mind-body control and co-ordination,
chanelling energy, using freedom and release at vital moments
in performance and understanding awareness using the skills of
the Alexander Technique in daily activities as well as teaching
and performing. The possibilities of these specific relation
ships are infinite and a study project can only open up these
possibilities as further tools in the learning of singing.
1. F.P. Jones , THE JOURNAL OF PSYGHjOGY, "Voice Production as a Function

of Head Balance in Singers", 1972, Vol. 82, pp. 209-215.
10
III THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE

DEFINING THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE
There are as many definitions of the 'Alexander Technique as there

are people writing about it. The definition issued by the Society
of Teachers of the Alexander Technique in July 1984 (see frontispiece)
is useful to hand out to prospective students. In most of the books
and articles I have read the author expresses reservations about
being able to find the right words to explain the essence of the
Technique. Because it is concerned with the co-ordination of mind
and body use, it has attracted writers from vastly differing fields
of enquiry. Alexander’s own books are fastidiously detailed
explanations of both his practice and his theory that are fascinating
reading for any student of his Technique. In addition, enthusiastic
Alexander Technique students - some eminent, some competent as
writers, some powerful, some just enthusiastic - have emerged
as advocates and interpreters of his writing and teaching.
Professor John Dewey, the eminent philosopher and educationalist,

was one of Alexander's students . He writes in the introduction
to Alexander's book, The Use of the Self :
"...his procedure and conclusions meet all the requirements of

the strictest scientific method, and... he has applied the
method in a field in which it has never been used before -
that of our judgements and beliefs concerning ourselves and
our activities. ... If there can be developed a technique
which will enable individuals really to secure the right use
of themselves, then the factor on which depends the final use
of all other forms of energy will be brought under control.
Mr Alexander has evolved this technique." 1 * He goes on to
describe his own experience of the Technique c
"... I verified in personal experience all that Mr Alexander

says about the unity of the physical and psychical in the
psychophysical; about our habitually wrong use of ourselves
and the part the wrong use plays in generating all kinds of
1 . F.M.Alexander,. The Use of the Self, p.xvii of introduction by Prof.

Dewey.
11
unnecessary tensions and wastes of energy; about the .

vitiation of our sensory appreciations which form the
material of our judgements of ourselves; about the uncond
itional necessity of inhibition of our customary acts, and
the tremendous difficulty found in not "doing" something as
soon as an habitual act is suggested, together with the
great change in moral and mental attitude that takes place
as proper co-ordinations are established." 1"
In 1973 Professor Nicolaas Tinbergen, the ethologist, spoke

on Alexander's work in his Nobel Prize winning speech. His
praise of Alexander's achievement is quoted by countless
writers who wish to convey the reaction of the scientific
world to the principles behind his teaching. "This story of
perceptiveness, of intelligence and of persistence shown
by a man without medical training, is one of the true
2
epics of medical research and practice."
Interpretation of Alexander's teaching from the point of

view of someone with medical training is offered by Br
Wilfred Barlow in his book The Alexander Principle: "The
Alexander Principle states that there are ways of using your
body which are better than certain other ways. That when you
lose these better ways of using your body, your functioning
will begin to suffer - in some important respects This
approach is not a fringe-medicine, a neo-progressive educ
ation, a religious escape, or a quack science. It 'is a diff
icult disciplined approach to personal living which leads,
through discipline, to a personal freedom and health which
is possible to some extent for most people at most ages."
Another eminent scientist, Professor Raymond Dart, attended

lessons in the Alexander Technique with Miss Irene Tasker,a
teacher trained by Alexander himself. In 1947 he writes in
the South African Medical Journal:
"She revealed to me how my own malpostured habits of sitting,
1. F.M. Alexander, Ihe Use of Self, p. xx of introduction by Prof. J. Dewey.

2. E. tfeisel, The Alexander Technique, p.xiv of introduction.
3. W. Barlow, The Alexander Principle, p.18.
12
standing, walking and lying down could be bettered by her manipulating

my moving body concurrently with my consciously inhibiting that
wrongful 1intermeddling with reflex details1 of such activities
...which previously had characterised their performance."1'
This eminent anatomist was invited to deliver the Annual Memorial

Lecture to The Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique twenty
three years later. His respect for Alexander's work remained in
tact and he added* •
"The electronic facilities of the sixties have confirmed Alexander's

insight and authenticated the technique he discovered in the
eighteen nineties of teaching both average and skilled adult.
individuals to become aware of their wrongful body use, how to
eliminate handicaps and thus achieve better i.e. increasingly
2
skilled use of themselves both physically and mentally." *
I return to Frank Pierce Jones , Research Associate at Tufts Insti

tute for Psychological Research, Boston, whose research in kines
thesia contributed much to the scientific confirmation of the
validity of Alexander's work;
"...release of neck-muscle tension, allowing surface muscles in the

neck to lengthen, increases the antigravity response in postural
muscles; shortening the same muscles decreases the strength of the
response. It is well established that head-neck reflexes are used
by animals to change the distribution of tonus in the trunk and
limbs and that the same mechanism probably operates in human beings.
It is unnecessary, however, to know why the mechanism works in

order to use it. The chief difficulty lies in the fact that we are
not accustomed to making kinesthetic observations and prefer to
accept the evidence of our other senses or somebody else's judgement
rather than critically examine our feelings of tension and weight.
The only satisfactory technique I know for dealing with this problem
was devised by F.M. Alexander some 60 years ago. By watching himself
in a triple mirror, Alexander was able to correlate changes in the
axis of his head with a loss of voice in speaking. He found that
1. R.A. Dart, SOJIH AFRICAN PEDICAL JOURNAL, 'The Attainment of Poise", p. 79

2. R.A. Dart.. AN ANAICMLST'S TRIHJIE TO F. MATTHIAS ALEXANDER, Annuel Manorial
^ ^ e^ n befor1,:ihe Socifity of Tochers of the Alexander Tectaique
on 20th fferch 1970, p. 34.
13
by inhibiting the change in head-axis he not only regained the

use of his voice but produced an unexpected redistribution of
tension throughout his body which brought with it an improve
ment in breathing and other automatic functions. For imparting
his discovery to others, he developed a non-verbal technique
which is referred to as the Alexander technique. In it the pupil
learns to inhibit any tendency he may have to alter the reflex
balance of his head, while the teacher initiates some simple,
everyday movement and guides the pupil through to its completion .
Any movement will do: walking, shifting position in a chair,
getting up and sitting down, picking upa pencil. During this
kind of movement (which should be’called 'reflex facilitated',
rather than active or passive) postural tonus is redistributed.
This is perceived by the subject as a reduction of the feeling
of weight and in the effort needed to move. This kinesthetic
effect persists long enough after a lesson to give the pupil
an opportunity to observe his own habitual actions against a
new background of postural tonus. In this way he gradually
builds up a standard of kinesthetic judgement for himself and
can go on to make further observations and experiments of his
own. In doing so he has added greatly to his resources for
self-improvement."1*
With definitions like these from eminent and erudite scientists

and scholars, it is not necessary for me to evolve yet
another definition. The expectations and potential implied in
all the definitions put new hope into my desire to solve the
habitual tensions that seemed to be impeding my progress as a
singer. The definitions are obviously products of each writer's
own experience of the Technique (they had all taken a serious
course of lessons) and the aspects referred to relate to the
perspective supplied by the writer’s own particular discipline.
The perspective supplied by my discipline relates to the
elimination of unnecessary interference in the production of
sound. With over two years of intensive Alexander lessons
behind me, I can state that I used the awareness and control
acquired in these lessons to carry out my own intentions and
the instructions from some first class singing teachers to
produce the tension-free sound that I had wanted for so long.
1. F.P. Jones, "The Organisation of Awareness", paper read at a conference on

"Co-ordination in Misic" at Michigan State University, ffey 18, 1967,pp. 9-"0•
14
ALEXANDER'S EXPERIENCE
In his book, The Use of the Self, published in 1932, Alexander describes
the evolution of his technique. Although his style and attention
to minute cetail make it difficult to grasp at first reading, a
thorough examination of the text is very valuable to any singer,
and particularly any singing teacher, motivated to explore the
infinite potential of improved mind/body use. Alexander's
experience with its failures and successes so honestly related
should strike familiar chords in the experience of even the least
analytical of singers. As one's experience of the Alexander
Technique grows, so the original discoveries of Alexander take
on more and more significance in the process of improving one's
sound.
Another reason for seriously studying Alexander's approach to

solving his vocal problems is to help singers and teachers to
discover the root causes for difficulties with vocal sound.
There is a great deal of superficial’advice and adjustment in
the production of sound and, in the end, the singer finds he
is still struggling with certain features of his vocal sound
that seem to impede the progress towards command of his voice,
tfeny examples of this occurred in the research data following;
but one illustration here will suffice. Both a singing pupil
and his teacher can endeavour for months and years to open his
throat and ease the passage to head resonance; but they are
wasting their time if the pupil holds his head too far forward
on his shoulders because the shortening of the muscles at the
back of his neck is actually preventing access to head resonance.
A further most important reason for understanding the evolution

of Alexander’s Technique is to appreciate the qualities of
persistence, honesty and trust that led to the results. A
singer faces many struggles and disappointments in the course‘of
a career, and it is most instructive to understand how one
individual handled such moments. Alexander is reputed to have
said, "You can do as I did if you do what I did." The following
account of his work will illustrate why no-one has been through
the process to which he subjected himself. Fortunately for
posterity, he spent the later part of his life evolving a way
15
of passing his experience on to others.
Frederick Matthias Alexander was born in Tasmania on January 20th

1869. He grew up in the country and received his education in
Tasmania. He did not fit into the formal schooling, however, and
a perceptive school teacher gave him extra tuition. At the age
of sixteen, Alexander took a clerical post with a tin-mining
company and saved enough money to leave for Melbourne.
Here he decided to fulfil a long-standing interest in drama

and began his acting .career. In spite of his outdoor upbringing,
he had always suffered from ill-health, and by 1892 he was already
becoming plagued by hoarseness during performances. He was
treated with inhalations and rest periods, but the spells of
hoarseness became closer together until he feared that his voice
would not survive a performance. Before one particularly important
engagement, he consulted his doctor about how to prevent the
recurrence of his hoarseness and was advised to speak as little as
possible for two weeks before the performance. In spite of carrying ou
these instructions by the end of the performance he had
almost lost his voice.
During the subsequent consultation with his doctor they agreed

that, since his voice had deteriorated so markedly during performances,
there must be something wrong with the way he was using his voice.
At this point Alexander reached a dead end because his doctor was
not able to tell him how to improve the use of his voice. So he
decided to search for the solution himself, since the usual
medical solutions were not helping him.
He began observing himself while speaking in conversation and

while performing by using a mirror. He could not detect unusual
habits in his conversational speech, but when he recited he noticed
three things:
1. He pulled his head back.

2. He lowered his larynx.
3. He audibly sucked air in through his mouth.
Then he observed his conversational speech again, and noticed that

he did the same three things but to a lesser extent. The degree
16
of exaggeration of these habits increased the more

forcibly he used his voice in reciting.
He started to work on his breath intake. He discovered that,

although he knew he did not want to gulp air audibly, he
was unable to persuade himself to stop this habit.
He then tried to stop his larynx descending when he started

to speak, but was also unable to prevent this habit.
Having failed to change his use of the most obvious sources

of speech - the breath and the larynx - he turrted his
attention to the other habit he had detected - pulling the
head back. Here he found a different result - he knew he
did not want to pull his head back, and he found he could
exert his will over this habit. Furthermore, he realised
that when he stopped pulling his head back, he also stopped
lowering the larynx to speak and he stopped audibly gulping
for air. Having realised the importance of the head position,
he experimented further and discovered that pulling the head
too far forward also resulted in depressing the larynx and
led to hoarseness.
So, after six months of observation and experimentation,

ALEXANDER REALISED THE IMPORTANCE OF HEAD BALANCE IN THE
FUNCTIONING OF THE BREATH AND LARYNX.
He did not stop his observation here, although he had

succeeded in isolating apparent causes. He continued his
observations of more than his head, breath and larynx and
noticed that any use of his head and neck which was associated
with the depressing of his larynx was also associated with
a tendency to lift his chest and shorten his stature.
"This led me on to a long series of experiments, in some of

which I attempted to prevent the shortening of the stature,
in others actually to lengthen it, noting the results in
each case. For a time I alternated between these two forms
of experiment, and after noting the effect of each upon my
voice, I found that the the best conditions of my larynx and
17
vocal mechanisms and the least tendency to hoarseness were

associated with a lengthening of the stature. Unfortunately,
I found that when I came to practise, I shortened far more
than I lengthened, and when I came came to look for an
explanation of this, I saw that it was due to my tendency to
pull my head down as I tried to put it forward in order to
lengthen. After further experimentation I found at last that
IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN A LENGTHENING OF THE STATURE IT WAS
NECESSARY THAT MY HEAD SHOULD TEND TO GO UPWARDS, NOT DOWNWARDS,
WHEN I PUT IT FORWARD; IN SHORT, THAT TO LENGTHEN I MUST PUT MY
HEAD FORWARD AND UP. (My capitals.)
The experiences which followed my awareness of this were fore

runners of a recognition of that RELATIVITY IN THE USE OF THE
HEAD, NECK AND OTHER PARTS WHICH PROVED TO BE A PRIMARY CONTROL
OF THE GENERAL USE OF THE SELF. (My capitals.)
When, however, I came to try to put my head forward and up

while reciting, I noticed that my old tendency tc lift the
chest increased, and that with this went a tendency to increase
the arch of the spine and thus bring about what I now call a
'narrowing of the back'. This, I saw had an adverse effect
on the shape and functioning of the torso itself, and I there
fore concluded that to maintain a lengthening it was not
sufficient to put my head forward and up, but I must put it
forward and up in such a way that I prevented the lifting of
the chest and simultaneously brought about a widening of the
back."1'
His observation was therefore that THE FUNCTIONING OF THE ORGANS

OF SPEECH WAS INFLUENCED BY HIS MANNER OF USING THE WHOLE TORSO,
AND THAT THE PULLING OF THE HEAD BACK AND DOWN WAS NOT MERELY
A MISUSE OF THE SPECIFIC PARTS CONCERNED, BUT ONE THAT WAS
INSEPARABLY BOUND UP WITH A MISUSE OF OTHER MECHANISMS WHICH
INVOLVED THE SHORTENING OF THE STATURE.
After this period he had his vocal organs inspected by medical

friends and they were pronounced much healthier and stronger.
He had therefore succeeded in his original intention of
finding out the cause of his hoarseness during performances.
1. F.M. Alexander, Ihe Use of the Self, p.8.
The details of this.success were that he was now able to
prevent his head from pulling bac.k and down with the accomp
anying benefits to his vocal organs, he no longer audibly
gasped for air, he had taught' himself how to lead with his
head forward and up without lifting his chest and narrowing his
back and had applied all these new actions to his reciting. But
he was not able to maintain these actions for long periods of
time.• As the mirror had been the only means of reminding himself
of his newly acquired improved use of his body, he found it
difficult to keep the old habits from creeping back into his
performing. The old sensations began to feel right again,
although he knew they were wrong.
This led him to the next important observation:
"...I thought this was merely a personal idiosyncrasy, but

my teaching experience of the past thirty-five years and
my observation of people with whom I come into contact in
other ways have convinced me that this was not an idiosyncrasy,
but that most people would have done the same in similar
circumstances. I was indeed suffering from a delusion that
is practically universal, the delusion that because we are
able to do what we 1will to d o ' in acts that are habitual and
involve familiar sensory experiences, we shall be equally
successful in doing what we 'will to d o 1 in acts which are
contrary to our habit and therefore involve sensory experiences
that are unfamiliar." "**
He spent months trying to solve this dilemma, but did not

experience any enlightenment, although he slowly realised that
his attempts to use the specific parts of the body correctly
invariably involved the obvious accompanying acts of standing,
walking, using arms and hands and so on. Using the mirror again,
he noticed that his wrong use of his head, neck, larynx, voice
and breathing organs also involved undue muscle tension in his
legs, feet and toes. He had actually been told to "Take hold
of the floor with your feet" in drama classes and he had thought
he was doing it correctly. His observation now told him that he
was not carrying out this advice correctly, but bending his toes
downwards and arching his feet unduly, throwing his weight on
1 . F .M . Alexander, The Use of the Self, p. 10.
19
the outside of his feet. He states "It gradually dawned upon me

that the wrong way I was using myself when I thought I was
'taking hold of the floor with my feet' was the same wrong way
of using myself when in reciting I pulled my head back, depressed
my larynx, etc., and that this wrong way of using myself
constituted a combined wrong use of my whole physical-mental
mechanisms. I then realized that this was the use I
habitually brought into play for all my activites, and that
it was what I may call the 'habitual use' of myself, and that
my desire to recite, like any other stimulus to activity, would
inevitably cause this habitual wrong use to come into play
and dominate any attempt I might be making to employ a better
use of myself when reciting."
He worked with this realisation - THAT IT WAS NOT ONLY HIS

TORSO HE WAS USING WRONGLY, IT WAS HIS WHOLE PHYSICAL MENTAL
MECHANISM - and added the further realisation THAT AN OLD HABIT
LIKE TAKING THE FLOOR WITH HIS FEET WAS INVOLVED WITH OPERATING
THIS WRONG USE; and he added a further vital piece of information -
THAT THE OLD HABIT WAS ACTUALLY A LEARNED HABIT AND WAS THEREFORE
ALMOST IRRESISTABLE. (My capitals.)
This brought him to the next phase, which was to find a way
of learning a new activity in such a way that this old habit
did not invariably over-ride the new one. " If ever anyone was
in an impasse, it was I. For here I was, faced with the fact
that my feeling, the only guide I had to depend on for the
direction of my use, was untrustworthy. At the same time I
believed that this was peculiar to myself, and that my case was
exceptional because of the continuous ill-health I had experienced
for as long as I could remember, but as soon as I tested other
people to see whether they were using themselves in the way they
thought they were, I found that the feeling by which they directed
the use of themselves was also untrustworthy - indeed that the
only difference in this regard between them and myself was one
2
of degree."
It was here that Alexander's determination to find solutions was

so invaluable. He did not allow himself to remain in an impasse,
1. F . M. Alexander, The Use of the Self, p. 12.

2. Ibid.,p. 14.
20
bat refused to believe that the problem was hopeless. He said

that he began to see that his attempt to solve his problems was
opening up a whole new field of enquiry. "I HAD PROVED IN MY
OWN CASE AND IN THAT Or OTHERS THAT INSTINCTIVE CONTROL AND
DIRECTION OF USE HAD BECOME SO UNSATISFACTORY, AND THE ASSOCIATED
FEELING SO VERY UNTRUSTWORTHY AS A GUIDE, THAT IT COULD LEAD US
TO DO THE VERY OPPOSITE OF WHAT WE WISHED TO DO OR THOUGHT WE
WERE DOING. IF, THEN, AS I SUSPECTED, THIS UNTRUSTWORTHINESS
OF FEELING WAS A PRODUCT OF CIVILISED LIFE, IT WOULD TEND, AS THE
WENT ON, TO BECOME MORE AND MORE A UNIVERSAL MENACE, IN WHICH
CASE A KNOWLEDGE OF THE MEANS WHEREBY TRUSTWORTHINESS COULD BE
RESTORED TO FEELING WOULD BE INVALUABLE." 1* (My capitals.)
When he thought further about his head and neck habits, he

decided that the misdirection of his head and neck was instinctive
and came into play as a result of a decision to use his voice.
In other words, THE STIMULUS CAUSED THE MISUSE. So he went on
to reason that when the stimulus came to him to use his voice,
.he could INHIBIT the misdirection. He would therefore be
stopping off at its source his unsatisfactory reaction to the
idea of reciting. His next step would be to discover what
DIRECTION would be necessary to ensure a new and improved use
of the head and neck in order to ensure a satisfactory instead
of an unsatisfactory reaction to the stimulus to use his voice.
He sets out in point form how he proceeded with this intention
"1 . To analyse the conditions of use present;

2. to select•(reason out) the means whereby a more satisfactory
use could be brought about;
3. to project consciously the directions required for putting
2
these means into effect." ’
When he put this into practice he found that at the critical

moment when he attempted to gain his end by means which were
contrary to those associated with his old habits of use, his
instinctive direction dominated his reasoning direction.
1. F.M. Alexander, Ihe Use of the Self, p. 16.

2. Ibid., p. 17.
21
Up to this point he had retained his faith in the

idea that his reasoning abilities were stronger than his
instincts and feelings; but he now discovered that his reasoning
took him as far as the directing for the new use, but at the
very point of carrying out these directions, he reverted to his
old wrong habits.
He then focussed his attention on that moment of "doing" the new

direction and came to the conclusion that he must concentrate
only on giving the new directions without trying to carry
them out. It is here that a student of the Alexander Technique
may have to shed many preconceived ideas about learning skills
and about education in general. Alexander actually spent months
giving himself new directions without carrying them out and he
came to the following conclusions:
" 1. That before attempting to 'do' even the first part of the
1means whereby' which I had decided to employ to gain my
end {i.e. vocal use and reciting), I must give the
directions preparatory to the doing of this first part
very many times;
2. that I must continue to give the directions preparatory
to the doing of the first part while I gave the directions
preparatory to the second part;
3. that I must continue to give the directions preparatory to
the doing of the first and second parts while I gave the
directions preparatory to the dcing of the third part; and
so on for the doing of the fourth and other parts as
required."
He calls this analysis of combined activity "all together, one

after the other." If one thinks carefully about the process
of learning singing, it is a very accurate analysis of a
student’s attempts to control breath expulsion, at the same
time as a good mouth position, at the same time as a good
stance and so on - these directions have to be "all terether,
one after the other"during the learning process.
He then went on to carrying out his new directions to recite,

but, to his dismay, he found that he failed more times than he
1. F.M. Alexander, The Use of the Self, p. 19-
22
succeeded. He realised that, although he knew otherwise, he

was still relying on his accustomed measure of an activity
feeling right, rather than on his conscious direction. "I had
never fully realized ... that the sensory experience associated
with the new use would be so unfamiliar, and therefore "feel" so
unnatural and wrong that I, like everyone else, with my ingrained
habit of judging whether experiences of use were "right" or not
by the way they felt, would almost inevitably balk at employing
the new use. Obviously, any new use must feel different from
the old, and if the old use felt right, THE NEW USE WAS BOUND TO
FEEL WRONG. I now had to face the fact that in all my attempts
during these past months I had been trying to' employ a new use
of myself which was bound to feel wrong, at the same time trusting
to my feeling of what was right to tell me whether I was employing
it or not. This meant that all my efforts up till now had
resolved themselves into an attempt to employ a reasoning direct
ion of my use at the moment of speaking, while for the purpose
of this attempt I was actually bringing into play my old habit
ual use and so reverting to my instinctive misdirection."
I quote this passage in full because the concept is of vital

importance to a singer learning new skills and trying to change
old and learned habits. The obvious example of this is the
process of trying to learn new sensations for high notes - the
new directions take some courage to attempt, the letting go
feels unsafe, the body often tightens somewhere and the singer
has to trust his teacher and this new, unsafe sensation to make
progress. The old, over-controlled way inevitably feels much
safer. The new way feels wrong in comparison.
Alexander worked out that his trust in his reasoning processes

had to be a genuine trust if they were going to bring him safely
to his "end", not a half-trust needing the assurance of feeling
right as well. He continued to operate his previous directions
"all together, one after the other", but changed his usual pattern
of procedure in the following way:
" A. While still continuing to project the directions for the new
use I would stop and consciously reconsider my first decision,
and ask myself, 'Shall I after all go on to gain the end I
have decided upon and speak the sentence? Or shall I not?
1. F.M. Alexander, The Use of the Self, p.22.
23
O' shall I gp on to ^in scrns other end altogether?’- and there and
then make a fresh decision,
5. either
not to gain my original end, in which case T would continue
to project the directions for maintaining the new use and
not speak the sentence;
or
to change my end to something different, say, lift my hand
instead of speaking the sentence, in which case I would
continue to project the directions for maintaining the new
use to carry out this last decision and lift my hand;'
or
to go on after all and gain my original end, in which case
I would continue to project the directions for maintaining
the new use to speak the sentence." ^
This concentration on maintaining his new manner of use while

giving himself the choice of whether or not to speak a sentence
finally overcame his problem of the stimulus to speak also being
the stimulus for habitual wrong use. He states: "— MY CONSCIOUS,
REASONING DIRECTION WAS AT LAST DOMINATING THE UNREASONING, INSTINCTIVE
DIRECTION ASSOCIATED WITH MY UNSATISFACTORY HABITUAL USE OF MYSELF." 2 ‘
(My capitals.)
He adds that after working this way for a considerable time he

also became free from the throat and vocal trouble and from nasal
and respiratory difficulties that had bothered him all his life.
1. F.M. Alexander, The Use of the Self, p.23.

2. Ibid., p.24.
24
THE CONCEPTS BEHIND ALEXANDER'S EXPERIENCE
Alexander spent sixty years evolving . ways of putting into practice

the concepts implied by his experimentation. Hence I did not have
to face years of experimentation to apply these concepts to my
task of changing and developing my vocal technique and artistry.
I was able to take Alexander Technique lessons from four available

teachers and explore a wealth of literature on all aspects of the
subject.
Use affects Functioning
Alexander emphasised that we have the choice, and therefore the

responsibility, to control certain ways of using the body. If
we learn how to control this use, the functioning of our bodies
will improve and continue to improve. If we fail to exercise
this choice, a poor manner of use will influence our bodies
towards a continuous deterioration of our functioning. A classic
example of this among singers is in the use of the shoulders during
the act of singing. Many singers curl their shoulders forward and
up when their breath is running out and when the pitch they are singing
feels too high. This is poor use. It affects the functioning because
the sound becomes thinner and the collapse of the chest eliminates
potential chest resonance; the breath is constricted; the whole
breath support system becomes effortful; the head tends to puli
forward and makes access to head resonance more effortful as well.
If the singer is ever to solve this dilemma he must learn to control
this unneccesary interference in the production of his sound. Even
a vestige of such interference will affect his sound adversely. Yet,
once such a pattern of use is habitual, the singer must make the
choice to struggle constantly against the habitual use, or learn hew
to eliminate it. In the process of eliminating such a habit, he
will invariably come to the conclusion that he has to pay attention
to the use of his body as a whole. It is the balanced use of his
body mechanism that leads to the improvement of his use both general
and specific.
There are many influences that lead to imbalance in the use of our
bodies - injury, emotional trauma, life-style, mental attitudes,
fatigue, pressure and so on. The tension built up in our muscles
25
from such influences is often retained long after the tense

response is appropriate. In this way tension patterns become our
habitual use and filter into daily activities as well as the use
required for performances. This limits the repertoire of emotions
the body can portray convincingly and eventually limits a performer's
potentential employment.
We often use tension as a means of protection against injury in

all its forms. Once we make the choice to release this tension
the body will allow these releases only when it is ready to do so.
During the course of two years of Alexander Technique lessons I
was very aware of tension in my leg/hip joint, but it was only after
prolonged attention to the body as a whole that I experienced real
release in my leg/hip joint. Just as I originally made the choice
to start studying the Alexander Technique, so I made the choice to
release my legs when they were ready to be released. Many people
fear the loss of tension which they have built up as a protection,
but in practice a student can only experience release when the
body is ready and when the student makes the choice at each stage.
Once we experience the benefits of making choices, our bodies become

the responsive instruments required for the expression of our art.
Functioning as a Whole
Alexander started his experimentation with the intention of solving

the specific problem of his vocal misuse. He discovered that he
could only solve this by attending to more than the specific organs
involved - the whole body was involved in his misuse of his
vocal, organs. He also went on to realise that disconnected use of
the body implied disconnected functioning of mind, body and emotions.
In the face of the growing specialisation of the twentieth century
he taught that the human being functions as a psychophysical whole.
This concept is vital to singers and singing teachers. In the

enthusiasm of making progress in the many facets of a performer's
art, a singer can easily give priority to one aspect at the expense
of the whole balance of the art. A teacher can become convinced
that a certain aspect of technique is vital for every student and
teach it at the expense of retaining the balance of the whole. This
happens frequently and almost invariably, and the stronger the
26
singer's awareness of his whole functioning, the greater his
protection against such temptation in his own practising and in

his functioning under instruction.
Primary Control
Alexander used this term to describe the balanced relationship

between head, neck and torso which he discovered was so important
to his progress towards improving his use. It implies a tension-
free balancing of the head on the tip of the spine i.e. the atlas
balancing on the axis, rather than being held in a tension grip
on the tip of the spine. This allows maximum freedom and energy
in all the body's activites. It can be observed in young children
whose bodies have not yet been distorted by tension and in certain
fortunate adults who have retained this poise in activity.
Alexander maintained that this poise could be regained through a

re-education of the general muscle use and understanding of the
primary control. The primary control enables us to reach a
balanced resting state from which the natural reflexes can begin to
function as they should and any further activity takes on a new
freshness and energy because it is taking maximum advantage of the
natural flow of energy in the body. Alexander discovered that he
could not operate this primary control by "willing" the muscles to
work in a certain way. He had to allow the reflexes of the body to
act or not to act. This is what he called inhibition and direction.
This not only provides a way of reducing the interfering habits of
our systems, but enables us to find.a balanced state of rest from
.which to operate.
Debauched Kinesthesia
Kinesthesis is the conscious awareness of the movement and position

of the body. The muscles feed back information to the brain, telling
it what they are actually doing. Efficient kinesthetic awareness is
dependent on accurate signals from the proprioceptors which are the
tendons and joints of the body. Proprioceptors are activated by
movement and do not necessarily operate at a conscious level. When
engaged in learning a skill, we are operating our kinesthetic aware
ness, which itself is dependent on our proprioception. Proprioceptive
information concerns the relative positions of the body parts in space,
the rates of their movements, the forces they exert and the relative
27
times of their contractions.
Alexander discovered that his kinesthetic awareness was untrustworthy

and that this was not individual to himself. This untrustworthiness
» v
meant that , not only did he have an inaccurate idea of what he was
actually doing, but that the incorrect habit actually felt right.
The corrupted kinesthetic sense is called debauched kinesthesia. It
is characterised by an attempt at new use 'feeling all wrong1; by
inaccurate perception of the amount of energy required to perform
any activity; by fear of new ways of understanding activities; and by
generally inappropriate habits and behaviour.
It is most important to realise that the phenomenon of debauched

kinesthesia is the reason why we cannot teach ourselves the Alexander
Technique. We need the guidance of a teacher to learn to perceive
our activites accurately and only when the level of kinesthetic
awareness has improved to an acceptable level of accuracy, can
the student be regarded as self-sufficient. There is no standard
measure of such a point, but the sense of process•becomes evident
as the student shows signs of improved activities.
Singing teachers are very dependent on their kinesthetic awareness

for formulating accurate instruction and singing students are just
as dependent on kinesthetic awareness for carrying out these instruc
tions. It is very clear therefore that any improvement in changing
debauched kinesthesia towards improved and accurate kinesthesia is
bound to improve the rate of progress in the long term.
Inhibition
Inhibition is the word used to describe a moment of conscious thought

between the reception of a stimulus and the response. There are two
stages to learning inhibition - first, to recognise the habitual
response to a stimulus; second, to learn to stop or inhibit that
conditioned response. In an Alexander lesson the teacher gives
the student an awareness of the habitual response, thereby teaching
the student what needs to be inhibited. It is important that
we understand that this is a process of regaining spontaneity i.e.
freedom from habitual patterns, as opposed to other uses of the word
inhibition. This facility of controlled inhibition is what
distinguishes us from the animal world and Alexander believed that
it is essential to develop this contrd if we are going to cope with
28
the fast changes of modern living. It is the learning of a more

appropriate response to a stimulus that results from successful
inhibition and leads to activity and behaviour more appropriate to
the stimuli of our environment.
Direction
The best exanple of direction is Alexander's own direction to himself in all

activities - "free the neck to let the head go forward and up so
that the back may lengthen and widen." The important concepts in
this primary direction are "free", "let" and "may". They indicate
the sense of ALLOWING an activity to take place, rather than
pushing, straining or "doing". This concept of "doing" or "non
doing" is very important for every Alexander student to learn.
If we "do" a movement, the body stiffens in order to carry it out.
If we think a direction, we allow a release to take place first,
then allow the intended movement, which moves us in a certain
direction. The example of Alexander’s primary direction can
easily be turned into a meaningless repetition of words by an
inexperienced Alexander student because words can be repeated while
the thought is elsewhere. The forward and up direction should be
present in ail activities while at the same time carrying out
directions for improving the use of other parts of the body.
Means Whereby and Endgaining
Alexander re-educated himself, not by aiming towards a goal,

but by looking at the details of the process by which he would
reach .that goal. This is referred to as the means whereby.
Alexander discovered that, as soon as one attended to the desired
goal (endgaining), habitual patterns would dominate. In order to
inhibit this interference of habitual patterns, one needed to
attend very closely to instituting new manners of use which wculd
then accomplish the desired aim. Trying an activity repeatedly
with poor use is pointless and harmful. It is necessary to stop,
analyse the process, decide what is preventing the efficient
functioning, correct the poor use in the process and in this way
progress towards the goal. This endgaining can be seen in something
as simple as reaching for the salt, without attending to appropriate
muscle use for the activity, or even in the larger sphere of
how to make choices in planning a career. Debauched or corrupt body
use is just as destructive to the individual as corrupt methods to
instant success used by "endgainers".
29
IV THE STUDY PROJECT
The study project was planned in three phases:
1. Pilot Project
I would undertake an intensive course of Alexander Technique

lessons and record data on my condition before and after
this course. The data would be related to the following
aspects of my condition:
a) Physical Profile
A description of my general habitual manner of using
my body standing and sitting.
Outlines of photographs designed to show this body use.
Measurements of my body by a qualified doctor.
b) Breathing Profile
A description of my actual breathing mechanism before
and after a course of lessons.
c) Sound Profile
A description of my sound before the course of lessons,
indicating the improvements I would l'ike to make and
a description of the sound after the course. Data
would be based on my own subjective judgements at the
relevant times and tape recordings of rehearsals and
performances.
d) General Observations
2. Case Studies
Five singers - four from the Singing Department of the
Conservatorium of Music at the University of Stellenbosch
and one of my own students - would undertake a course of
thirty Alexander Technique lessons one year later to be
completed within a period of six months. Data would be
recorded on their condition before and after the course
related to the following aspects:
a) Physical Profiles
Descriptions of their general habitual manner of using
their bodies standing and sitting.
Outlines of photographs designed to show this body use.
Measurements of their bodies devised by a physiotherapist.
b) General Observations
30
3. Application of Knowledge Gained from First Two Phases

A more detailed description of the fifth student, who was
my own singing pupil, including data on breathing and
sound.
Applying the knowledge gained in her singing and Alexander
Technique lessons.
Conclusions.
The first phase was started on January 1st 1984. It was necessary
to allocate a year to the gathering of information because I
was the only local singer who had attempted to combine the skills
of these two demanding disciplines. I had to establish with evidence
that encouraging five other singers to combine these two disciplines
was a responsible action.
The five students who generously offered to commit themselves

to Alexander Technique lessons were shown the physical profile
of my pilot project and were very interested in the breathing
applications. They had to be'willing to find the fees for half
the cost of bringing the Alexander teacher from Cape Town to
Stellenbosch once a week and to visit the teacher in Cape Town
on Saturdays. They had to be willing to be photographed in
leotards and to have their bodies measured. They kept regular
diaries of their reactions to the course of lessons.
My tutor at the Conservatorium took the course of lessons herself

and kept an eye on what effects, if any, the Alexander Technique
lessons were having on her other four singing students. It was not
practical to record data on her students beyond the boundaries
of physical change because a singing pupil cannot be expected
to cope with direction from two teachers. Follow-up study after
the course of thirty lessons was also impractical because the
students could not be expected to continue the level of time
commitment when final year examinations were pending and they
were all.dispersing to take up new employment.
My own student, however, was employed locally and it was practical

to continue the study with her co-operation. At the end of the
first phase I was fortunate to have the opportunity to study with
Beret Arcaya in New York and learn from her some of the ways in
31
which she had been using the Alexander Technique to increase

the effectiveness of singing technique instruction. This meant
that I had observed combined instruction in both disciplines
being used effectively before the five case studies began their
course of lessons. My own training as an Alexander teacher had
started by this time and I had plenty of practical confirmation
of my conviction that the Alexander Technique was a very valuable
tool in the process of improving the art of singing.
One of the limitations of the project was that none of the

local trained Alexander teachers had had experience of singing.
At first, I found this unnerving, but, as time went on, I found
that it forced me to articulate my intentions very clearly when
engaged in carrying out a singing direction, either for myself
or for a pupil. It had to be clear to both the pupil and the
Alexander teacher who was helping me guide the pupil into better
muscle use while actually singing. Later on, when my own training
was more established, I took on this role myself; but the interim
phase was. most instructive.
The students on the case studies were also in need of articulate

explanations of how and why the Alexander Technique was affecting
them and my clarity in this sphere was forced to grow at a- rapidly
increasing rate. There was also the growing interest in the
project from students outside the study project. When the initial
thirty lessons were completed, four of the five students elected
to continue lessons privately and were joined by music students
and lecturers from other departments for the rest of the year.
32
Pilot Project
My motivation for analysing my condition was tocontinue to raise

my standards as a performer by recognising andremoving physical
habits that seemed to be impeding my progress. As stated on page one
these were:
1. My torso dropped while singing.
2. My arms were tense.
3. My jaw needed to be freer.
A. My lower back was not flexible enough.
Had'I not been a professional singer, these symptoms of

imbalanced body use may not have been particularly important
to me because I was fit and healthy. But my habits of body
use while singing were, in fact, exaggerated versions of
the habits I employed in my general use. These were more
noticeable as my voice grew in power and artistic demands
became more varied. I also realised that I had employed
these habits of body use throughout the period of training
as a singer.
Working on Alexander’s principle that the condition of the whole

person is relevant to all specific improvement, with the help of
my Alexander teachers and my singing teacher, I worked out the
following descriptions.
Physical Profile
Head: habitually held slightly too far forward in relation to torso;

pulled back on the tip of the spine.
Neck: muscles shortened.
Jaw: some habitual tension always present.
Chest: habitual narrowing and collapsing present in daily use.
Shoulders: slightly raised and rounded (incipient kyphosis); left
shoulder held higher than right.
Spine: a pronounced convex curve of the lumbar spine.
Torso: twisted from left towards right (scoliosis).
Left Scapulae:higher than right.
Arms: held in slight tension; left arm hanging more forwards
and away from the body than right arm.
33
|Figure TTf Figure 2.
5th December 1983
34
Lower Back; over-contracted muscle mass in right lower back;

shortened left side; thickened right side.
Pelvis: left side not aligned with left shoulder; pelvis dropped
back and down.
Knees: braced backwards.
Feet: tense; not "connected" to rest of body.
Weight: distributed too far forward resulting in tension in
feet and encourag .ig tension all over the body.
The overall effect, which can be seen in Figures 1 and 2, was

a slightly depressed posture - nothing gross or particularly
noticeable in everyday activities; but indicative of postural
habits which became exaggerated when I sang, which were becoming
worse as the years went by and which were perpetuating postural
attitudes that belonged to past experiences and therefore not
appropriate expressions of the feelings I was experiencing at
this time. The photographs, from which these body outlines were
traced, were taken 30 days before I started Alexander lessons.
The measurements had to be designed to indicate areas of physical

change. Between the doctor, myself and the Alexander teacher,
we could not predict exactly which changes were the most likely.
We made certain choices, and from those results we devised a
more thorough set of measurements with the help of a physio
therapist. We used those for the five following case studies.
These measurements were taken 25 days before I started Alexander
lessons.
Measurement Taken on 9th December 1983

Weight 60.2 kg-
Height 168.0 cm.
Neck circumference 31.0 cm.
Shoulder width (back) 38.0 cm.
Ribs exhaled 80.0 cm.
Ribs inhaled - 88.0 cm.
(actual expansion) 8.0 cm.
Chest 98.0 cm.
Waist 78.5 cm. (just above navel)
Left arm stretch 211.5 cm. (flat heels to fingertips)
Right arm stretch 213.0 cm.
Left leg 86.0 cm. (lying down, measured from
Right leg 86.0 cm. superior iliac crest to
medial malleolus)
Table 1.
35
Breathing Profile
A close examination of my singing technique inevitably involved

an analysis of my breathing. I had never suffered from shortness .
of breath and had relied very heavily on the sheer capacity cf
my lungs to cope with the longest phrases. To tell the truth, I
had always been rather pleased with my breathing capacity. So,
it was not easy for me to accept that I needed to re-examine my
breath control. I was therefore comforted to read in Lilli
Lehmann's book "How to Sing" that she breathed out by gradually
relaxing the abdomen for twenty-five years before deciding that
she got better results by relaxing the abdomen before she' sang.
"Undoubtedly I took in too much air in breathing, cramped various
muscles, thereby depriving my breathing organs and muscles of
their elasticity. I often had, with all care and preparation for
inhalation, too little breath, and sometimes, when not giving
special thought to it, more than enough. I felt, too, after
excessive inhalation as if I must emit a certain amount of air
before I began to sing. Finally I abandoned all superfluous
drawing in of the abdomen and diaphragm, inhalec but little, and
began to pay special attention to emitting the smallest possible
amount of breath, which I found very serviceable." 1*
I learned from this, not a blue print for ideal breathing, but the
principle of examining what you are actually doing with your breath
control at all phases of your career, and deciding if it is suitable
and achieving your desired results. I was actually doing the
following:_
Ribcage: the muscles-round the ribcage (intercostals) were strong
but tight, rather than flexible.
Chest: breast bone (sternum) pulled down on to diaphragm while
singing.
Diaphragm: tight rather than flexible - indicated by hardness of
stomach wall (epigastrium).
Lower Back: using the lower Lack rib muscles entailed a pushed
outward tension that was difficult to maintain.
Lower Abdomen: tended to push in a little while singing and was
not particularly flexible or well-toned.
Focus: main attention on the epigastrium for support.
Intake: sometimes audible.
1. L. Lefrnann, Hew to Sing, p. 29.
36
Sound Profile
My early training had been as a mezzo-soprano, but it soon

became clear that there was a much brighter timbre in the upper
register and I had been singing lyric soprano for about six years.
At this stage I felt that the warmth of the middle register
should be retained and I wanted to keep this fullness of tone
as high in the upper register as I could. For this I needed
better understanding of breath control and energy input. If I
could achieve this, the potential of my voice was what the
German ffach" system categorises as lyric coloratura.
The details of my vocal technique training at this stage are-

difficult to put into words, but there were specific tools I
wanted to learn to control.
Middle register: with my intention of keeping the warm tone, I

was inclined to let the voice fall too far back in the placing
and return to the thicker mezzo-soprano sound I had started
using in my early training. I was trying to avoid this habit,
while still retaining the quality of the middle register.
Upper register: the range from E natural to A natural was the
most expressive part of my voice; B flat and B natural were
powerful notes and Top C natural was inconsistent; C sharp to
Top E natural were reasonably well placed in staccato exercises
and coloratura runs. I wanted consistency in this area.
Chest register: I had no difficulty retaining middle register
down to middle C and I mixed middle and chest registers to
low A natural. On A flat I tended to break into pure chest
register. I found that I lost the facility with mixed register
on low A natural with the tension of performances and I wanted
to be able to control my voice at this range.
Vowels: because my "ah" vowel was still inclined to be placed too
far back, the placing of all the other vowels was net
consistently in the front of the mouth. I wanted to bring all
the vowels forward without becoming nasal in tone and felt I
needed the help of improved breath control to achieve this.
Consonants: these became slightly indistinct when I wanted a
legato sound. They were clearer in quicker passages.
Legato: I had always worked hard at maintaining the line of
my voice, but I could still hear a slight stopping of the
breath and lessening of support in the more difficult passages.
37
Balance Control: I was beginning to realise that my concept of

how and in what direction I was channelling my breath was very
important when it came to decide how and where I was intending
to place ray sound. In other words, I was getting.the direction
of breath muddled up with the direction of sound. This happened'
when I was thinking concentratedly about the exact nature of
my directions, but, of course, in performances the emphasis of
my directions was on the music. I was so keen to make maximum
use of the projected resonance of the head that I think I was
directing the sound too energetically into the head, with the
result that some breath was going with it and slightly affecting
the purity of the resonance. I needed to learn how to reach the
balance of directing breath through the mouth and allowing sound
into the resor.ating cavities at all times.
General Observations
Although I was playing sport and keeping up fitness exercises,

I became very tired after my singing practices. I felt that
my technique must be too effortful and that I must find greater
ease in producing my voice.
In September 1983 I twisted my lumbar spine and decided that I

should learn how to look after my back better. I also had been
doing a lot of driving and found that I had a recurrent dull
ache in my right back hip. I also had recurring pain in my
right leg/hip joint. I was constantly easing creaks out of my
left shoulder blade area and was aware of constantly fighting
the habit of raising the left shoulder while singing. My heels
were almost always numb.
Since I had been a teenager, I had been told that I had a slouch,
and I had always wanted to walk and stand well. I held myself
"well" in singing lessons, performances and photographs, but
this didn't really answer my need for generally better poise.
The posture I was holding for Figure 1 was my current idea of
standing my best for a photograph. I was more than ready for
making some changes.
38
MY OWN EXPERIENCE OF THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE
The practicalities of combining singing with the Alexander

Technique now had to be solved. I was living and working within
Cape Town but my University was' a long car journey away from
the only available Alexander teachers. I wanted to be able to
examine my actual muscle use in singing and Alexander lessons
as closely juxtaposed as possible. I therefore included singing
technique lessons with the vocal coach at the opera house and
submitted regular reports on the progress of my early attempts
to combine Alexander Technique and singing to my tutor at the
University. I was taughtand advised by one of the Alexander
teachers in Cape Town and a visiting teacher trained at the
Constructive Teaching Centre in London during the first six
months of the project. I started with six weeks of intensive
Alexander Technique lessons in January 1984 and incorporated
the singing lessons in the middle of February 1984.
There is very little action in an Alexander Technique lesson, but

it would be helpful to outline the nature of the few movements
that can occur so that it is clear in the following account of
my course of Alexander Technique lessons.
Standing: an Alexander lesson usually starts with learning awareness

while standing. The student stands in front of a straight-backed chair
while the teacher stands next to the student with one hand on the
student’s lower back and the other on the stomach wall. Then the
teacher moves his hand to a point between the shoulder blades' at
the back and on to the upper chest in the front. After a few
minutes he moves his back hand to the back of the neck and his
front hand under the chin. This is not the only way in which to
learn about distributing the student's weight equally across
the feet and letting go tension in the back and stomach, and releasing
tension in the neck, but it is a typical approach to the start of an
Alexander lesson.
Sitting: the teacher then guides the student into the chair, asking
him to pay attention to his neck muscles, or his lower back, or
his knees, or the bend at his hips, and so on, slowly learning
places to release tension while sitting down. This can be done
more than once. The student is also guided for standing up again,
39
probably being asked to pay attention to leading forward and up

with his head, or feeling energy going up in front of his torso,
or allowing the knees to move forward and away from each other.
There are many variations of directions that are-required for each
1.
student at different stages, but these are again typical directions.
| Illustration 1 ~|
Lying on the table: most teachers have a table on which the student
lies on his back, hands resting on the front of the torso, knees
bent pointing to the ceiling,weight of legs resting on feet. In this
position the muscles have the help of gravity to allow releases and
the teacher can help the student to lengthen and widen all over
the body. The arms and legs are gently moved by the teacher,
sometimes taken to their full length. The head is encouraged to
lengthen out of the shoulder girdle and so on. There is no end to
the variations of movements for this stage of a Jesson.
1. For the purposes of visual clarity, leotards were worn for these life drawings.
Ordinary clothing is worn for Alexander Technique lessons.
Illustration 2.
% '
"Monkey": there is a position between sitting and standing called
"monkey" which is named after its appearance - the arms hang
freely on either side of the body, the ankles, knees and hips
are bent and the torso remains wide and lengthened. Alexander
described it as the position of greatest mechanical advantage.
It takes the average student a great deal of practice to become
released and free in all the joints of the body and still allow
width and length in the torso; but it is a very useful position
for attempting to learn another skill when it is necessary to
stay free in as much of the body as possible.
Hands on the back of the chair; the student stands behind a straight
backed chair and goes into a "monkey" position. He then gently
places his hands on the back of the chair, fingers in front, thumb
behind, letting the tension release in the hands and the weight,
of the arm go into the elbows.
41
"Whispered Ah"; in any of the above positions the student can be

taught "whispered Ah”. The tongue rests:in the bottom of the mouth;
air is allowed the empty out of the lungs; the lungs then refill,
allowing air right into the lower back of the lungs; the student
imagines sanething slightly amusing so that his eyes smile a little;
he allows the air out with an audible "ah".
Illustration 3.
O'-
•—
Crawling: this is by no means a part of every lesson, but it was

included in ail the case studies’ thirty lessons. The student
goes down on all fours and lengthens and widens his torso,
distributes his weight so that his hips do not drop excessively
from side to side and synchronises his hands and knees in a very
slow crawl.
A2
The horse: sometimes the student is asked to sit on a horse's

saddle which rests on a wooden frame high enough for the feet to
be off the ground. He rests his weight on his sitting bones and
allows his energy to go up his torso. This is a good position for
working on leg/hip tension.and there are many variations for releases
throughout the body.
Illustration A.
These then are some of the most repeated movements during the
following Alexander Technique lessons. Each teacher has his
own successful variations and each student responds to different
directions in his own individual way. Naturally the student has
some choice in the matter of which position they prefer - most
enjoy lying on the table, but a few refuse to do so; many do not
like the horse and so on.
A3
ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE - LESSON 1

At this first lesson we started with standing and sitting and
then standing up again. In the process my teacher tried to
help me to raise the front of my thorax and drop the back.
Then I was taught to release into my sitting bones which seemed
to work quite well but there seemed to be an uncertain area in
my lower back. It was described as a "block in the middle
of the thorax" and she said that it was her aim to make me work
as a whole. I was also told that I released well in certain
areas and that it was hoped that this ability to release
would be general throughout my body when I had had enough
Alexander Technique lessons. When the lesson was-over I found
that .nywalking steps were much smaller and when I was driving
there seemed to be a much longer space between the base of my
neck and the top surface of my shoulders; my shoulders seemed
to be hanging more from my neck.
N.B. This description of the block in my thorax seemed to
relate directly to the problems I was having in my singing
lessons. I was being asked to extend my energy up and down in
my body. This I had not been able to do as there was a definite
resistance to getting more energy from my back and more elasticity
for the breathing from the back of my ribs.
LESSON 2
It became apparent to me in this lesson that I tended to depress
my laryx when I wasn't thinking. My teacher suggested that I
opened in my chest. At this point I felt strange sensations in
the top of my arms and my teacher explained that it was a
tingling which was the result of increasing circulation. She
said I tended to bring my shoulders round and depress 'the whole
front area of my thorax. She suggested that I think into my
back where she had placed her hand. She wanted me to fill in
my back from the middle of my body and not to push the middle
of the back outwards against her hand.
We then made our first attempt at introducing some singing into
the Alexander lesson. I sang a humming-exercise which I later
listened to on tape and decided that it was somewhat effortful
and pushed. When I had finished my teacher asked me whether
I was intending to stiffen my arms while I sang. When I
explained that I did not intend this she said that this was
an unnecessary use of energy. After this she suggested that
I walked with her holding my arms to prevent me from stiffening
them while I walked normally.
44
N.B. I learned several things from this lesson that I could

relate to singing.
1. I became aware that I depressed my larynx and learned that

one of the ways of solving this was to open up some
space in my chest. In other words I was becoming
familiar with the idea of releasing tension in one
part of the anatomy by allowing a release in another
part.
2. Releases increased blood circulation.
3. I had to learn to release the middle of my back rather
than pushing it about.
4. I learned that my arms stiffened while I sang.
This was what we called an INTERFERENCE. This interference was

obviously present in my singing, but there were also signs that
it tended to interfere with my walking and other movements as
well.
LESSON 3
My teacher asked me to think up in my torso, drop my nose, release

my weight downwards, and just let it happen rather than doing
it or pushing it. She asked me to allow the movement down into
the sitting bones and the movement up to be simultaneous. I
tended to pull my shoulders back rather than let the releases
happen. I also tended to overdo the up energy and ignore the
widening process that has to go on at the same time. I was then
taught the half-sitting position that the Alexander Technique
teachers call "monkey". It was explained to me as a process of
allowing freedom at the back of the neck, releasing tension in
the front of the ankles, allowing the knees to go forward and
away and bending at the hips. I was also taught the "whispered
ah". This was explained to me as emptying the lungs, releasing

tension all the way through the body, gently letting the air
out of the lungs on a "hhhuh" sound. It was described as a very
gentle process not to be associated at this stage with my singing
breathing. Again I had to be careful not to do too much but to
allow it to happen.
45
I also had to rest my tongue along the bottom of my mouth

against my lower teeth when I breathed out and just allow the
inside of my mouth to lengthen and widen.
We then started singing again and this time using a chair.

I stood behind the chair with my feet fairly wide apart. I
sang a five-note exercise up and down on an "ah" vowel. It
was rather a tight covered sound. My teacher said I was
cutting off my energy in the middle of my back. She suggested
I thought back into this area and thought of my feet on the
floor without wiggling my knees. I explained that my knees
didn't quite know where they belonged. She suggested that I
should not worry too much about the singing but just concentrate
my awareness on her hands. In other words, think about her
hands rather than about the singing. I took the exercise up
to top B flat and back down again to bottom A. It became very
resonant as the exercise continued. We noticed that
I had a tendency to come down in the front and up at the back
when I was executing a downward interval. She suggested that I
tried overcoming this in an easy part of the voice. She advised
me to centre myself and think into the floor. When I die this
she observed a much nicer flow in the sound and that I did net
break in the middle of my back. At this stage I had actually
stopped listening to the voice and was concentrating on the way
in which I was using my body. My teacher also, observed that I
was no longer tensing my shoulders in a certain direction but
that when they moved it was part of a flow in the sound. She
said that it seemed to be more like a sway going instead of a
tense jerk. There was an up and down energy that felt fine
and there was no sense of blocking things off. When we had
finished this particular exercise, she asked me if it was tiring.
My reaction was that I was fairly tired but that I felt less
tired singing with my concentration on body energy than singing
with so much concentration on the sound of my voice. My
teacher commented that this was the first time that she had
taught a singer and was amazed at how much more sensitive the
body response is than for the average Alexander Technique
student.
N.B. The observations of my singing activity in the lesson were

very valuable.
A6
1. The 'Vnonkey" position can be used as a total release of the

body in preparation for singing activity.
2. The "whispered ah” can be used as a way of releasing the
breathing muscles and opening the throat preparatory to
singing activities.
3. Gently resting my hands on the back of the chair was a way
to discourage the arms from stiffening and taking part in
the production of sound.
4. Thinking of the mechanisms in my body left my voice more
free than if I was focusing my attention just on my vocal
sound.
5- Having the Alexander teacher's hands touching a muscle
that I was intending to use in a new way, increased my
awareness of how I wanted to use that muscle.
6. I became aware of a tendency to go down physically on
to downward intervals and this was something that I
wished to change.
7. Centering my balance and thinking my feet into the floor
was very helpful as a base for increasing my energy
flow.
8. I had the encouragement of realising that I was learning
to overcome energy blocks and that I had a naturally
responsive body mechanism.
LESSON A
At this lesson I learnt an interesting piece of new advice -

I had been putting my neck and head slightly forward and my
teacher suggested that I "put my face back into my neck" a
little which was a very helpful piece of imagery. Again I
had a strange sensation above my elbows like pins and
needles which made me feel as though my arms were going to
drop off. It was not an entirely pleasant sensation. In
my sitting and standing I became aware that pulling the
muscles short in the back of my neck could cause me to flop
onto the chair when I sat down because it detracted from
my balance. We worked on this by thinking the weight into
my sitting bones, allowing the teacher to guide me to sit,
letting go tension in my legs and resisting the temptation
to push my bottom out to place it on the chair. This
was described as an interference. in order to
stand up my teacher suggested that I just imagined myself
standing. The result was very free and easy .
47
She explained that I had reached an interesting stage in

Alexander Technique when I was beginning to anticipate the
movements instead of allowing her to do it. In the
beginning the student cannot do this because he does not
know what to expect. I also felt that the changes of use
in my muscles were making their presence felt by little
aches and pulls all over my body. I then enabled myself
to let go in the knees and to allow myself to go forward
from the hip joint at the same time with the head forward
and up in order to sit down. But then I remembered that
I had to sit on the chair so I interfered and did the movement
in two sections.
I prepared to sing again with my hands resting on the back

of a chair and I sang a Puccini aria. I noticed that the
times when I wanted the shoulders to go down at the back
and the front to go up were the very times when I habit
ually tried to do exactly the opposite. I could feel
that if my teachers hands had not been placed on my
shoulder blades, that the shoulder blades would have risen
quite high. I also became aware that my ribcage was falling
in as I was singing. In my early singing lessons I had been
taught to hold my ribcage outwards and push it out away from
my body during singing. In this lesson I realised that this
was an exhausting procedure. Apparently, when I
started doing this the muscles round the ribcage were stiff
and hard but as I continued the movement became freer
and the sound more flowing. But this did not happen if her
hands were not on my ribcage - as soon as she.removed her
hands I became fixed again. She suggested that, whatever
my intentions with ribcage movement, it would be desirable
for the muscles to remain pliable even when they are ex
tended. I explained that Ihad been trying to get this
elasticity in my own practice with the result that I
managed to get a sound connection as if by accident with
the soft palate. I became aware that I had consciously
created a connection that I knew to be desirable. My
teacher said that she was not concerned about my singing
technique because I was probably working correctly if my
muscles were not fixed when I had finished singing. I
noticed also that during the sitting work I was aware that
48
ray jaw was much looser than usual.
N.B. I learned several new things at this lesson as well.
1. Visualisation:We used this twice during the course

of the lesson. The first time to put my face back
into my neck and the second time to imagine myself
' standing up. It brought home to me the power of
visualisation as a force to change muscle habits.
It also helps to imagine whole movements instead of
getting caught up in separate movements.
2. I realised that I wanted my shoulders to go down at
the back and the front of my torso to go up, but
because of my over-riding habit, I was actually doing
the opposite of what I intended. This was my first
experience of doing the opposite of my intention. It
is a common problem amongst singers.
3. I had my first experience of examining a learned old habit.
This was holding my ribs out for the full extent of a phrase.
I had been working on getting flow into my ribcage and this
habit was standing in the way of that flow. Yet I found
it very difficult to stop doing this because I had been
taught it as a valid method of breath control very early
on in my singing training.
4. I created for the first time a conscious connection
resulting from improved use of my ribcage muscles.
This was to be the first of many successful conscious
connections that were to help my singing technique.
5. The concept 'of being fixed or holding residual tension
in muscles after singing activities became a very
important one to the process of learning muscle release
and its value in leaving the muscles ready for further
action.
6. Having had a great deal of trouble loosening my jaw for
singing, I found this new awareness of looseness in the
jaw very encouraging.
LESSON 5
My teacher was amazed that my muscle spasm in my right middle

back had already flattened out to a remarkable degree in the
previous four lessons. She decided that at this lesson she
49
was going to work a little bit more concentratedly on my

head/neck/torso relationship so that I got used to having
her hands on my head and neck while attending to my use .
in the rest of my body. She said this was not usually
done in an Alexander lesson but she wanted me to get used
to this so that she could hold my head and neck while I
was singing.
I told her that I was finding concentration rather tiring

and she said that I should try to just allow the releases
to happen rather than thinking that I actually had to do
something. She pointed out that intensive Alexander-work
is in fact exhausting because the body changes so rapidly
that you cannot really keep pace with the changes. The
muscles start to work in a different way and
obviously the muscle tone is not sufficently developed
to maintain the new use for long periods.
She asked me to think my weight into my heels. I pointed

out that one is not normally asked to stand back on on^s
heels in a singing lesson or to perform. She said
that it v»as a question of distributing the weight between the
ball of the foot, the outside of the foot near the little
toe and the heel. Thinking weight into your heels
is a corrective rather than a descriptive balance. I was
relieved to hear this because I said the knees tended to
lock if I tried to stand fully on my heels. She said that
it was a question of being more aware of ones heels so
that the front of the ankle could open up more and it
released the top of the foot.
By this stage I had been experimenting with the idea of my

face going inwards and had been finding that it made a lot of
other things easier. My teacher said that it fed right
back all the way down to my heels and that she could see it
happening.
She reiterated the possibility that the Alexander Technique

was very likely to cause what felt like a chaotic jumble
for a little while but she assured me that it would also
start to unravel itself. I then remembered that after my
third lesson I had actually felt very confused.
50
At this point I informed her that I had been asked

to- do an audition over the forth-coming week-end. She
immediately observed that I had tensed up ray left
shoulder and that I should try and release it. Her
reaction to my comment about the audition was that I
was at a transition stage where I was letting go of
something and going into something new.
We then started some singing - I sang The Czardas from

■"Die Fledermaus" - which showed signs of strain and a
little bit of wobbling at certain points. My teacher
observed this for a while and then asked me to stop
singing. She said that the left shoulder did an incred-
able amount of work while I was singing and that
was why it was more developed. I kept going over the
front of my body with the left shoulder and she asked me to
sing while being very aware of that fact. I then carried
on singing. I completed the aria and she said I had
inhibited that action a great deal by being aware.
I had been bothered by a slight rattling sound in my throat

at the top and I asked her if she had heard this. She had
and I explained that it felt as though I was wanting to
open the voice i.e. the throat, but it felt as though
something was hanging on in the throat. I commented
that my energy felt a little bit down at that moment but
she said that she definitely felt that I was not
pushing at the voice which is something that always
worried her when listening to singers. She felt that I
was getting a looseness between my shoulders and my hips
because letting go in the shoulders was enabling my hips
to drop.
N.B. There were several interesting points relating to

my singing emerging from this lesson -
1. I began to feel the significance of retaining a good

head/neck/torso alignment while singing. Although this
was a long-term project and needed a lot of courage to
operate, I found it very comforting to have somebody
helping me towards that sense of freedom.
51
2. The question of weight distribution had always bothered

me. Books on singing technique sometimes advise that
the weight is distributed in the front of the feet,
but I had discovered that this made the back rather
tight and this description of allowing a distribution
between the front and the back of the feet actually
solved the problem for me. It was obviously wrong
to have all the weight on the heels and allowing the
distribution between the front and the back was ideal
for the whole body.
3. The decision about whether to undergo an audition at
this stage emerged during this lesson with particular
reference to my current sense of exhaustion. In view
of what happened at the forthcoming audition, I found
it interesting to realise with hindsight that the
information for my decision was contained in this fifth
Alexander lesson.
4. The importance of awareness was illustrated very clearly
to me when I had my excessive shoulder action pointed
out to me and then went through the process of inhibiting
to a certain extent this action while singing.
5. Protesting rattles in the throat on high notes were not
very frequent in my singing but they had happened to me
from time to time. In the past I had always reacted to
such sounds with something not short of horror, probably
because I was afraid that they would happen during
performance. My reaction to the rattle in my throat on
this occasion showed a different approach - the new
space in my neck and throat was giving me an instinct
for a wider throat space for the upper notes but the
muscles in my throat were hanging on to tension habits
that were associated with that pitch in the voice.In
other words I began to realise that throat protesting
could actually be heralding a new level of command-
over the space in the throat.
6. Effortful singing also came under scrutiny in this lesson.
I felt that the new space between my shoulders and my hips
wasa loss of effort and at this point I interpreted it as
feeling “down* in the body. But my teacher pointed out that
I had in fact let go some of the effort in the middle of
my body that had been producing the sound.
52
THE AUDITION
I was persuaded to do this audition against my own better judgement.

I had two day's break between my fifth and sixth lesson, and on the
day before the audition I' felt as though my sound had no energy.
Later on in the day, I picked up some energy and felt as though I
was making some new and better sounds. But on the day of the
audition the temperature was 34 degrees centigrade and the pressure
of performing under the circumstances of my current muscle change
worked against me in my efforts to control two very demanding arias.
I learned a few hard lessons from this experience.
1. That I had ignored the information contained in. my last Alexander
lesson about the state of my body and its current readiness for
pressure.
2. That I had underestimated the power for change that was contained
in only five Alexander lessons.
3. That I had now been forewarned that intensive Alexander training
should not be undertaken when a performer is anticipating a
pressured schedule. In his article, "A New Field for Enquiry"
Frank Pierce Jones describes how he felt "glued to the spot" when
F.M. Alexander asked him to move without interfering with his
neck tension. This happens regularly in the first few Alexander
lessons and there were many instances in my pupils' singing
lessons when the singer could not sing at all because we had only
just removed a habitual interference like raising the shoulders
or lifting the arm. If we have learned a skill in a tense manner,
we have to relearn the skill because our co-ordination has been based
on the presence of tension. v
LESSON 6
We began by discussing the problems I had encountered in the audition.

It was important that I understood the reasons for ’the temporary loss
of control, so that I did not imagine that the same problem would
become a regular part of auditioning and add to my anxiety over
auditions. % own reaction, even while I was singing, was that I
could already tell the difference between how I was singing before
and how I might sing, if I established a better relationship between
my breathing and my head tones. I felt during the audition that I
had to work for every note and that the mechanism to carry out that
1. F.P. Jones, THE ALEXANDER REVIEW, "A New Field of Enquiry", 1985, vol. I re. 2, p.11.
53
work had failed me.
My teacher then worked on sitting and standing and suggested

that I think more about the chair and sitting on the chair
itself. She said that if I allowed myself to go on to the
chair I would realise just how much I had been holding on
to myself without actually sitting down.
My teacher then observed that I seemed to have a loose

outer cover of muscle i.e. the top muscles were quite free.
The inside muscles were still tense or tight. She said that
she could see that we would have to loosen up the deeper
layers of muscles around the ribcage if I was to achieve
complete elasticity. We then did some singing on a
staccato "o" vowel which spread in focus rather too much
on the top A. The voice seemed a little too heavy for this
exercise. While I was singing my teacher said that I
should open my chest and think right into my feet. She
said I had changed miraculously since the previous week in
terms of tensing my shoulders. She also pointed out that
now she had noticed that I needed to keep the front and- the
back of my body working as a whole rather than one going
in one direction and the other seeming to tense up in another
direction; I must think more carefully about the front and
back working together. I suggested that I might have over
corrected the rising in the front and the dropping in the
back for the purposes of singing. She said I had a tendency
to over-correct.
The other interesting observation was that I changed a great

deal between lessons. She noticed that I was different each
time I came for a lesson even after one day's break.
At this point we discussed the question of the singer's own

attitude towards auditions. I described how my attitude
was nearly always one of extreme nervousness, even to the
point of nausea, and that I felt that it was time I put
some thought into developing a more constructive attitude.
I had read that Alexander Technique helps people to face
new challenges and I was looking for this possibility
emerging from the work I was doing.
54
N.B. There was some very interesting information contained

in this lesson.
1. Effort; even under the pressure of the audition I was

aware of wanting to make a certain level of effort in
order to reach my head tones. However, my recently re
educated breathing system did not allow me to put in
that level of effort and I kept trying to make my body
work for every note. This was my first inkling of the
fact that head tones do not need to be achieved with
effort in the head but are the resul-t of mental
direction. Without actually understanding it intellect
ually, my body was already re-channelling the effort
into more appropriate parts of my anatomy.
2. Application of the Alexander Technique to singing:
My teacher strongly advised me to allow this aspect of
my work at this stage to grow on its own. She said
that once I had the feel of the Alexander in my normal
movements, the connections and applications would
emerge of their own accord; it was not necessary for
me to hunt for them at every single turn. I bore this
point in mind when we started on the case studies.
During their first thirty lessons they were not asked
to make notes about how the Alexander was affecting
their singing, but rather how the Alexander was affect
ing them generally.
3. Constructive reaction to experience; the influence of
constructive advice at this particular stage of my work
was of crucial importance to me. If I had not had my
Alexander teacher available to discuss an unsuccessful
audition, I might have been tempted to take a far less
positive view of what was a somewhat confusing experience.
In the past I had reacted to experiences that did not
turn out how I planned by a mixture of negativity and
positivity. It was important to me that I wrote down
this advice and it became a much more regular feature
of my reaction to experience to follow this advice -
"there is a lot of information in this experience for
you".
55
4. Deep layers of tension: this was a new concept to me

although it sounds like pure common sense. If I was
treating my muscular activity as surface activity,
then it was obviously true that I was not penetrating
the inner layers of muscle activity which were crucial
to achieving a central core to my breath support.
5. Front/back split: this must also have been the result
of a mental attitude towards my body. I have since
found that there are many singers who look at their
breathing system from the front, purely because the
front is visible to them. It is also more easily
visible to their teachers. It results in relative
inactivity for the back of the breathing system and
overloads the front action. In the long run this is
not a healthy balance for the body.
6. Over-correction: This is a common problem among keen
and energetic singing students. At a singing lesson,
under the teacher's guidance, the student learns to
master a new concept. After about three days practis
ing the new concept is over-emphasized and, to the
student's dismay, the new ability disappears. The
same happens with muscle re-education in Alexander
Technique. This was not therefore my first experience
of suffering from over-correction and it was my
intention to use the Alexander Technique to develop
a keener sense of intuitive balance even when trying
new skills.
7. Continuous change: this was my first experience of
evidence that my body could change even while I was
not having an Alexander Technique lesson and even
though I was not consciously practising Alexander
Technique between lessons. I had in fact been
discouraged from practising Alexander Technique between
lessons.
8. Attitude towards auditions: Auditioning is part of any
singer's career and it is necessary for the singer to
accept their inevitability. I had always found that my
nervous anticipation of an audition was far in excess
of my nervousness for a performance. The absence of
an audience made the performing of an aria almost
pointless and the feedback from the people listening
was in no way a compensation. I knew I had to think
56
much more clearly about this attitude if I was going

to allow the standard of my auditioning to increase
alongside my intended raising of standards in my
singing.
LESSON 7
In lesson 7 I tried not to relate every new piece of informa
tion about my muscle use to singing technique. We worked some
more on standing and sitting and we worked on the table,
covering some of the same ground that we covered in Lessons
1- 6 .
LESSON 8
My teacher made some interesting comments about my rib-cage

in this lesson. She said that my upper ribs were tense and
tight, not flexible as was desirable. She suggested that
this could possibly make my throat tighter than it needed to be
and also might cause my arms to stick out rather than hahging
loose. She said that my lower back was becoming looser.
We also did some walking during which the tension in my upper

ribs was evident. I tried to do the walking without upper
rib tension and found that if I allowed my head to go forward
and up, my knees did the walking.
We did some more work on the monkey position.
N.B. Awareness of actual muscle use;
1. Observations of what my breathing muscles were actually

doing made me more aware of the discrepancy between my
knowledge of what I should be doing with my muscles
and my practice of what I was actually doing. When I
observed myself during singing I found that the tight
ness or inactivity in my back caused overuse of the
stomach wall (or epigastrium) in the front. I realised
that this imbalance in activity was one of the causes
of tension in the upper ribs. I decided to use only
thinking to try and inhibit this particular habit. I
thought my weight down into my sitting bones and found
that the overuse of the diaphragm in the front eased
off.
57
LESSON 9
My teacher noticed that my legs appeared to be more connected

to my body in this lesson. She also discussed the tension
that remained in the area of my diaphragm in-the front of my
body after I had finished singing.
N.B.
1. Emotional release: the day before this particular

lesson I had handled an awkward situation in a way
that was quite new to me. Three weeks earlier I had
bought an expensive portable tape-recorder to use for
recording my Alexander lessons and it had been supplied
without the necessary microphone. After the three
weeks of repeated reminders about obtaining a microphone
for' me, I had suddenly experienced a rush of anger that
went from my head right through my stomach and down
and away through my shins and toes. This physical
registration of immediate anger was new to me. I did
not. however, lose my temper with the shop assistant
but firmly insisted on returning the tape recorder and
getting my money back. There was no doubt in my mind
that this pattern of dealing with an awkward situation
was different from past patterns. In the past I would
have bottled up the frustration over the faulty equipment
and registered some of the tension in my stomach muscles.
This new way of dealing with anger left me -feeling light
and free.
LESSON 10
This lesson was the last of the fortnight of almost daily

lessons that we had planned. I was concentrating very hard
on what was happening in the middle of my back and finding
the new use of muscles in my midriff almost unendurable.
While I was lying on the table my teacher worked a little
with me on tension in the area of the diaphragm. After this
I sat on the edge of the table and she asked me to allow
those muscles to be free without her helping me. As soon as
58
I managed this, I found that there were tears rolling down

my cheeks. There was a tremendous sense of relief resulting
from this ability to allow tension to release in the
diaphragm area.
My teacher noticed that my legs were still much freer than

before, that the feet were showing signs of releasing
tension, and I was bending more freely from the hip.
The muscle spasm in my right lower back was also showing

signs of softening further.
N.B.
1. Stored tension: my teacher discussed with me the

physical implications of storing emotional tension.
I had just had demonstrated to me that the release of
tension in the diaphragm area caused the release of
some kind of emotion as well. She said this is a very
common area for storing emotional tension. She
referred to the jaw as another very common area for
stored tension. I made a special note of this because
I was aware that the diaphragm and the jaw are two
very important areas for freedom and flexibility in
singing and felt that I wanted to increase my ability
to allow freedom in these areas for the sake of my
singing technique as well as for general good muscle
use.
2. Awareness of tension: I was becoming familiar with the
sensation of new awareness in areas of tension. Muscles
that had been tight had not registered their tension in
my awareness, but as they released, I felt the discomfort
of that tension until their release was sufficient to
put into practice improved use.
LESSON 11
During this lesson we discussed the growing theoretical

knowledge I was gaining from reading about the Alexander
Technique and also reading singing technique books. All
this theoretical description of what are essentially
practical subjects was beginning to worry me in terms of
59
my own practice. My Alexander teacher said that the

application of what I was doing was going to take a long
time and that I had to allow it to happen. There was no
point in worrying about it. She said that if we tried to
make things happen, we overdo in some areas and underdo in
others. The only solution is to leave it alone and have
an awareness to let it come right.
I tried to explain what I seemed to be doing with my breath

ing muscles - I felt that the diaphragm was forcing the
sound and that I needed to relax a little: it seemed that
the diaphragm ballooned out and ballooned in and was
altogether overdoing things; I felt that it needed some
help from elsewhere in the body to prevent it from being
too strong. My teacher said that the way I was looking
at it made it sound very complicated. She suggested
that I should just think into my back. We then discussed
the in breath in breathing and how a singer feels as
though he has to tank himself up with air in order to
fill an auditorium with sound. My teacher said that it
was not necessary to drag the air in so that it rushed
into the lungs. If you let the air in the lungs fill of
their own accord. I therefore said that the expiration
of breath would then depend on developing all the breathing
muscles to a high standard of fitness rather than pressuris
ing their use with maximum amounts of air in the lungs.
It seemed to me that I had developed the muscles around the
area of the diaphragm to a high degree of strength but had
neglected the development of other supporting muscles in the
back and the abdomen.
We then did some more singing - a simple Spanish song. I

noticed on the tape that the placing of the vowels was still
a little bit too far back with the result that the bright
ness of the song did not come through. The highest note of
the song was pushed too far into the front, but there was
a good legato and the tone was warm. While I was singing
my teacher asked me to release tension down the back of my
legs without tilting my bottom. She suggested that I
should not push on the muscles so much in general. She said
that there was a much more alive feeling in my back, that
60
the whole back was much better because all the muscles of the
back were participating in breathing. I commented that this
use of my back was still very difficult for me to achieve on
my own. My teacher suggested that I should not get so
intense about the details of it but just accept that I was
doing some very valuable work.
N.B.
1. Intention; the discussion about breathing was the first

of many attempts to clarify.my thinking about how I was
using my breathing mechanism. I had received a great
deal of advice over the years about breathing for sing
ing and it was a refreshing change to discuss breathing
as a life support activity and not only as a means of
singing. I was beginning to realise that if I did not
know what I intended to do with my breathing, I would
find it very difficult to increase the efficiency of
the breathing mechanism-.
2. Inhibition; with the help of the teacher I was beginning
to exercise inhibition of old habits of pushing on the
breath.
LESSON 12
First I was asked to think my shoulders back from where

they were, to think up in front, not to push my back out
quite so much, to think up more than back, and to think
down where her hands were touching my pelvi's. I commented
on my fear of release - the fear that, if I released too
much, I would lose my power of being able to do something.
I felt that I didn't know what to do in a positive way
after I had released. I commented that I was not as
conscious of working with my diaphragm as I used to be
and yet the diaphragm seemed.to be controlling the sound
just the same.
I then lay down on the table and my teacher asked me to

breathe in deeply and then allow her to rest her hands-
against my diaphragm while I breathed out. I gave a series
of out breaths to a count of six and she commented that my
muscles in this area were unusually strong.
61
I had been complaining about a tickle in my throat for the

last two or three months and I described my own singing
practising in which I was beginning to be able to breathe
with my whole back. In these practices I found that the
tickle in my throat was not ocurring quite so often.
I also noted that the movement in my legs had improved.

The twinge of pain that recurred in my right leg was much
less noticeable now. My teacher said that it was much
easier to get me in and out of a chair and that the use
of my legs was improving. I commented that my awareness
of some misuse in my legs was not a particularly comfortable
phase and it was nice to get beyond that. I was now aware
that the numbness in my heels had gone and that pins and
needles in my little fingers which used to occur as I was
sleeping had also disappeared. Another awareness I had
at this point was that my right arm and my right side and
my right leg hip joint were all tenser than my left side.
We then worked on releasing from the head right through to

the toes by thinking up and thinking all the way down; by
keeping my feet on the ground and lengthening upthe back
of the neck. I felt a release in my right arm and I
managed to include my shoulders in going down the back.
She commented that I tended to move my shoulders separately
from.the rest of me and that it was important to get the
shoulders connected up so that my back became a whole. She
said that I must think of my neck lengthening upout of my
back and once I get that up feeling I would feel freer in the
throat. Chce I had put these thoughts into action she said
that I had a much more 'together*look.
She then asked if she could work on my shoulders connecting

into my back while I was singing. I walked to the chair
and allowed my shoulders to go forward while I was walking;
then it was suggested that I should stay in my back and
let my neck lengthen up out of the shoulders. My feet
should feel the ground and I should feel free in my throat.
I sang a simple vocal exercise on two notes while my
teacher repeated these instructions over and over again.
62
When I had stopped my teacher said that she could feel

muscles working in an area where she asked me to stay open.
My success in staying open did not affect the continuation
of the muscular action. I commented that I seemed to be -
singing with my breath more whereas previously I had been
tanking up the breath and getting it trapped under the
throat.
My teacher then explained the connection from my right hip

into my back and described it as a connection of substance
not of emptiness.
N.B.
1. Over-correction: there was evidence in this lesson that

my intention to direct my back into my teacher’s hand
had turned itself into a push. I had taken this type
of thinking into my singing many times over the years
and it was interesting to know that I was capable of
doing this in my general body use as well as in my
singing. This is a necessary part of learning the
true balance of any activity and the teacher plays
a vital role in pointing out to the student those
moments of over-correction.
2. Release with direction: at this stage I had succeeded
in releasing some of the tension in my breathing
mechanism. I was conscious of a fear of further
release because I was somewhat confused about the
exact directions that I wanted to put into operation.
At this stage I needed a singing teacher who had
had experience of the Alexander Technique to see me
through this kind of fear. It was, however, instruct
ive to know that I was aware that if I released without
direction the downward force of gravity would pull me
down in the absence of an upward direction.
3. Tanking up with breath: my awareness of this particular
habit now became associated with the recurring tickle
in my throat. The awareness came after I had succeeded
in using my whole back for breath support. It is
interesting to note that it was work with the Alexander
Technique that made me aware of the disadvantages of
63
tanking up with breath rather than the vocal warnings

of the previous few months.
4. Discomfort phase: I made a special note of this aspect
of awareness for future reference with the case studies.
The initial reaction of ease and relaxation of the
Alexander Technique can be replaced by a feeling of dis
comfort or even dissatisfaction with oneself after about
ten lessons.
5. The teacher’s role in inhibition; the process of leav
ing my shoulders out of my singing action was greatly
helped by the teacher's constant repetition of weight
into your feet, shoulders back into your back, open
your throat, feet on the ground, shoulders releasing,
up in front, and so on. These are the directions that
one eventually is able to give oneself but the process
is considerably eased and speeded up with the help of
the Alexander teacher.
LESSON 13
We noticed that my shoulders were no longer obviously held

at different heights, as was shown in the photographs
taken two months earlier. We worked on letting the weight
fall into the sitting bones and then thinking a connection
up into the shoulders without rising up off the sitting
bones to do this. My directions were up in front and down
at the back combined with letting go tension in my knees.
My teacher asked me if I felt safer doing that because she
felt that my attempts were rather tentative. She then
asked me to spread my feet on the floor and open my throat.
She commented that as soon as I thought of opening my
throat my back filled out. I found this amazing.
My teacher said that the process of muscular change was

now happening very clearly between lessons as well as
during lessons. I had been doing some jogging and had
found that the upright position was more efficient. It
appeared that I had really got many body connections
going now and that it would not help me very much to
think about Alexander Technique while I was singing.
64
I must just let it happen. If I tried too hard I would

just interfere. She particularly asked me not to try
and struggle with the back area. I commented that I was
experiencing tingling in my feet quite a lot now and
registering emotions and sensations throughout my body as
a matter of course e.g. during a concert or when somebody
made me cross. We worked a bit on monkey. I was asked
to think towards my back, keep up in front and open the
chest. Again I pushed out in my back instead of sending
it down from my shoulder area into the lower back. I had
to allow length in my neck which I initially did by pushing
on the length until I was told to just allow it to happen.
I was asked to feel the length up and down my back and to
soften into this length.
My teacher then set up my balance for singing and I told

her that I felt rather far back on my heels. She said I
was actually a little bit forward on my feet and advised
me to feel the bones of the feet spreading on the floor.
She asked me to release into my knees. She said that the
muscle spasm in the middle of my back was due to undue
effort in the breathing muscles of the midriff and was not
allowing me to lengthen and widen in activity. I sang a
lullaby which was a little lacking in breath control.
Again I was asked to lengthen my back, open my chest,
open my throat and release between my shoulders. She
explained to me that I needed to open up so that there
was more space for widening. If I allowed myself to
fall down in my torso it meant that I had to use more
effort to widen and lengthen up. At this point my
teacher said that she was exhausted. It is very interest
ing to note that I felt much lighter after singing in this
way than I would normally have felt. I commented that if
I. could get that degree of relaxation with extra support,
then my breathing mechanism would probably become much
more efficient. At this stage the vocal control fell
about somewhat - at one moment the sound was too edgy
at another moment it lacked breath control, at another
moment the diaphragm did not co-ordinate its control with
the upper note. However I had a growing sensation of
progress in the field of releasing habitual tension.
65
N .B .
1. Undue effort causes shortening of the stature:

Alexander's principle of allowing the head to lead
forward and up is very difficult to keep in operation,
especially when the singer has had a habit of making
undue effort. This was my first realization that
undue effort was actually the cause of the shortening
of my stature and the holding on to residual muscle
tension in my back.
2. Connections: I-was beginning to be able to operate
connections from one part of my body to another.
LESSON 14
My teacher asked me to try and listen to her hands. She

said I was trying much too hard and she advised me to use
the lessons as relaxation and not as work at this stage.
She asked me to think into my back and release the weight
into my sitting bones. I felt acutely uncomfortable and
the discomfort extended right into my knees. She asked
me to let my arms hang at my sides, let my knees release
and not to do so much work. She said I was inclined to
stand too far forward. I commented that when I woke up
in the morning I felt completely out of balance and very
tired. We discussed the possible reasons for feeling
out of balance and it was clear that there was more to
it than just reaching new phases in the Alexander Technique.
I was contemplating starting lessons with a new singing
teacher and experiencing a great amount of anxiety about
this.
At this point I lay down on the table and experienced a

great deal of trembling in my legs - they seemed to have
no sense of direction. It occured to me that this was
just another sign of my fears of insecurity about my
singing lessons.
My teacher said that this was a very good lesson. We

finished by playing the piano and she was interested to
note that I displayed far less tension while playing the
66
piano than I did while singing.
N.B.
1. Fatigue; it is a well-known fact that intensive

Alexander lessons initially cause unusual fatigue.
I bore this in mind for the case studies that I was
planning.
2. Undue tension in main skill; I found it very instructive
that my piano playing showed less tension than my singing.
I have since discussed this issue with many Alexander
students who have developed one skill more than all the
others and it is commonplace that the main skill that
has taken many years to develop shows many more tension
patterns than other activities. If a performer has
decided to earn a living with this skill the causes of
such anxieties are obvious and it was my intention to
use the Alexander Technique as a way of minimising
such tension. It was helpful to know that I did not
use such great tension in a skill which I did not
consider vital to my ability to earn a living.
LESSON 15
My teacher said that my connections throughout my body were

a lot better in this lesson. I was having a little trouble
in believing that the chair was actually there for me to
sit on. This comment worked round to a conversation about
the performer's problem of being hamstrung by his concept
of the perfect performance. I was in the process of
examining my attitude towards my qualities as a singer and
my faults as a singer.
We did some singing in which there were signs of my jaw

being unusually tight. While I was singing my teacher asked
me to release my weight on to my feet which I did immediately.
I noticed that I succeeded in releasing this weight just
before a particular note in the song that had always been
unresonant - it was a D natural - and the success of
releasing weight into my feet seemed to give the D natural
a greater amount of resonance. We then worked on the back
of the neck. My teacher said there was a certain amount of
67
blocking there and to free it I had to drop my nose. I

explained that the old habit of trying to project sound
forward often caused me to drop my eyes to the floor and
let the whole face and neck follow the eyes. I had over
corrected in the neck now and was holding it a little too
stiff to prevent myself from operating this old habit.
My teacher asked me to concentrate then on the eyes rather
than trying to change the neck habits. It seemed
that there was less tension in my singing than before.
We then did some work on crawling. I was taught how to

go down on one knee and then down on my haunches and lean
the weight of my body on my hands so that I was on all
fours. Then I had to lengthen and widen my back, making
sure that the small of my back was not too high or too
low, lengthen the back of my neck, raise the collar bone
up towards the back, and think width in the throat. There
is a lot of skill involved in developing from a standing
position on all fours to a rocking position, to crawling
on all fours, and eventually crawling on all fours with
different patterns between knees and hands. There are
many physical skills involved and on this occasion I was
learning to lengthen and widen in what was, for an adult,
an unfamiliar activity.
N.B.
1. End-gaining: It was interesting how the basic concepts

of Alexander's teaching began to emerge in contexts
other than the purely physical. Although I had thought
about perfectionist attitudes, qualities and faults in
relation to my image of myself as a singer many times
before, I felt at this stage that my attention to the
physical means whereby I was using my body was beginning
to clarify my mental concepts. I did not know how my
attitudes and images compered with those of other
singers, but I felt that I had in the past used fixed
concepts of perfection to be unnecessarily self-critical
and in this way had on occasion hampered my potential
improvement. Examining this attitude with my Alexander
teacher was part of the process of changing both the
68
physical and the mental attitudes towards attaining an ’’end"

from a direct grasp into a reasoned process.
2. Release in action; Operating a release just prior to singing

a note that has been unsatisfactory wasa new idea for me. I
had read a description of the sensation in Alan Titus’s
article (page 6 ). but had not been able to operate the idea on
my own. However,with my Alexander teacher's help, I felt
the benefits in sound of letting the weight release into my
feet and striking fuller resonance as if by accident. I.
learned to develop this ability later on when training as
an Alexander teacher and my instant command of such release
became an integral part of my singing technique.
3. Simultaneous lengthening and widening: It was my first

experience of feeling both these sensations at the same time.
At first the student finds the lengthening easier and does
not notice or achieve the widening. I always found that
the simultaneous operation of both was easiest while
crawling.
LESSON 16
Between lessons 15 and 16 I had my first two singing lessons

with the vocal coach at the Nico Malan Opera House. I was now
in a position to make use of what I had learned in the literature
and practical Alexander lessons in my attempts to improve my
singing.
My Alexander teacher commented that I was now able to lengthen

through my whole being, which was most satisfactory. I enjoyed
the sensation because I had noticed that during the week without
an Alexander lesson I had found myself slumping into my pelvis
again.
She then asked me to widen in my throat. We discussed the

subject of throat tension, tickles and crackles and how to
imagine more space in this vital area because the subject had
69
also arisen in my singing lessons. My singing teacher had

pointed out that initial success in releasing throat tension
caused the muscles to try to hang on to-the tension of the
old habit and thereby caused an interruption in the release.
He said he had heard many great singers crack for this reason.
Fear of cracking can cause further tension and impede progress.
Again we discussed the problem of wanting immediate perfection
being an obstacle to actual improvement.
We then worked on feeling the top of my head lengthening into

my teacher’s hand and then settling my back into her other
hand where I had over-extended a little. I commented that
my singing teacher noticed that my upper torso dropped while
singing especially on downward intervals. It was nice to
know that I was working on a way to overcome this in time.
We looked again at what I was actually doing - tightening
generally in the front of my body, causing the upper torso
to drop and therefore under-using the back. It was clear
that this was an old fixed habit that was going to take some
length of time to undo.
My teacher also noticed that the muscles in my feet were

becoming softer - she said they had been hard and inflexible
when I first started. I had also noticed more and more that
they were tingling.
We did some more work on "whispered ah".
Both my teachers commented during this week that my response

to direction was most satisfactory and that I changed very
fast between lessons.
N.B.
1. Breathing: there was now double indication in my singing

and in my normal movement that my breathing was too
concentrated in the front. My singing teacher said that
my diaphragm was pushing for each staccato instead of
bouncing freely and my chest was pulling down.
70
2. Trembling in releasing muscles: In my singing lesson I had

been told that there was too much effort in my upper lip
and that I should have in mind as natural a mouthas I
could. This caused myupper lip to tremble while I sang
which I found rather embarrassing. But I linked it with
the idea of jerking muscles in the throat and letit
tremble - the next singing lesson my lip stayed ina
natural position without trembling.
3. Jaw tension: my singing teacher pointed out an unnatural
inward opening of the jaw •- he said it should fall open
without squashing the larynx. He said the effort in the
upper lip was causing tension at the collar bone. I then
'asked my Alexander teacher for a way of using the Technique
to solve this problem of throat, mouth and jaw tension. She
suggested that I should go down on all fours and imagine
my throat wider in the front (she thought that I sang
with a "flat- throat"); let the neck feel free; let the
head nod forward, not the neck; and hum. I did this when
I felt I was not overcoming tension problems and found
that it did the release for me.
LESSON 17
As soon as my Alexander teacher touched me she said "What

have you been doing?" She said my stcmach was very tight and
even vfcen my legs were stretched odt on the table, I only
released the tension a little. I explained that I had been
taught a very interesting system of thinking about my
vowel placing and had been working very hard on this.
Obviously, I had over-worked this aspect on my own and
lost what breathing balance I had achieved. I had gone back
to the old habits with the diaphragm and front tension.
My ability to lead movements with my head had improved.
N.B.
1• Over-riding strength of old habits: by now I had read

F.M. Alexander's experience with trying to overcome old
71
habits (pages 19 & 20), and I was not alarmed at what

was an apparent setback.
2. Monitoring muscle tension: the plan of interspersing
Alexander and singing lessons close in time was beginning
to work - my singing teacher explained that it was a
common problem that an interesting new facility learned
in a singing lesson often disappeared after three days'
practising because the student introduced some other
problem. On this occasion I had the Alexander teacher
pointing this out to me between singing lessons and I
was made aware early on in the process of what I was actually
doing.
3. Mind control; I made a note after this week that I was
finding placing the voice with only mental thought
much more successful. I had been taught to channel less
breath through my nose.
LESSON 18
The main focus of this Alexander lesson was to examine how

I was carrying out exercises I had been given for improving
the support from my lower abdomen. My singing teacher had
commented further on the habit I had of dropping the upper
chest on to the diaphragm even when I had started the singing
phrase reasonably well "up". He showed me how to maintain
minimal energy in the muscles of the lower abdomen right through
to the last note of a phrase.
I used the Alexander lesson to observe further what I was

actually doing when I practised this. After my previous
experience of reverting to old tension habits in my breathing,
my Alexander teacher was pleased to notice that I did not
stiffen my arms. She said that she would have expected me to
arch my back slightly while doing the exercise, but I told
her that I was aware of a tendency to do this and was able to
inhibit it this time. She did, however, notice that I was
locking my knees during the new exercise and she suggested
that I practised the lower abdominal support up to the point
before I felt I needed to brace my knees - this would prevent
developing a further fault that could create general tension.
72
My Alexander teacher noticed several other developments in

this lesson - my legs were freer, I was able to mentally '
direct release in my legs and neck and my neck was better
aligned to my body because I needed fewer books to rest
my head on the table.
I also noticed some changes in my functioning - I felt a

much better flow in my daily routine even when there were
unexpected difficulties to solve. At this point I was doing
regular scheduled practices in singing, a part-time secretarial
job, attending Alexander and singing lessons and had a sick
child. I was dealing with all these changes with a kind
of calm that was new to me.
I also made a note that my concentration had a new quality

to it. I was on the receiving end of a great deal of
advice and instruction at this stage and I notice that my
ability to carry out instruction immediately had increased
dramatically.
N.B.
1. Inhibition: I was now using my improved knowledge of my

functioning to inhibit■undue effort in my back and I later
succeeded in carrying out my Alexander teacher's warning
that I should inhibit the bracing of my legs and remember
to keep my arms free.
2. Concentration: the problem of making old mistakes while trying
new and unfamiliar techniques had always bothered me in
singing lessons. Now that I had read that this is a
universal problem in Alexander's book The Use of the
Self (see page 22), I was less distracted by the fear
surrounding the unfamiliar sensations. Hence my concentration
improved as I was freer of the fear of failure.
LESSON 19
It was evident that I had not increased my general body

tension although I had had a very stressful week. I was
beginning to realise that I was conscious of dealing with
73
difficulties by facing them and coping, rather than switching

off my perceptions and becoming tense instead.
I was regularly allowing my head to go forward and up for

sitting down and my legs were staying loose while sitting
down. For the first time my back was able to rest flat on
the table without the usual arch in the lumbar spine. This
showed that the lower back muscles had released.
N.5.
1. Open "ah"; in my singing lessons I was working on carrying

the vowelswith the breath, never letting the breath
"starve" the vowel, never letting the sound fall into the
throat. This became feasible because my abdominal support
was more consistent. I was becoming more acutely aware of
the difference between an open "ah" and a covered "ah" or
dark "ah" andfinding that the onlyway to maintain the
open "ah" wasthrough constant attention to my body use.
The lessons were tiring, but I made a note that at no
point did my vocal chords sound tired.
2. Lower back ribs: I became aware that the open "ah" demanded
the participation of my lower back ribs. (I remembered this
later when learning and teaching the "whispered ah"- flexible
ribs are essential when trying to sing an open "ah" - and
the "whispered ah" is a very helpful preliminary to this
experience.)
3. Releasing specific muscles: I was being advised, not
for the first time, that I should loosen the sides of
my neck and loosen the cheek muscles at the sides of the
lower jaw. The difference now was that I had experienced
my own direction of muscle release and I had confidence
that I could actually achieve small releases in my face
and neck.
74
LESSON 20
At this lesson I showed sigis of over-lengthening my neck. My

teacher said that I should not try to develop a flat, stringy,
neck, but think of the throat letting go in the back of the
neck. She then paid attention to my shoulders needing to
release and letting go in the ribcage. As this took effect
I felt an increasing sense of discomfort all the way down my
spine. She said this was a good thing because I was getting
in touch with the rigid tension in my middle back which would
help further release in my neck.
My lesson continued with a visiting teacher from The Construc

tive Teaching Centre in London who had taken singing lessons
herself and was a professional clarinettist. She advised me
to think of the back participating more in the breathing
and think of freedom of movement in the hips and legs. In
our discussion about breathing she said that breathing in
itself was not a goal, that I had my whole life to get it
"right"! I was then shown how to let my legs dangle on the
horse. This had the effect of allowing my back to open while
gravity helped my legs to free themselves from my pelvis.
N.B.
1. Inner tension: my singing teacher pointed out at this stage

that I was responding to instruction about my breathing
action in the muscles on the outside of my body, and not
getting in contact with the inner action in the core of my
breathing and energy. He described an inner point of energy
as the crossing point of two horizontal rods at the level of
my pelvis. I realised that this advice went considerably
deeper than just the physical action - if the physical
production of sound was not penetrating the core of my
energy, then the interpretation, emotional content and
sincerity of my performing did not stand much chance of
developing.
2. Conscious use of lower back: my back was obviously not
ready to participate flexibly in my breathing because my
singing teacher said I was not using the whole expansion
75
of my lower ribcage. The uncertainty and discomfort felt in

my sitting and standing was only the beginning of releasing
habitual tension in the lower back. The back continued to
rest flat on the table during Alexander lessons.
LESSON 21
My teacher had the impression that I was taking on some extra

tension in my lower back - it felt "as hard as a brick". We
worked on releasing the tension on the table and thinking of
that area of the back softening. When we returned to the
chair, attention was focussed on thinking of the back opening
and widening before thinking of the front coming up. I had
been pushing up in the front and taking the strain of this in
my back, instead of allowing release in my back to allow the
up direction in the front. Slowly I managed to think of the
whole spine releasing, space between the shoulder glades and
the sitting directions became up in front and down at the
back with my teacher’s help. This enabled me to feel the
weight releasing into my sitting bones.
N.B.
Learning "doing" and "releasing": it- was evident that my own

efforts to remedy my descending upper torso involved toe much
strain, and not enough release. Certainly I was not falling
into the old. habit of dropping in front, but my remedy was
accentuating another area of tension. I was not working as
a whole and there was the resulting conflict in my singing
and in my normal movements. My actual words in the conversation
at this point were - "I don’t think I have distinguished in
singing the difference between support with letting the breath
through and support from pushing the breath through. I still
sometimes push - the more anxious I get about the way I am
doing it and the effect I am having on the listener, the more
I push. I have to make that distinction for the good of my
body as well as my voice."
The preoccupation in my singing lesson during the current week
was keeping the breath moving, thus enabling the forward
76
pronunciation of the vowel, the activation of the resonators

and the prevention of unnecessary loss of breath in the nose.
LESSON 22
Predictably, we worked on the front/back split in my movements.

My teacher explained that the psoas muscle connecting the upper
leg to the lower back ribs had become very weak and that I could
work as much as I liked with the upper torso, but until this
connection strengthened, breathing as a whole would be a
continuing problem. She suggested that if I felt contact with
this muscle I would get much closer to that internal energy
my singing teacher was describing, because the psoas muscle
passed right through the pelvic girdle on the way to the ribs.
She also noticed that I was using tension in my legs to
compensate for lack of flexibility in my lower back.
Sc we worked on the horse again and I sang while thinking of

the connection between the upper legs and lower back. The aim
of working on the horse was to cure a tendency I had to lean
forward as I was thinking of keeping the vowels forward in my
mouth (after my previous singing lesson) and to prevent the
tightening of the gluteal muscles which cause the bottom to
tilt upwards and the muscles of the lower back to tighten.
N.B.
1. Tension-free legs: I had never been taught to tighten the

buttocks as part of my singing technique, but I was aware
that some singing teachers advocate this. It feels very
"unsafe" to let go tension in the legs and buttocks while
singing, but it makes a great deal of difference to moving
about the stage freely and to flexibility in the breathing
system.
LESSON 23
My back appeared to be widening and lengthening most successfully.

We worked on some pianissimo exercises and my teacher noticed
that I pinched my shoulder blades towards each other for piano
77
and high notes. She thought my middle range was free and
connected to my back but, as I went into the higher register
my body rose up with the pitch and lost its foundation in the
sitting bones. I tried jumping from a low note to a high note
and she said that my head "disconnected" from my body for the
jump. It seemed to me that this was a misconception of mine
from long before that arose when I was trying to get more
head resonance. We worked further on weight going down the
back and length up the front while singing.
I then did more work on the "monkey" position - this time I

was made aware of the value of lengthening and widening in all
the sections of the body in rotation so that the body never
became fixed.
I continued singing sitting in the chair and this time managed

to keep my weight in the sitting bones while reaching the head
voice range. The C sharp leading to the head tones had a
totally new quality of resonance.
We discussed at this stage the tension resulting in tanking up

with too much breath for the exercise or phrase. My teacher
pointed out that, if this resulted in stiffness in the neck,
it also resulted in cutting off a large percentage of the
sensory perceptions in the base of the skull. We therefore
lose the precise connections with the body mechanism, adapt
to a relatively gross posture and end up only responding
when this misuse starts causing us pain.
I related a recent experience in an audition when I deliberately

used my ability to connect my feet to the ground and lengthen
up to my head. The result was a much less nerve-wracking
audition experience. I also learnt an Italian aria in two
days for the same conductor and felt that I learned the words
much quicker than usual.
N.B.
1. Expansion procedures: after this lesson I practised singing
for over an hour and experienced a tightening of the sound
78
on the top B flat at the end of an aria; so I directed

width into my shoulders before striking the note and the
thinness of sound and sense of effort disappeared.
2. "Monkey": this concept of keeping the body releasing
in rotation was my first experience of total release.
I was to develop this into the idea of constantly keeping
breath support while singing in the "monkey" position.
3. Supporting down:this is a phrase used by many singing
teachers and it seemed to me that I was actually learning
to use the idea accurately by letting the weight drop
into my sitting bones throughout the full range of my
voice.
4. Breathing in: the discussion about tanking up with breath
reminded me of Lilli Lehmann's description of reorganising
her breath ccntrol after 25 years (page 35). Now I was
having explained to me some of the detrimental possibilities
of over-doing the in breath.
5. Nervous tension: my audition experience made me feel as
though I was learning to control my attitude to auditions.
(See page 53.)
LESSON 24
An interesting development at this lesson was the evidence of

releasing tension in my legs. While I was lying on the table
on my back, my teacher straightened out my right leg in the
usual way, returned it to the flexed position‘and then straightened
out my left leg. While she was working on my left leg, the right
leg started to tilt over to the side and I seemed to have no
control over the movement. She said I was watching it happen
as though the leg did not belong to me.
N.B.
1. Tension-free legs:this was a clear case of release of tension
occurring without the student "doing" anything. It happens
to many"students and some of them are a little alarmed when
they cannot prevent the legs from falling to the side. In
time the student learns how to direct the legs towards the
ceiling so that they do not fall.
79
LESSON 25
I worked further on opening the back and was advised to think

of the the corresponding area in the front. My teacher said
that I had a tendency to do too much, rather than let things
happen.
We discussed the various opinions I had been given about the

type of voice I had and which roles I should consider studying.
My teacher commented that, if my singing was the same as my
Alexander work, I probably needed to let the voice flow more
and then decide what sounds were resulting from the letting
go. She said I was following instructions which was fine
up to a certain point , but then I should let it flow if I
wanted to experience the real thing. If I allowed the sound
out the right .decisions would emerge about the roles to play.
N.B.
1. My singing lesson continued to work with mouth position,
gentle attacks on the phrase, vowels and thinking a
connection with moving the breath from the lower abdomen
right past the back of the tongue.
LESSON 26
This Alexander lesson was directly after the last singing

lesson and I was still carrying out the ideas worked on in
the singing lesson. The was a greater sense of ease in the
sound; my back was freer; the pianissimo singing was working;
the front/back split in my action was far less noticeable.
LESSON 27
At this lesson I did some singing on the horse again. I made

a note that I was distinguishing between an open "ah" and a
darker covered "ah" quite regularly now. I did five note
exercises up to top C and then repeated the exercises while
my teacher helped me release tension in my leg during the
80
singing. She must have noticed tension in my right leg at E

natural on the way up the scale because she held my leg loosely
when the exercise approached the E natural. I was conscious
of wanting to pull on the right leg, and when I found I was
unable to do so, my tongue shot forward and the note flew
out of my head like a bomb! It took us both by surprise.
She also noticed that for about half the siigii^ time I was
holding my ribs in a fixed position. I explained that I
had been taught to do this many years ago and that I tended
to return to the habit when I was experiencing something
new in singing. I was finding that holding them out was
preventing the successful application of lower abdominal
support. My teacher suggested that the ribs have to inflate
and then deflate if the breath is to keep moving.
I noted at this lesson that I had the feeling that the old
habits were not going to return as easily any more. My
shoulders also felt less tense and seemed wider.
N .B .
1. In my singing lesson we continued to work on moving the

breath over the tongue without pushing or blowing. I
realised that when I was stopping the breath and moving
away fran my support, I was actually fixing the ribs and
starving the sound for a split second.
2. I found it very puzzling that my tongue should finally
ITO'ft off the back of my mouth and let the sound out after
my leg had been released. I have since found that the
top notes are much freer in all my students if they can
persuade themselves to keep loose in the legs while
approaching high notes. Further experience convinced me
that tight leg meant tight abdomen, which meant tight
ribs, which meant stopping airflow, which mean tighter
throat muscles, which meant less head resonance, which
meant more effort for projection. This assistance with
moving the tcngue off the back of the mouth was one of
the most exciting examples of how the Alexander lessons
81
were providing me with more ways of carrying out my

intentions while singing.
LESSON 28
We were still covering the standing, sitting and lying on the

table in all the Alexander lessons at this stage. I had
reached the stage where the specific experiences during the
lessons were filling in a general picture of the role Alexander
Technique could play for singers who were prepared to examine
their technique thoroughly. It is undoubtedly very difficult
to fceach the subtle details of breathing and this is made much
more difficult if the singer has ingrained habits that impede
his ability to carry out these subtleties. There are those
singers who have enough mind/body connection to carry out
detailed advice, but other singers, with perfectly good
vocal instruments, have lost a certain degree of mind/body
connection that makes detailed instructions more difficult
to carry out. Alexander Technique can help to bridge this
gap in the singer's mind/body coordination, giving him a
tool that even the so-called "natural" singer does not have
under pressure. He develops a conscious awareness enabling
him to think the action through, rather than "getting it" or
"not getting it" .
We worked on letting go tension in the lower abdomen and

saw how it enabled widening and releasing in the sacral
area of the lower back. Sensitivity in this connection
was becoming important in my thinking for breath support
and I was keen to explore the results of releasing tension
before expecting some support from the same set of muscles.
N.B.
1. Thinking as a whole: this discussion about the general
application of Alexander Technique to singing was important
at this stage, because I was already falling into the trap
of becoming too involved in carrying out specific instructions
(See Lesson 25, page 79). I made a note of this for future
practising and teaching and determined to remember to
82
return to the whole in each lesson.

2. Releasing before acting: my.singing teacher was asking for
more activity from my lower abdomen; my Alexander teacher
said I would be more successful if I released the muscle
spasm in my lower back; I fell into tension habits when
I tried to sort this out on my own; here , perhaps, was
the solution to developing flexible action in a muscle
group that was already tense with spasm - RELEASE THE
CONNECTION BEFORE YOU TRY TO USE THE MUSCLES.
LESSON 29
We worked on the horse, table and chair. My teacher watched

me singing again and said I was still rising in my body at
the end of a phrase. The other habit she noticed was
gradually poking my head forward as I went along. She
suggested that I think of a connection between my forehead
and my lumbar spine so that I did not overdo the stretching
up of my head.
We discussed how best to observe such habits when practising

alone and she suggested profile mirrors.
N.B.
1. Cross-connections: using the connection between my forehead
(the forward and up of Alexander's description) and my
lumbar spine was a- very successful way of preventing over
stretch and keeping the muscles of the lumbar spine in
activity. I developed this idea of cross-connections for
several of my pupils who had over-stretch or over-collapse
habits.
2. Mirrors: three mirrors set in the corner of the room enable
the singer to be his own observer. The singer has all his
senses available to monitor his sound and action, but often
sees only his front action in a mirror. I later developed
a system of placing a student with mirrors on both sides
and at the back so that I could see his action all round
while listening to his sound. I used this for observing
my own back action as well.
83
LESSON 30
My teacher noticed, not for the first time, that my back was
still losing its connections from the way I was working on my
breathing. It did not take long to connect it up again, and
I was relieved that this was'so. I was trying rather too hard
to maintain erect posture and this was a strain while the
muscles of the lumbar spine were still weakened with spasm. The
visible lump in the right lumbar area had flattened out somewhat
but it was necessary to reduce it more because it was inevitably
interfering with the flexibility of the ribs. I achieved a
better lengthening between the sitting bones and the neck. My
breathing habits were still shortening this area and I still
needed my Alexander teacher to help me experience the lengthening
required.
The release in my upper thigh and gluteal muscles was very good.
We also noticed that my response to the teacher's hand directions

was becoming more and more immediate. The same was happening in
my singing lessons. My singing teacher also used gentle touch
to indicate where he wanted release or placing of sound, like
the neck or the upper chest. My response was immediate. Then
he would stand at the other side of the room and merely say
the words "neck" or "chest" and the response would be immediate.
We worked on crawling again and this helped with length between

top of head and base of spine.
N.B.
1. Sense of process: it was becoming clear to me that the
process of undoing interfering habits started with awareness,
teacher-directed releases, constant repetition reinforced
with moments of success and realisation and only then could
the process culminate in personal direction of release and
action.
2. Spontaneity: the question is often asked if all this conscious
direction does not destroy spontaneous reactions. The experience
in my singing lessons indicated that the contrary was possible -
my response to suggestion was immediate and spontaneous.
84
Certainly one passes through a self-conscious and fixed

stage when the new awareness has not been translated into
release; but when this passes, the body is freer to
respond to stimulus.
These thirty lessons formed the basis for my concepts for

applying Alexander Technique .to singing. Later I took photos of my
postural condition (Figures 3 - 9 ) ; I went on a three week
recital tour; and I joined the Alexander Technique training
course in Cape Town.
All the observations and conclusions noted after my Alexander

lessons were the beginnings of vital concepts that helped me
with my performing and teaching of singiflg. I was privileged
to have lessons with and observe the teaching of three
experienced Alexander and Voice teachers m London and New
York. They helped me develop these concepts into practical
applications and by the end of the next two' years I had a
thorough understanding of when and where I' was using tension
while singing and how to sing without undue tension when
circumstances permitted.
86
Table 2.|
Measurement 9th December 1983 11th August 1984 Change
Weight 60.2 kg. 58.9 kg. 1.3 kg- less

Height 168.0 cm. 168.5 cm. 0.5 cm. more
Neck circumference 31.0 cm. 31.5 cm. 0.5 cm. more
Shoulder width (back) 38.0 cm. 37.0 cm. 1.0 cm. less
Ribs exhaled 80.0 cm. 74.0 cm. 6.0 cm. less
Ribs inhaled 88.0 cm. 83.0 cm. 5.0 cm. less
(actual expansion) 8.0 cm. 9.0 cm. 1.0 cm. more
Chest normal 98.0 cm. 99.0 cm. 1.0 cm. more
Waist above umbilicus 78.5 cm. 75.0 cm. 3.5 cm. less
Arm stretch left 211.5 cm. 212.5 cm. 1.0 cm. more
Arm stretch right 213.0 cm. 214.5 cm. 1.5 cm. more
(left/right difference)1.5 cm. 2.0 cm. 0.5 cm. more
Left leg lying down 86.0 cm. 84.0 cm. . 2.0 cm. less
Right leg lying down 86.00 cm. 84.0 cm. 2.0 cm. less
These measurenents were taken 37 weeks apart after 47 Alexander Technique lessons. They
were taken by my family doctor who checked them carefully after each msasurarent,
especially those that had changed significantly. There was same change in each
measurement but seme'are more significant than others in terns of my current muscle use
and the changes I wished to make in my singing. ____________________
MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS
Weight: 1.3 kgs is not a significant weight loss over 37 weeks.
Height: 0.5 cm. is not remarkable except that it is an increase and not
a loss.
Neck: an examination of the visual outlines seems to indicate that
my neck has lengthened. The measurement indicates that the
neck has also widened. This is a satisfactory result for
the Alexander Technique re-education because I was taught to
lengthen and widen in all parts of my torso. From a singing
technique point of view, it opens up the possibility that ray
whole neck externally and internally has widened which implies
that I might have conscious control over the opening of my threat.
Shoulder:as this measurement was taken only at the back of the shoulder,
it shows only that there was a slight narrowing. This can be
explained by the releasing of tension in the front of the
upper chest which was causing the shoulders to curl round in
front. This change can be seen visually in the progression
from figures 7, 8 and 9- It has profound implications for
87
Figure 8. Figure 9.|

["Figure 7
5th December 1983 15th July 1984 8th March 1985
88
ray intention to overcome the dropping of the sternum and

to learn conscious control of the upper chest. This is
evidence of the beginnings of changing the kyphosis or
round-shouldered tendency of the upper torso in normal
standing. If I could apply this while singing, it pointed
the way to solving the problem of dropping the sternum
while breathing out.
Ribs: there is no doubt about the profound change in the girth
of my ribcage. Both the measurements and the visual out
lines indicate an elongation of the midriff out of the
pelvic girdle and a significant reduction of the lump
of muscle spasm in the lower back ribcage. This implies
greater freedom for normal activities; but for singing
it has very exciting possibilities. The absence of a
downward pull in the torso leaves space for greater
elasticity of the intercostal muscles which is essential
for all good breath support. The reduction of muscle
spasm implies far greater potential for conscious parti
cipation of the lower back in the support mechanism. The
reduction of any spasm of this obvious nature provides
relief of tension throughout the body. It is important
to note that, although I lost actual girth, I actually
gained one cm. in expansion flexibility.
Chest: the opening out of the front of the chest accounts for
this small increase in chest measurement.
Waist: 3.5 cm. is a significant loss of girth round the waist.
It indicates that the lengthening of the midriff extends
deep into the abdominal area.
Arms: an increase in the arms' ability to stretch indicates that
there has been some lengthening in the arms and in the
muscles in the shoulder-blade area. The right arm has
released more than the left, probably due to the loss of
spasm in the right lower back rib area. The twist from
the scoliosis affects the upper left shoulder, and,
although this is improved there is still evidence that
the left arm is affected by the muscle spasm here. However,
there is evidence of one cm. of release in the left arm,
which opened up the possibility of overcoming the tendency
to raise my left shoulder while approaching difficult
passages in singing.
89
Legs: this measurement taken from the superior iliac crest on

the pelvis to the medial malleolus (inner ankle) is an
indication of the normal angle of the pelvis to the leg.
An alteration of 2 cm. indicates that the lifting of the
extra weight of the torso from the pelvic girdle has
enabled it to becomes freer of the tension in the lower
back and .allowed the slight forward thrust of the pelvis
to release, thereby causing a downward drop of the front
of the pelvis. All this helps create freedom in the back
of the legs and front of the ankles. Singers often tighten
their legs with effort and it is encouraging to realise that
this residual tension in the legs can be released. Freedom
of movement in the legs is very helpful with stage performances
and the development of conscious control of tension in the
legs helps to keep free in the whole body during difficult
passages of singing.
Change of Balance
Figure 10 is made up of the outline from the photograph taken on

5th December 1983 superimposed on the outline of 15th July 1984.
The paler figure shows the way I used to retain my balance with
the weight resting too heavily on the front of the feet and the
head held too far forward on the body. The darker figure is the
more vertical stance which results from learning to distribute
weight more evenly across the feet between the heels and the outside
of the balls of the feet; this enables release in the knees; then
the backs of the thighs can release and the crease in the back
leg/hip joint becomes less pronounced; tension releases in the
lower back; more space is made for the organs of the abdomen and
the abdomen wall becomes flatter; the midriff lengthens.; the chest
expands and lengthens ; the throat lifts off the clavicle; the shoulders
widen; the neck lengthens and the protruberance at the seventh
cervical vertebra smoothes out; the cervical vertebrae lengthen into
the skull; the slight double chin disappears; the jaw loosens; the
height increases. The outline in Figure 9 shows that this above
process continued between 15th July 1984 and 8th March 1985.
90
[Figure iF
Outline of photo
taken 5th Dec. 1983
Outline of photo
taken 15th July 1984
91
Physical Profile
The details of these physical changes can be compared with the
physical profile on pages 32 and 34.
Head; in all the outlines it is evident that the head is held further
back in relation to the torso and nearer the centre of balance.
Neck; figs. 3 - 6 all show that the shortened neck muscles have
lengthened and that the slight tendency to develop a "dowager's
hump" has disappeared.
Jaw; the slight double chin has disappeared and the jaw has lost
most of its habitual tension.
Chest; the obvious shortening of the vertical muscles in front
of the torso has released. Upper torso is not habitually pulled
down while sitting and standing. Fig. 9 shows that this process
continued.
Shoulders; the thoracic curve has lengthened ; the curling forward
of the upper arm in front has become less noticeable between figs.
3 and 4; the upper chest has opened out between figs 7,8, and 9.
The shoulders were also level at this stage.
Spine; the lengthening of the lumbar spine and the resultant re
duction of the muscles spasm can be seen clearly in the progression
from figs. 7 - 9 , and there is hardly any evidence of shortened
muscles in the middle back.
.Torso; the whole midriff is longer and seems thinner. Since
muscles are constructed in spirals, the extra length also implies
an undoing of the twist (scoliosis) in the torso.
Arms; fig. 6 shows arms hanging more freely from shoulder.
Pelvis; a comparison of figs 7 - 9 indicates that the pelvis
is tilted slightly further down in front, thus allowing a better
lumbar curve.
Knees; less braced backwards in figs 8 and 9 than in fig. 7. This
means less shortening of the muscles in the upper thigh under the
gluteal muscles.
Weight: no longer tilted forward as in fig. 7, but centred above
the ankles,as in figs 8 and 9.
Breathing Profile
The details of the breathing changes can be compared with the profile
on page 35. During the two years of the project, the flexibility of
my rib muscles returned. In the first 6 months the actual expansion
increased by 1 cm. (Table 2, page 86) and by the end of two years
92
the increase was 3 cm.

Chest; I no longer allowed th chest to drop while singing and was
able to maintain an open chest while singing.
Diaphragm: all residual tension in the epigastrium disappeared and
the diaphragm remained flexible while singing, instead of tightly
under control.
Lower Back; after a period of allowing the lumbar spine to curve
inwards while singing, at the end of two years I was able to
maintain the pelvis balanced on top of the legs, while using
the inward flexing of the lower ribs right through to the last
quantity of air in the lungs.
Lower Abdomen: became much more active in the balance of. the support.
After a period of developing both outward and inward flexibility of
the muscles, by the end of two years, the abdomen was able to
coordinate energy with the lower back ribs to support the phrasing.
Focus; while practising or rehearsing, I learned to focus on
the muscles that seemed lethargic at the start. I very seldom
found it necessary to focus attention on the epigastrium. In
performance, with the added energy from the adrenalin, I regularly
experienced the total cooperation of my breath support system
with my musical intentions, without having to focus on breathing at all.
Intake:still occasionally audible, but it became possible to take in
breath without sound or effort.
Sound Profile
The shedding of the "covered ah" sound was vital to freeing the
natural sound of my voice and I needed a great deal of encouragement
from my singing teacher to achieve this. I found that the so-called
manufactured "ah" was so prevalent that the ear becomes dull'ed to its
presence. All the Alexander/Voice teachers insisted on the ability
to sing an open "ah". I also had the remarkable experience of
observing a singing lesson of a mezzo soprano who was training to
teach Alexander Technique and had been trying to open her "ah" vowel
for years. On this occasion, she actually sang an open "ah" and the
relief was so great, she burst into tears! It is a very necessary
sound both technically and psychologically.
I retained the lyric repertoire that I had been working on before the
project started and I added much more ease to the coloratura arias
93
The Russian Nightingale (Alabieff), The Doll's Song from Tales of

Hoffmann and Le Filles de Cadix (Delibes).
Middle register: retained its warmth of tone, developed further-

flexibility (for trills and ornaments ) and seldom darkened
in tone.
Upper register; lapses to habitual covered tone on E natural
were rare. E natural to A natural a very easy range for my
voice. B flat and B natural still powerfuland the pianissimo
was developing. Top C much more consistent. On occasions
my voice was open enough to reach G sharp inalt, but I still
used only E flat in performance.
Chest register: I overcame difficulties with low A in
performances and I used the mixed register tone down to low
G.
Vowels: in the two years I finally learned to control vowel
shape with my mind only and not with effortful muscle shapes
in the mouth and face.
Consonants: reverberated more in the body resonance, but still
needed attention.
Legato: I learned how to avoid stopping the breath by trusting
the flexibility of the ribs.
Balance Control: I learned how to channel breath through the
mouth while still thinking sound into various resonant placings.
94
I could rehearse for over two hours without becoming tired. If
I worked too long, my legs became tired, but never my voice.
I suffered muscle spasms in my left shoulder blade area and

lumbar spine area during the two years. Previously, I would
have "frozen" activity in the painful area, but on both
occasions I was encouraged to direct release and allow
activity in the spasm. The shoulder tension still reflects
my general tension patterns; but my lumbar spine muscles
finally learned to participate in all breathing activities
and developed the strength to maintain the correct lumbar
curve from getting up in the morning till late at night.
There was no further aching in my right back hip or the right
leg/hip joint. My heels were never numb.
General comments from observers were very encouraging • Many

thought I had lost weight; some said my performances were very
relaxed; other singers said that my breathing seemed effortless;
someone even asked hew my thumbs remained so relaxed; a producer
said he had never seen a singer with such free arms. I certainly
used directions in performances and auditions that prevented
undue tension in my breathing system and thus removed some of
the worst symptoms of nervousness. The power of these directions
was extremely useful when I was singing the "Pie Jesu" from
Faure's Requiem with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra - I directed
myself from a state of extremely self-conscious nervousness to
the calm of self-awareness by allowing weight into my feet and
energy to flow from my toes to the base of my skull'as I stood up
to sing.
95
Assessment of Results
I took these results and photographs to another general practitioner,

an ergonomist, a kinesiologist and a physiotherapist to ask advice
about more accurate ways of measuring body changes over a long period
of time before I embarked on the five case studies. It was then that
I realised that even a change of 6 cm. in the rib cage was very difficult
to perceive from a photograph and only trained Alexander Technique
$
teachers were able to tell where a muscle had released and realise the
significance of such changes in the general body tension. This was why
I reduced the photographs to simple outlines. It was the physiotherapist
who helped me to find the relevant- points of the skeleton to use for
measuring change and how to measure as accurately as possible. Thus
we improved on the basic measurements of the pilot project. We
included all the measurements that had been used for myself and
added more detailed ones for the spine and shoulders - occipital protruberance/
seventh cervical (the pointed bump at the back of the skull to lowest
vertebra of the neck); sitting height; shoulder width back and front;
interscapula distance (between the points of the shoulder blades);
chest inhaled, exhaled and normal. We used a stiff metal tape measure
for the spinal measurements, height and legs and a cloth tape measure
for the other distances. We used the same weighing scale before and
after the course of lessons. Each student lay down on the floor
for five minutes before being measured and the time of day was similar.
The measurements were taken before and after thirty lessons in the
case of each student. The demands of their courses and their work
meant that it took some of them longer to complete thirty lessons,
but they all took between k\ and 7 months to finish the course.
It must be clear that this project does not set out to prove that
the Alexander Technique succeeds in changing body use - that has been
written about in great detail by Frank Pierce Jones and Dr Wilfred
Barlow; many individual accounts have been written to describe the
success of the Technique; television documentaries have been produced
to explain and demonstrate how the Technique changes body use. The
measurements are therefore merely an indication that habitual tensions
in singers' daily and performing body use can be released and that
conscious control can be put to increasingly successful use in the
acquisiton of singing technique. Small changes of less than 2 cm.
over a period of 4-7 months can be caused by many other factors like
time of day, weight change, even mood. But changes greater than that
can be regarded as evidence that the muscle use has altered.
96
V CASE STUDIES
Case A
Case A was a mezzo-soprano who had been taking singing lessons

combined with an academic career in sociology for about six years.
She had had lessons with three different teachers in recent years
and, although she was improving in some respects, she was aware
of recurring vocal faults that she was not overcoming. Her career
made regular practising difficult and the long drive from Cape
Town to the University made her singing lessons more difficult to
maintain while she was busy. So she started vocal lessons with
me and agreed to become a case study on the Alexander Technique
project.
Physical Profile (Refer to Figures 11 and 13 for physical outlines.)
Head: habitually held too far forward in relation to the torso.

Neck: stretched forward with tension in muscles at the back of the
neck. Visible tension in front of neck.
Jaw: not particularly tense - opened wide while singing.
Chest: collapsed in front, sternum pulled down.
Shoulders: shoulder blades poking out ("angel wings"); also
pulled towards each other, narrowing the back.
Spine: exaggerated lumbar curve i.e. lordosis.
Torso: thrust slightly forward in front because of lordotic curve.
Pelvis: dropped downwards at the back.
Knees: braced back.
Feet: Rotate inwards, left foot worse, arches collapsed.
Breathing Profile:
Intake and expiration largely active only in upper half of her

body. Sternum dropped while singing. Preceded singing with
a slight spasmodic jerking of the front of the abdomen and the
epigastrium. Shoulders tended to rise up and over.' Abdomen weak
in muscle tone and inactive while singing. Back narrowed while
singing. Support/sound connection inconsistent resulting in a
flutter in the voice. Legs stiffened while singing. Felt she
had no control over her breathing muscles. Where this lack
of control was most keenly felt in the upper register, she
retracted the corners of her mouth excessively.
97
Sound Profile
Although she was training as a mezzo-soprano, she tended to

learn repertoire in the contralto range. The voice was of
potentially large dimensions but had a flutter throughout the
range due to inadequate breath control. She had trouble projecting
sound because the placing was tqo far back in the throat. Focus
sing sound was very difficult for her. She found it very hard to
understand head resonance. Her best range was from B flat below
middle C to B flat above middle C. There was a strained sound
from B flat above middle C and, after practising up to E natural
she complained of a sore throat. The voice would go as high as
G and A, but she was most uncomfortable there.
Incidentally, Case A is a very good sight-reader, pianist and

organist and has a strong drive to express music with her voice.
Hence her determination to continue singing lessons although
she has a demanding career.
This strong drive I have learned to obey in my own singing and

I have also learned to recognise it in potential students as an
essential ingredient to progress. When a student seems to have
insuperable vocal difficulties, it is tempting to let him and me
both off the hook by offering advice to give up. But when I have
persisted, I have never regretted it. I found that I was not alone
in this attitude when I found a fascinating article by Esther
Salaman in Opera magazine in which she described her long and
circuituous route through eight singing teachers, vocal instability
and agonising nervousness towards gn awareness that enabled her
to focus sound. She states very clearly:
"My persistence was an impelling drive, which I now understand

and greatly respect as I meet it in many youngsters needing to
express emotion through the voice wherever it may lead."
Case A suffered from fatigue and pain in the lower back from time
to time. She had a spastic colon, but was otherwise healthy and fit
I.E. SalaiBn, "Cerca la qualita e la quantita verra", OPERA, July 1983, p. 729
98
We started singing lessons in July 1984 and she began her Alexander
Technique lessons in March 1985; so I was able to teach her with
and without the help of Alexander Technique. Case A is a most
rewarding student and ideal for detailed study because she is
familiar with the demands of research; she is aware of the value
of creative feedback; she is prepared to examine her shortcomings
as well as her progress; she had an awareness of her muscle
direction that was sufficient for her to tell whether she was
succeeding in carrying out new directions or not; her desire to
understand her voice was much stronger than her desire to
impress others with her singing ability.
We started with her breathing -
Lower abdomen; all h e r .previous attempts to bring her lower

abdominal muscles into her breathing action had only achieved
a slight spasm which was not helping her support at all. She
had very little control over the muscles between the sitting bones
sc we started work on flexing the "pelvic muscles". After a week
of doirg this she complained of lower back pain, so we assumed
that she was tightening her back to achieve the flexibility in
the front. We then tried the lower abdomen/lower back/ front
rib muscles connection while lying on her back and she found
this easier. The standing habits of tensing the lower back
muscles were too strong for her to develop her strength in the
lower abdomen at this stage. At this point we were able to
discuss the tension in the lower back as an INTERFERENCE which
was preventing the progress of muscle tone in the abdomen.
Mouth position: the pulling back of the corners of the mouth

was the result of poor breath control and was taught to her as
a way of overcoming the tendency to darken her voice. What was
actually happening was that the mouth was retracting so
vigorously that the back of the neck was tightening and preventing
any access to head resonance. The lack of breath control was
also tightening her throat and causing the soreness after practice
sessions above B flat. What was disturbing was that this habit
was very strong and irresistable. Many singers allow their lips
to retract for top notes and try not to allow it to happen
wherever possible. But their habit is not as strong as Case A's.
99
Here was a perfect example of the irresistability of the LEARNED

HABIT - exactly bearing out Alexander's experience with "taking
hold of the floor with his feet". Singers who have battled for
many years with poor breath control often develop exaggerated
mouth positions, stiff tongues and tight jaws as replacements for
control in the real breathing areas of the body.
So, with Case A, we repeatedly linked up each new direction of

breath control with further loosening up of the lips, so that
she made this connection herself - more true breath control= less
mouth tension. There was some improvement.
Sitting bone muscles: we made a start on developing some control

in these muscles by using a two-note "ah" exercise with weight on
the stool. As she had done no Alexander Technique, it was
difficult for her to appreciate the value of releasing weight
into the sitting bones and she had very little awareness of
detailed muscle control. But we persevered and combined it with
trying to open the throat into a brighter "ah" vowel. She
understood the feeling of naturally moving air through the throat
but did not manage to move that air easily herself with the
muscles of the abdomen. Her "ah" vowel was so far back in her
throat that she had to begin to readjust her inner hearing
completely in her work towards a brighter, more focussed "ah".
It all sounded breathy to her.
Head/neck/torso alignment: Case A's forward head position was

the major interference in her technique. Every attempt at
"placing" the voice ended up with pulling the head slightly MORE
forward-on the torse and tightening the passage through the
pharynx even further than it was already. It was no wonder that
she had not been able to understand how to maintain head resonance.
The only way that she could achieve it at this stage was when I
physically held her head. Without this manual guidance she had
no control over her head position from B flat upwards.
These then were the main features of our singing lessons. After
a few months she sang to the project tutor who pronounced a great
improvement.
100
Case A then started on her Alexander Technique lessons. She

made notes on the lessons whenever she could and summarised
them as follows.
1st March
After her first lesson she learned to relax more during the
lessons. Her body began to sense the improved use especially
the head and neck. She realised exactly where the tension
points were in the shoulder blades and the back of the neck.
Moving a muscle was not a matter of a tense jerk, but a
released lengthening of the muscle. There was a remarkable
difference in the feel of the arm that has been lengthened
and the one that still has to be worked on. She enjoyed
working for a sense of length in the back, from the seat
to the top of the head and from the lower front to the front
of the neck.
N.B.
In her singing lesson at this point we worked on allowing the
lower abdominal muscles to release outwards; smiling at the
back of the throat; lengthening in the back to sing; opening
the throat at the back of the neck. We were working in this
way because she needed to release the shortening of the muscles
at the back of her neck (See figures 11 - 14 ).
6th March
Her abdominal muscles seemed to be able to extend. She
felt relaxed after the lesson. Her back felt more "correct".
She was able to drop her pelvis before sitting down. Her
neck released at the base and between the shoulder blades.
8th March
All the sitting, standing and lying movements seemed right and
natural at this lesson.
N.B.
At her singing lesson the following day we worked on opening
her "ah" vowel so that it was not so dark and covered. We
noticed that her diaphragm had the habit of pulling inwards
101
just before she started to sing. The following week she

reported on a long singing practice that had left her throat
tired and sore. So, at her next lesson we concentrated
on expansion procedures like making sure the weight was
evenly distributed across the feet; sitting on the stool
with weight in the sitting bones and allowing the muscles
to release between the sitting bones; concentrating on
supporting a small "f" sound with energy in the lower abdomen
before starting to sing; thinking about the tongue
forward off the back of the throat; releasing the muscles of
the lower abdomen at the same time as letting the tongue roll
forward; working on releasing the corners of the mouth forwards
to counter-act the pull back for higher notes.
We worked out a routine for setting up her body for practising

so that she could use this instead of practising with habitual
tensions:
release in back and neck
release ankles and take up "monkey" position
let jaw hang down, slightly forward
open palms to help open chest
make "ha" and "ya" sounds using the energy from the lower abdomen
Return to this routine when feeling tight after singing and

between exercises.
24th April
On this occasion I asked an Alexander teacher to be present
to help Case A with experiencing the releases she was wanting.
She started with a conventional Alexander lesson on the chair
and table and we continued with breathing releases on the
table. The teacher taught her the "whispered ah" which
entailed releasing the air out letting the back of the ribs
fall right inwards, allowing them to spring back for the in
breath, smiling at the back of the mouth androundthe eyes,
letting breath out on "A..a..ah". She was thenasked to do
the same thing while singing "ah".
102
20th July
At this point, all the singers and teachers involved in the
project met to discuss ideas and explore further possibilities.
Case A made the following notes:
"Cpen "ah" leads to an open throat
Released body posture leads to released sound
Relaxed mouth position leads to open throat
Resonance only possible if sound reaches hard palate
Tongue should be relaxed between bottom teeth
Relaxed mouth feels as though lower lip is pouting forward slightly
Lower abdominal muscles should not reach their limit of energy
before the end of a phrase
Back must be flexible in breathing
High notes - think of ribs feeding IN when experimenting with the
1u p ' for head voice."
10th October
Case A was always in favour of her singing lesson starting with
some Alexander Technique. She felt that her singing worked
much better when she had rid herself as far as possible
of the tensions of work etc. She felt that she released
particularly well on the table.
She sang short two and three note exercises with the Alexander
teacher helping her connect her energy from the base of the
spine through the top of the head, paying special attention
to the hard palate. This was done while sitting on a high
stool, then in the "monkey" position and then standing up,
keeping the idea of sitting bones pointing to the floor.
This prevented her from bending her head forward to try
and find the resonance of the hard palate. (She needed this
hard palate concentration for a while, because she had the
habit of holding her voice in the throat, thus keeping it
"woolly" in sound and unresonant). All the time she was
reminded of thinking forward and up. When we worked on the
breathing we suggested to her that she started with an idea
of width (the Alexander teacher's hands helped with this) -
in the lower back, "air cavities*behind the neck, space
round the hinges of the jaw.
103
After five lesson with both myself and the Alexander teacher helping
Case A attended approximately two Alexander lessons for every singing
lesson. She began to use her improving body knowledge to good effect
in her singing and her sore throats after her practice sessions
became less frequent. Her range became far less strained in the
higher register for C natural up to top B natural. She abandoned
most of her contralto repertoire and even asked to try the soprano
aria "Piangero la sorte mia" from Julius Caesar by Handel. She
managed this without strain on the top A naturals. The flutter
only reappeared in her voice when she was not concentrating and
she knew exactly how. to command her breath so as to prevent the
flutter. Her mouth position was far more relaxed.
As can be seen in her outlines at figs. 11 - 14 and the measurements

on Table 3, the shortened muscles in her lower back released
considerably and must have played a major role in the improved
command of her back.
The experience of teaching Case A initially without the help of

Alexander lessons was most instructive. Her conceptions became
clearer and her kinesthetic awareness definitely increased.
I verified this with further students during the two years of
the study with Case A and I developed a far greater sense of
instinctive communication with the students who were improving
their body use generally than with those whose body knowledge
was relatively static.
104
Table 3 - CASE A
Measurement 9th March 1985 27th July 1985 Change
Weight 58.0 kg. 60.0 kg. 2.0 kg. more

Height • 168.0 cm. 167.5 cm. 0.8 cm. less
Occipital Protruberance/ 12.5 cm. 11.4 cm. 1.1 cm. less
7th Cervical Vertebra
Sitting Height 79-5 cm. 88.3 cm. 8.8 cm. more
Neck Circumference 32.0 cm. 33.3 cm. 1.3 cm. more
Shoulder Width Back 42.2 cm. 41.0 cm. 1.2 cm. less
Shoulder Width Front 41.3 cm. 39-6 cm. 1.7 cm. less
Interscapulae Distance 8.7 cm. 10.8 cm. 2.1 r
V*Mmi•more
Ribs Exhaled 69.7 cm. 72.8 cm. 3.1 cm. more
Ribs Inhaled 75.0 cm. 78.5 cm. 3.5 cm. more
(actual expansion) 5.3 cm. 5.7 cm. 0.4 cm. .more
Chest Inhaled 88.5 cm. 89.0 cm. 2.3 cm. more
Chest Exhaled 83.0 cm. 85.3 cm. 2.3 cm. more
Chest Normal •83.8 cm. 88.0 cm. 4.2 cm. more
Waist 68.0 cm. 68.5 cm. 0.5 cm. more
Arm Stretch Left 200.3 cm. 213.4 cm. 13.1 cm. more
Arms Stretch Right 199.7 cm. 212.8 cm. 13.1 cm. more
(left/right difference) 0.6 cm. 0.6 cm. -
Left Leg Lying Down 92.5 cm. 89.0 cm. 3.5 cm less
Right Leg Lying Down 93.5 cm. 89.0 cm. 4.5 cm. .ess
(left/right difference) 1.0 cm. 0.0 cm. 1.C cm less
These measurem=nts ware taken 20 weeks apart after 30 Alexander Technique lessons.
Weight: although this is a slight increase it was not thought that the
measurements were significantly affected.
Height: an insignificant change in height.
Neck: 1.1cm. is a fairly large change of neck length. Case A evidently
balanced her head closer to her centre and did less straining forward of
the neck muscles.
Spine: an increase of 8.8.cm. in the sitting height indicates that
a great deal of releasing of tense muscles occurred in the back. The
change can be seen between figs. 13 & 14 - the lordotic curve is less
exaggerated after 30 lessons.
105
CASE A
9th March 1985 27th July 1985
I Figure
r lKure 11.
I i-i IFigure 12.1
106
9th March 1985
27th July 1985
Figure 13
CASE A
107
Shoulders: the excessive narrowing of the shoulders blades towards

each other caused the narrowing of the back and unnaturally wide
shoulders. This space was widened by 2.1 cm. which enabled the
arms to increased their stretch by the remarkable extent of 13.1 cm.
Chest: this release between the shoulder blades is also reflected
in the rib measurements - over 3 cm. is an encouraging amount of
extra space for breathing flexibility. Since Case A had struggled
with stimulating energy in her breathing mechanism, this release
of tension must have greatly assisted her improvement.
Spine: The lordotic curve indicated in figs 11 and 13 is less
exaggerated in figs. 12 and 14. The measurement change in the
sitting height is verified by the visual outline of fig. 14 where
the weight of the torso has released into the sitting bones and
the back has released outwards slightly.
Pelvis: the measurement of the legs lying down indicated that
the pelvis has dropped forward in the front, by 3.5 - 4.5 cm.
This is verified by the visual outline of the buttocks in figs.
11 and 12.
Legs: the over-stretching of the front thigh muscles and shortening
of the back thigh muscles that caused excess wrinkling of the knees
has changed in fig.12 and the knees are less braced back. This
assists with the redistribution of weight over the centre of
the ankles. This balance gives more space to the organs of the
abdomen and it can be seen in the visual outlines of the abdomen
in figs 12 and 13 that the abdomen is flatter and more elongated
after 30 lessons. More space gives more length to the muscles;
more length gives more flexibility and strength.
As Case A's singing teacher, I was informed of her progress

towards these improvements and the combination of her Alexander
and singing lessons was timed according to her progress with
releasing interfering tensions. The progress of her ability to
direct release in her muscles helped us to decide when she was
ready to use directions in her practice and singing lessons.
(We learned from the photograph used for fig. 11 that in profile
the elbow covered sight of the lordotic curve, so we actually
instructed Case E to hold her hands together for her profile -
fig. 24 - so that her lumbar spine was visible.)
108
Table 4 - CASE B
Weight 52.0 kg. 52.0 kg. .
Height 157.6 cm. 157.6 cm. -

Sitting Height 83.2 cm. 82.2 cm. 1.0 cm. less
Neck Circumference 31.8 cm. 30.8.cm. 1.0 cm. less
Shoulder Width Front 39-8 cm. 35.5 cm. 4.3 cm. less
Interscapulae Distance 13.8 cm. 15.3 cm. 1.5 cm. more
Ribs Exhaled 67.8 cm. 66.3 cm. 1.5 cm. less
Ribs Inhaled 74.5 cm. 75.0 cm. 0.5-cm. more
(actual expansion) 6.7 cm. 8.7 cm. 2.0.cm. more
Chest Exhaled 80.2 cm. 80.8 cm. 0.6.cm. more
Chest Normal 81.5 cm. 84.0 cm. 2.5 cm. more
Waist 65.0 cm. 64.5 cm. 0.5.cm. less
Arm Stretch Left 200.6 cm. 202.7 cm. 2.1 cm. more
Arm Stretch Right 199.8 cm. 202.4 cm. 2.6 cm. more
(left/right difference) 0.8.cm. 0.3 cm. 0.5 cm. less
Left Leg Lying Down 87.9 cm. 82.3 cm. 5.6 cm. less
Right Leg Lying Down 87.6 cm. 82.4 cm. 5.2 cm. less
(left/right difference) 0.3 cm. 0.1.cm. 0.2 cm. less
These rreasurgnents were taken 19 weeks apart after 30 Alexander Technique lessons.
Weight: no change.
Height: no change.
Neck: a small change of 0.5.cm. shorter seems to indicate that before
her Alexander lessons she was stretching her neck back and up slightly.
A comparison of the neck positions in figs. 15 and 15 bears this
out. A reduction in the circumference of the neck indicates that her
shoulders dropped away from her ears.
Spine: Case B's physical profile before Alexander lessons indicated
that she had very tight muscles on either side of the spine. (She had
been taking regular gym classes and decided to stop while involved in
the thirty Alexander lessons.) Her change in sitting height - 1.0 cm. -
shows thqt she released some unnecessary pulling of her back.
109
Shoulders:Case B ’s physical profile also stated that she was very

tense* round the back of the neck. The change in measurement of the
back shoulders is vast - 6.1 cm. less. This is further indication
that the shoulders dropped away from the ears and released a great deal
of tension. The front of the shoulder also lost a great deal of tension
as the upper arms dropped towards each other and the front of the
chest released. Further indication of this release is the increase
in the interscapulae distance by 1.5. cm. - the shoulder blades
are no longer being held unnaturally high and the lower points of the
shoulder blades have dropped down her back. An increase of over 2 cm.
in her arm stretch is further indication that her shoulders release'd.
Chest: flexibility in the ribcage is indicated by the increase of
2 cm. in her rib expansion. Her ribs are able to collapse 1.5 cm.
further towards her centre and expand 0.5.cm. outwards, giving an
expansion gain that can be put to good use in her singing
lessons.
Waist: a loss of 0.5 cm. is probably caused by her pelvis dropping
down and away from her ribcage through loss of tension.
Pelvis: the pelvis has dropped away from the ribcage by over 5 cm.
on each side .
Legs: it can be seen from a comparison of figs 15 and 16 that
the knees have released during the Alexander lessonsl The back
of the thigh appears less shortened.
Case B. made repeated comments about how relaxing her Alexander

lessons were. She also repeated in her diary and interviews that
she was less tired generally, she was less anxious about her work
and examinations, that she achieved a great deal more with her time,
that she was not as scared of saying the wrong thing all the time.
She was delighted with her measurement changes because her chest
measurement increased by 3.5.cm. and her waist decreased by 0.5.cm.
without having to attend the gym!
She thoroughly enjoyed her Alexander lessons, but was repeatedly

subject to dizziness while lying on the table. She described this
as a reluctance to "let go” her tension any further and decided not
to continue after the thirty lessons because she did not feel ready
to "let go". Her intention was to make use of Alexander at a later date.
110
CASE B
Figure 15« Figure 16|
9th March 1985 27th July 1985
111
Table 5 - CASE C
Measurement 9th March 1985 7th September 1985 Change
Weight 64.0 kg. 64.0 kg*

Sitting Height 86.2 cm. 86.7 cm. 0.5 cm. more
Neck Circumference 34.4 cm. 33.2 cm. 1.2 cm. less
Shoulder Width Front • 41.0 cm. 37.5 cm. 3.5 cm. less
Interscapulae Distance 12.2 cm. 16.0 cm. 3.8 cm. more
i
Ribs Exhaled 75.5 cm. 72.0 cm. 3.5 cm. less'

Ribs Inhaled 81.8 cm. 80.6 cm. 1.2 cm. less!t
1
(actual expansion) 6.3 cm. 8.6 cm. 2.3 cm. more!

Chest Inhaled 97.7 cm. 95.7 cm. 2.0 cm. less!
Chest Exhaled 90.3 cm. 90.0 cm. 0.3 cm. less!i
Chest Normal 93.5 cm. 92.2 cm. 1.3 cm. less,
Waist 72.6 cm. 72.6 cm.
Arm Stretch Left 208.1 cm. 208.7 cm. 0.6 cm. moreil
Arm Stretch Right 209.5 cm. 210.9 cm. . 1.4 cm. morej
(left/right difference) 2.8 cm. 0.8 cm. 2.0 cm. less
(left/right difference) 0.8 cm. 0.2 cm. 0.6 cm. less
These measurements were taken 26 weeks apart after 30 Alexander Technique lessons. There
was also a break of one nrnth between her last Alexander Technique lesson and the taking
of the measurements, which indicates that Case C retained the evidence of muscle release
in her body even when she had had a break fran Alexander Technique lessons.
Weight; although there was no change in Case C's body weight, she was told
repeatedly during the course of Alexander lessons that she locked as though
she had lost weight. A comparison of figs 17 and 18 shows a generally more
streamlined effect in fig. 18.
Height: 1.2 cm. is a small change in height. It was interesting that Case
C commented several times that she felt taller.
Neck; the change in the relationship of the head to the central vertical line
of the body is shown in figs. 17 and 18 - the head is further back on the
spine, has shortened the distance between the occiput and seventh cervical
by 1.5. cm. while lengthening and the distance between the ears and the shoulders.
112 i7th September 1985
9th March 1985|
CASE C
Figure 17 Figure TF
113
9th March 1985 I 7th September 1985
Figure 19 Figure 20
CASE C
Shoulders; a comparison of shoulder levels in figs. 19 and 20 shows a remarkable

change - the left shoulder has dropped away from the ear and the whole of the
right side of the back is less shortened. The measurements show that there is
less tension held in th- shoulders, as the back expanse has lost 3.5 cm. and the
front has lost 1.7 cm. Physical profiles also indicated loss of shoulder tension.
Spire: the slight changes in sitting height and standing height do not signify.
Chest; a pattern of expansion is apparent in the chest and ribcage area.
The shoulders blades have dropped back and down and the upper chest is more
open. This is verified by the measurement of the interscapulae distance - an
increase of 3.8 cm.; residual tension in the upper chest has released and the
chest and rib measurements are smaller; however, the actual flexibility of the
ribcage has increased by 2.3 cm. - the most vital aspect for a singer. Analysis
of her own breathing pattern and intentions before and during the Alexander
lessons indicated that she was aware of her breathing being "too high" at tir.es
and she was always looking for ways of "supporting down".
Waist: Case C was very surprised that her waist measurement had not changed
because she had been told so many times that she looked as though she had lost
114
weight. We came to the conclusion that she must have redistributed

her weight and an examination of her visual outlines at figs. 17
and 18 shows a lengthening of her abdominal wall with the resultant
loss of a slight'bulge.
Arms: the release of tension on the right side of Case C’s body is
■reflected in the increase of her arms stretch more on the right side
than on the left, by 1.4 cm.
Pelvis:a comparison of figs. 17 and 18 shows a considerable visual
change in the tilt of her pelvis - the distance between the front tip
of. her pelvis and her inner ankle having dropped by 6.4.cm. and 7 cm.
It is interesting to note that her shortened right side was again
reflected in the right hip being higher off her feet than her left
hip, and that after the Alexander lessons both sides of the hip are
almost equidistant from the feet.
Legs: Case C' physical profile indicated that there was habitual
tension in her legs with her knees normally braced back (fig. 17).
During the course of her Alexander lessons she stated more than once
that she was aware of tension in her legs. The flexion of her knees
is somewhat exaggerated for the photograph at fig. 18, but it shows
that she has released the crease of tension in the gluteal muscles
and lengthened the back of the thigh.
Face and Eyes: a comparison of figs. 17 and 18 shows a remarkable
change in the mould of the face - the eyes look level with no strain
and the slight double chin has disappeared. Case C's performing
profile stated that she was often reminded to lift her chin while
performing and this change in normal stance would help towards
'conquering this old habit.
Case C made very intelligent use of her Alexander Technique - she

lay on the floor to release tension before recitals and said it
helped her; she realised the value of widening the lower back;
she experimented with suspending her body from her crown and letting
her knees do the walking; she fully intended to continue her
Alexander lessons she she settled into her new work at the opera house.
She also experienced a phase of disorientation which passed when she

began to understand the value of releases.
115
Table 6 - CASE D
Measurement 16th March 1985 Ath August 1985 Change
■Height 71.0 kg. 75.0 kg. A.O kg more

Occipital Protruberance/ 11.5 cm. 11.5 cm. -
Sitting Height 88.3 cm« 87.7 cm. 0.6 cm. less
Neck Circumference 38.3 cm. 38.8 cm. 0.5 cm. mnr*g
Shoulder Width Back A7.0 cm. A8.0 cm. 1.0 cm. more
Shoulder Width Front A5.7 cm. AA.O cm. 1.7 cm. less
Interscapulae Distance 1A.A cm. 15.A cm. 1.O.cm. more
Ribs Inhaled 98.0 cm. 103.2 cm. 5-2 cm. more
(actual expansion) 7.0 cm. 7.0 cm. -
Chest Exhaled 9A.3 cm. 100.3 cm. 6.0 cm. more
Waist 87.2 cm.' 93.0 cm. 5.8.cm. more
Arm Stretch Left 220.7•cm. 222.0 cm. 1.3 cm. more
Arm Stretch Right 222.5 cm. 22A.5 cm. 2.0 cm. more
(left/right difference) 1.8 cm. 2.5 cm. 0.7 cm. more
(left/right difference) 1.6 cm. 1.6 cm. -
These measurements were taken 22 weds apart after 30 Alexander Technique lessons. The
increases in the girth measuranent cannot be accurately caimented upon because CASE D
increased his weight by a significant anxxmt (A kgs) which meant that the changes
were obviously not only due to muscle releases.
Weight: an increase in body weight of A kgs. unfortunately disgu..sed all

the girth measurements. In spite of the increase in weight, however,
Case D wrote repeatedly in his diary that he felt lighter, freer, "airborne",
that his ribs did not weigh anything and that many friends commented that
he had lost weight.
Height: a change of 2.2 cm. in overall height, with no increase in his neck
or spine, indicates that Case D lost some tension in his legs. His physical
profile stated that before his Alexander lessons his legs were extremely tense
and his feet were "unconnected" with his body.
Neck: it can be observed in figs. 21 and 22 that there is less shortening in
116
4th August 19851
CASE D
|Figure 2T 22]
T
117
IFigure 23]
front of the throat and less pulling back of the base of the skull. To
make this even clearer, fig 21 has been superimposed on fig 22 to show
how the head has rebalanced on the tip of the spine (fig.23). His physical
profile stated that he held his head too far back on his body which was
causing shortening in the back and a great deal of shoulder tension. This
can be observed in the clear outline of fig. 23.
Shoulders: the smoothing out of the shoulder hump (kyphosis) is very clear.
In spite of the weight gained, the shoulder width in front shows a decrease
in the holding up of the shoulders and a much smaller increase in width than
the 5 or 6 cm. extra girth implied in the ribs, chest and waist measurements.
Arms: the increase in arm stretch and interscapulae distance indicates that
tension has eased in the shoulder blade area.
118
Pelvis: a careful examination of figs. 21 and 22 shows that the balance of

his whole body weight on the tip of his spine has moved forward and this has
included a dropping of the pelvis towards his feet by over 5 cm.
Legs: the knees appears thicker and more "locked" in fig. 21 and, in spite of
the obvious tension in his toes in fig. 22, his knees seem more flexible and
the legs look longer.
General Observations-
The'most remarkable feature of Case D's lessons was his detailed diary and
tremendous enthusiasm. He had been working on the baritone-tenor change
for a long time and was always looking for ways to make this change easier.
After 8 Alexander lessons his singing teacher stated that his breathing had
definitely improved - he was using his lower back ribs more and was less
tense in the diaphragm area. She also said that his vocal timbre had changed.
He felt that the ability to achieve a fuller Top A natural had a tremendous
effect on his self-confidence.
He made repeated reference to improvements in the quality of his life.

He was developing the confidence • stand his ground in social relationships
and related this to the improved use of weight in his feet. He thought
his concentration improved. His speaking voice resonated quite differently
during Alexander lessons. One year later he was still attending his
Alexander lessons and his teacher commented that the tension in his legs
had finally eased to a remarkable extent.
119
Table 7 - CASE E
Weight 55.0 kg. 53.0 kg 2.0 kg. less

Height 166.5 cm. 165.8 cm. 0.7 cm. less
Occipital Protruberance/ 11.2 cm. 11.8 cm. 0.6 cm. more
Sitting Height 85.0 cm. 86.0 cm. 1.0 cm. more
Neck Circumference 33.0 cm. 31.8 cm. 1.2 cm. less
Shoulder Width Back 44.3 cm. 46.0 cm. 1.7 cm. more
Shoulder Width Front 44.4 cm. 41.0 cm. 3.4 cm. less
Interscapulae Distance 13.6 cm. 13.4 cm. 0.4 cm. less
Ribs Inhaled 74.9 cm. 76.4 cm. 1.5 cm. more
(actual expansion) 4.6 cm. 5.4 cm. 0.8 cm. more
Chest Exhaled 81.8 cm. 86.0 cm. 4.2 cm. more
Waist 67.0 cm. 67.0 cm.
Arm Stretch Left 218.0 cm. 217.5 cm. 0.5 cm. less
Arm Stretch Right 219-1 cm. 219.0 cm. 0.1 cm. less
(left/right difference) 1.1 cm. 1.5 cm. 0.4 cm. more
Left Leg Lying Down 97.0 cm. 87.5 cm. 9.5 v.m. less
(left/ right difference) 0.4 cm. 1.5 cm. 1.1 cm. more
These measurements were taken 20 weeks apart after 30 Alexander Technique lessens.
Weight: the loss of 2 kgs. is not particualrly significant.

Height: the small loss in height is interesting in view of the the slight
gain in sitting height and the loss of length in the front of the leg.
Neck: Case E ’s physical profile and her overriding habit in singing was
poking her head forward in movement. The strain this caused can be seen
in fig. 24 both by the tension marks in the front of her neck and the
protruding cervical vertebrae at the back. This tension has eased in
fig. 25.
Shoulders: her physical profile also stated that she held her shoulders up
and back with a great deal of tension and in her early Alexander lessons- she
stated that letting go of the tension felt as though her arms would fall
right off. The poking out of her shoulder blades has visibly lessened
tzxt
9th March 1985 CASE E
Figure 25
121
between fig. 24 and 25. The measurements bear this out by showing that the
arms have released downwards and the arms seem slightly longer.
Spine: Case E had an excessive lordotic curve which was hidden by her
arms when hanging loose for the photograph at fig.24. After the 30
Alexander lessons the curve had eased enough for the lumbar curve to be
visible.
Chest: Case E had been trying to increase the strength of her breath support
for a long time. She was very encouraged by the increase in her rib and
chest measurements and her singing teacher stated that her breath support
was improving.
Arms: Case E's arms stiffened considerably while she sang and the habit was
present in normal- movement. They have released some tension and hang more
freely from the shoulders in Fig 25.
Pelvis: the change of over 9 cm. in the distance between the pelvis and the
inner ankle is enormous. This indicates that a considerable amount of tension
was held in the lower abdomen and could account for the minimal breath support.
Releasing some of this tension enables the lower back.to release and the
lordotic curve to ease. It also means that the whole of the length from
the heels to the skull is more streamlined.
Case E was very enthusiastic about her Alexander lessons and kept a careful
diary. She became reasonably articulate when discussing the Alexander
Technique and continued lessons after the project was completed.
She suffered from a fewweeks of disorientation after she started the

course of lessons which she described as being aware that her use was
not adequate but feeling that she had not yet learned enough direction
to be able to change it. But she passed through that-stage and used her
experience of Alexander Technique to improve her own teaching skills
during her teaching practice.
122
VI CONCLUSIONS
Application of Knowledge Gained from Case Studies
I taught four other students singing at the same time as Case A,

initially without Alexander Technique lessons and, after 9 months,
with Alexander lessons between their singing- lessons.
The tenor; started with very poor posture after suffering a broken neck
in a car accident and resultant deterioration of his vocal mechanism. He
had good natural ability for perceiving improved sound which made him
realise that his voice was suffering. He had little command over postural
improvement in the first nine months of singing lessons, although hedid
improve his sound. After ten Alexander lessons, he suddenly realised why
postural change was necessary and he began to improve very fast. Within
6 months of his first Alexander lesson, he was accepted as a chorister
at the local opera house.
The mezzo-soprano: made steady progress improving her sound during her
first 9 months of singing lessons. We tried on several occasions to
increase flexibility in her lower back, but it seemed fixed into an old
habit of protection against a previous injury. The Alexander lessons
eased this immobility and she slowly began to find her singing skills
much less effortful.
The soprano: started singing lessons with me after many years of very
poor singing- instruction and had a vocal break for the entire octave
above middle C . Her breath lasted for only three or four notes and her passagio
notes were always flat. It took her a long time to appreciate why
postural interferences also interfered with her sound, but after she
started Alexander lessons she was much more positive about the need for
change and her rate of progress increased. She made some important
career changes after a year of Alexander lessons and developed a more
positive attitude about many aspects of life. By the end of two years
she could execute long coloratura runs in Handel arias without any
strain on her breath.
As with Case A, these singers took Alexander lessons with experienced

teachers who were willing to discuss their progress with me. Sometimes
the development took us by surprise, but often I asked the student to
request help with certain releases that were needed for the next stage.
The Alexander teachers also informed me if there had been a sudden
improvement in a tense area and I could try to use that information.
Usually it was obvious from the student's understanding that progress
had been made.
123
Examples of details of progress can be found in Case studies B - E.
Case B ; her greatest area of tension was in her shoulders and neck.
This was also the area that showed the greatest release. Her singing
teacher said that her upper register tended to lose its quality and
become "white". Once the student and singing teacher become aware of
such tension release in the shoulder, there can be a more positive
approach to the learning of more resonant upper notes.
Case C; she suffered from tension mostly in her ribs and legs. Before
her Alexander lessons she was able to breath with her whole torso while
sitting, but would lose the abdominal/lower rib connections when she
stood up to sing. Her increased flexibility in the ribcage indicated
a great improvement in the exhalation ability - in other words she
came in closer contact with the reflex-facilitated spring of the ribs
that results from singing with the final quantity of air flow in the
lungs.1' This realisation can help considerably with breathing instruction.
The knowledge that the legs are less tense can also be put to good use in
singing lessons by using the "monkey1 position for freeing notes that tend
to become constricted.
Case D : the release of tension round the shoulders and back of neck can
be used to explore new sensations of placing upper notes.
Case E : her increased rib capacity can be used to put new energy into her
breath support system, so that she does not have to imagine that her
breath will always be minimal.
The above are brief examples of successful and possible liason between
Alexander and singing teacher via the student. Naturally, it is not
expected that such detailed measurements are necessary to detect change.
In time, the changes become self-evident. Even after I reached a level
of expertise in my own training when I could assist the student towards
changes in muscle use, I found it preferable to work from the student's
own understanding of his improved muscle use, as gained away from his
singing lessons, rather than being fully responsible for assisting his
general muscle re-education as well as improving his singing skills.
1. See p.136
124
Interferences
One of the most important concepts that I learned from studying

Alexander Technique at the same time as singing was the concept
of interfering with the sound. During the course of my first
thirty lessons I became aware of most of my own interferences and
understood that in time I would be able to learn how to inhibit
most of them with a view to eliminating them from my singing action.
I knew at this stage what muscular action was necessary for producing
good sound, but at first I was not aware that I was introducing many
more actions that were not necessary for good sound. Once I became
aware of these_inappropriate actions, I understood that the inter
ference was a muscular movement that
a) did not help to produce good sound;

b) used up energy as a result;
c) disturbed the poise of the body in performance;
a) channelled energy away from the appropriate and necessary muscular
action;
e) invariably became stronger and more noticeable and used up more
energy in the most demanding passages of a song or exercise and
in the various passaggios of the voice.
In my case these interferences could be defined as
a) working upwards in my shoulders as the pitch entered head voice

range;
b) increasing further tension in the left shoulder and elbow in
difficult passages;
c) shifting my body weight to my left foot in difficult passages;
d) tightening the muscles in my right leg/hip joint on high notes;
e) stiffening the back of my neck for the range from top A upwards;
f) pulling my abdomen and epigastrium inwards at the end of my breath
capacity;
g) puling out my lower back and dropping my chest when I wanted firm
breath support;
i) tipping forward on my toes for high notes and hence tightening in
my feet.
I observed these exact interferences in my own students over and over

again, plus many others in different parts of the body. One of the
commonest was the lifting of the left shoulder. Case A had an
interesting little double jerk in her abdomen before she began a
125
phrase. CaseE and I both had the amusing experience of feeling a

teacher hold our left arms while we were in full spate singing a
song and finding that it stopped the voice! We had both got our
left arm interference so involved with the mechanism of singing that
we could not sing without heaving the sound out with the left arm.
Pure common sense told us that the left arm cannot possibly produce
sound and that it is in no way connected with the breath support
system; but we - and countless other singers - use the left arm,
for "breath support" unconsciously. Once one has tried and succeeded
in overcoming such an interference that is relatively obvious to
understand and therefore to inhibit,’ it then becomes easier to
imagine and succeed in inhibiting interferences like stiffening the
back of the neck. The most exciting step is the far more subtle
inhibition of letting go tension in the throat and achieving instant
mental direction over the opening of the throat. This means that
the decision to open the.throat can be timed with the appropriate
energy from the breathing muscles, at the appropriate stage of a
warm-up session or an aria, or at the appropriate pitch of the
voice.
This power of inhibition can be used more and more during Alexander
Technique lessons, with the teacher's help at first and then through
the student's own directions. As the student's confidence and success
grow the inhibition starts to work in singing lessons when the
singing teacher points out an unneccessary interference. The same
muscles that tend to interfere in singing lessons are usually the
same ones that interfere to a lesser extent in daily movements, so,
as the Alexander Technique begins to affect the. ordinary daily
movements, the ability to change interfering habits in singing
lessons increases.
126
BREATHING
"It is the mind behind the muscles which enables man to do the things
which we consider peculiarly human." These words were said by
Phillip Tobias, Professor of Anatomy and Dean of Medicine at the
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He takes this
observation right into the essence of great singing when he
describes his reaction to hearing Joan Sutherland singing Bellini:
"...when we hear such singing, we are listening to the music of the
muscles, the sounds of contraction, as it were. We are receiving an
auditory glimpse of what the muscle tone and flickering may be like,
a sort of transubstantiation of the silent music of the body into
2.
tangible, registrable musical notation."
It could ■be argued that if a singer does not have a high degree of
such muscular tone and co-ordination as a natural gift, then he has no
business presenting himself as a soloist before a paying public.
However, we are confronted with the reality of every possible combin
ation of the complexity of ski11s required to produce a singer among
both students and professionals. Some skills have to be learned
painstakingly, others come quite easily and naturally, some are
lost in the process of gaining others, some disappear under
pressure and so on. As singers and teachers we have the respons
ibility of keeping the balance between the singing and the acting,
the standards and the career, the pressure of work and the quality of
life, the fulfilment of individual potential and the response to
outside demands - the balancing act is continual and cannot be
ignored.
All this is made much more difficult if the breathing system loses
its balance. It became vital to me to rediscover a balance in my
breath support and the joy of this discovery is relived with every
student who is prepared to go through the re-examination of their
breathing and its role in creating tone and carrying out phrasing.
The vocal casualties that assault the ear from the performance
platform are sufficient evidence that not many singers have the
patience or the guidance to tackle this problem sensibly.
1. P. V. Tobias, MUJ Ihe Tottering Biped, The Evolution of his Posture, Poise and
Sail, Lecture cn Proprioception, Posture and Hnoticn at Uhiv. of New South
Wales, 16th February 1981, p. 56.
2. Ibid., p. !5.
127
Releasing the breathing mechanism is an integral part of the Alexander

Technique and breath control is taught in yoga, meditation and countless
other disciplines. It is of vital importance that singing teachers are
no longer confused about how to achieve a balanced breath control
because an imbalance not only causes vocal problems in the long term, but
could have more profound effects on the whole being of a singer. This
possibility was suggested to me by a comment by Emma Jung (Carl Gustav's
wife) in her paper on "Animus and Anima" -
"Perhaps the organs of breathing have a peculiar relationship to spirit,

as is suggested by the words animus or pneuma and Hauch, breath, or
Geist, spirit, and therefore react with special sensitivity to the
process of the.spirit."
The study of the relationship between balanced breathing and balanced

personality is a whole field of enquiry on its own. I certainly feel
that the improvement in the balance of my own breath control has led
to improvements in my control of nerves, my phrasing, my interpretation,
my presentation, my self-image as a singer, my figure, my ability to
communicate to students the sensations of breath support and above all,
my ability to achieve effortless sound. All these things have improved my
relationship to my work and certainly helped to create a better balance
in my life.
Every student has come to me with a different combination of breathing

skills. Those that have absorbed the details of breathing support the
quickest have been the ones who have had no singing lessons at all. This
bears out Alexander's premise that the learned habits are the hardest
ones to unlearn. There have been some remarkable moments in the students'
learning processes. One soprano took about three singing lessons to
become aware of all 'the different muscles involved in breath support
and, when this picture was completed for her, she immediately gave up
smoking. Another soprano, after ten lessons, began to understand the
importance of preparing her muscles to sing between phrases - she then
claimed that she was using her improved breath support to break a life
long habit of rushing from one thing to another all day long. One
baritone claimed that the process of learning how to take his voice
higher and fuller than ever before in his fourth lesson by using his
full breath support actually launched him into a new phase in his
work as an artist. What these three cases have in common is the
observation from the students that the improved breathing also
1. E. Jung, "Animus and Anima: T\jo Essays by Ehma Jung", pp 9-10.
128
inproved the quality of their existence outside singing. Even if it

is only a remote possibility that the converse is true - i.e. imbalanced
breath control adversely affects singers’ existence outside singing -
the task for the singing teacher and singer to find a good balance is
essential.
This task is not made easier by the fact that every individual's
breathing balance is slightly different from the next. The mechanism
is also altered by the amount of air taken in with inspiration. In
his book The Body Moveable , David Gormon, an Alexander Technique
teacher who has synthesised descriptions and drawings of the mechanics
of the musculoskeletal system, makes the following statement -
"The balance between descent of the diaphragm and protrusion of the

abdominal wall (abdominal breathing) and the elevation of the ribs
(thoracic breathing) varies in different individuals and with the
depth of respiration. The thoracic element is usually more marked
in females and in both sexes in deep inspiration."
This element of variation in the mechanics of breathing eliminates

the possibility of developing a "blueprint" for breathing instruction.
The wisest course to follow is to develop the muscle tone of all the
breath supporting muscles and then develop the singer's awareness of
whether or not he is making use of all of them to produce a particular
sound, and to learn to listen to the effect on the vocal tone when
certain elements of the breath support system are missing. This
gives the singer one of the most valuable tools in awareness and
control - a sense of choice. It brings even the singer with a very
average vocal instrument nearer the satisfying experience of making
what Tobias calls the "music of the muscles".
It emerged clearly from my own experience and from the case studies
that the postural framework has a direct bearing on the potential
of the breathing support system. This seems like an unnecessary
statement of the obvious because most of the books about singing
training involve a discussion about posture. One of the most
detailed analyses of the problem can be found in Van A. Christy's
book "Expressive Singing" where he devotes seven pages to the
following principle: "Vital, upright, expansive posture is the
third great fundamental in singing." He states "Good posture will
not be learned easily and quickly through brief study and only
1. D. Goman, Ihe Body Moveable, P.138.
129
intermittent observance only for short intervals at a time in

the vocal period; it is necessary that correct posture become an
habitual, natural attitude in class and out."
Both the singer and the singing teacher come up against the same
problem demonstrated by Alexander at this point - that, although
they both know that certain postural attitudes are detrimental to
good breath control and vocal tone, their only guide towards
correcting that attitude is the singer's awareness of how the old
habit feels and his ignorance of how the new habit should feel.
Because our feelings are untrustworthy the singer's tool of the
sense of feel is at best slow to change, at worst an obstacle to
experiencing a new sensation. However detailed Van Christy's
account of ideal posture may be, it does not overcome this problem
of debauched kinesthesia.
This is where Alexander Technique contributes to solving the

dilemma. It is best to illustrate this by an example. Van Christy
states "If the small of the back is allowed to relax in a pronounced
curve, it is impossible to obtain the necessary resistant tension
in the diaphragm and muscles of the back ribs for adequate, breath
2
control." ‘ This showed itself to be true in Cases A and E of
the study project. However, .both Case A and E had been trying to
learn adequate breath control at the same time as using their
backs with pronounced curves in their everyday movement. The
muscles were so accustomed to being contracted in this position
that they had ceased to send correct feedback to the brain about
the state of their contraction. So, however hard the singers might
try to mobilise their lower back rib muscles to assist the diaphragm
action, they would fail to improve this vital part of their support
mechanism. Of the six singers examined in the study, Cases A and E
displayed the least amount of energy in their breath support.
After the course of thirty Alexander Technique lessons, both showed

visual signs that the pronounced curve had eased - widened and
lengthened. The measurements indicated that their space in the
lower back had increased. The next step would be to take advantage
of the newfound flexibility and help them to consciously use the
lower back more constructively in the whole support system.
1. V.A. Christy, Expressive Singing, pp. 33.

2. Ibid., p. 37. By "relax", Van Qristy presuiably means collapsed inwards.
130
This is when the teacher's awareness of the student's development in

the process' of studying the Alexander Technique can be put to
constructive use. There is no point in asking a student to be
flexible in the lower back until the flexibility returns to those
muscles. Once there are signs that the student can exercise some
mental control in this area, then the teacher can advise about how
and when to use these muscles.
Regular lessons in the Alexander Technique help the singer in the

following ways:
1. Muscles that are too tense to give feedback to the brain begin
to release their tension and begin to respond to mental direction.
2. Directing mental instructions to certain muscles in the breath
support system is the first step towards gaining control over
these muscles.
3. Energy then follows thought and the muscle begins to play a role
in producing improved vocal tone.
A. Increased awareness and power of mental direction benefits the
singer in every aspect of acquiring singing skills and is put
to constructive use at every stage of the process.
5. Undoing the tension helps the singer become aware of the natural
reflexes of the body and enables him to make maximum use of the
natural flow of energy before deciding how much "doing" is necessary in the
breath support system.
6. Awareness can be used constructively to examine the reasons for
changing habitual tensions, instead of the common situation of
living with recurring vocal faults. Undoing tension facilitates
the solving of recurring vocal faults and makes the recognition
of them a more positive process.
7. In time the singer becomes aware of how much actual "doing" is
necessary to create the required breath flow for the quality of
tone desired.
131
I have found that the practice of applying these benefits grows

daily with each student and with each practice session of my
own. Naturally some of the directions I used in my own sessions
I show to my students and they in turn contribute their reactions
to using these directions. In this way we have built up the core
of some good working directions for increasing the efficiency of
the breathing muscles. As outlined in my first six months of
attempting to combine singing and the Alexander Technique, I had
to understand what my singing teacher was explaining and then use
whatever newly acquired insight into my muscle use I had to put
into practice the advice given,in my singing lessons.
The methods of communicating information about new ways of using

the breathing muscles I picked up from all the singing teachers
I have met in New York, London, Europe and South Africa.
1. Words: A verbal description is quickest and sometimes enough

to stimulate the desired action in the student. More often than
not it requires further amplification. But when talking about
the deepest layers of muscle in the abdomen, for instance, one
only has words because these muscles are not accessible to
touch and can only respond to mental direction and visualisation.
An example is the idea of using downward support deep inside the
abdomen - a difficult concept to teach because of the apparent
inaccessibility. I was given two excellent descriptions in words
which helped me to conceptualise the action:
"Imagine you have a diamond shape drawn horizontally between the

two front protruberances of your pelvis, your pubic bone and
your coccyx. 'Imagine that there is a pliable diaphragm across
this diamond and that you can apply varying amounts of pressure
to the middle of this diaphragm. That is the point of downward
pressure that stimulates most of your breathing reflexes."
Another helpful description:
"Rather than think of the muscles working on the outside of your

body, imagine two rods passing horizontally through your abdomen
at the level of your pelvis, one from side to side, the ether
from the middle of the front to the back and where they cross
each other, you apply downward pressure to support your sound."
These descriptions worked very well for me when that was the
n2
advice I needed at that point, but they don’t work so well if the
student is not quite ready to respond to that particular piece of
advice. As muscle release from Alexander Technique lessons penetrates
deeper into the muscles, there is more response from such directions.
2. Visualisation: • this is implied in most of the word descriptions and
some students are better at it than others. The baritone who was
also an artist had a remarkably strong ability to visualise muscle
action. This ability is definitely enhanced by Alexander Technique
lessons because the changes in muscle use are often achieved by
visualising space or freedom in particular areas that are tense.
3. Drawings: my efforts at drawing the pharynx, tongue, jaw and teeth
have improved considerably since I found myself in the situation
of looking for more avenues of description of sound. I have even
tried drawings of the inner muscles of the body as they relate to
the various bones to give a student an idea of where to direct
their thoughts.
A. Diagrams: some students are very vague about anatomy and I find
that they function better if they see actual drawings of the area
I am hoping that they will bring into their action. These are
always ready for use pinned up on the wall of my studio. David
Gormon's book "The Body Moveable" is perfect for this purpose.
5. Models: many Alexander teachers have scale models of the bones
or complete skeletons to demonstrate a mechanical point about the
movement of the body. When I am discussing a particular connection
in the breathing action, I find that it is more accurate to direct
the student's attention to a particular bone or joint and then
direct or feel the muscle action starting in the ligaments.
6. Demonstration: this form of instruction is generally overused in
singing lessons. It is useful for a beginner or a student who had
very limited awareness of muscle use. But it is tiring on the
teacher’s voice and the student can always fall into the trap of
imitating the teacher's vocal quality, rather than understanding
exactly how he has achieved the tone. If the student has a strong
ability to mimic, he falls more easily into this ultimately non
technical method of producing his voice. It is useful at times
but should not be over-used.
7• Touch: this is a very powerful tool in the communication of new
ideas. It can be used in several ways. The student can be asked
to place his fingers against certain external muscles, for example
the muscles just inside the front of the pelvis at the iliac crest.
133
The student can then feel if the muscles are responding or not. Ihe teacher
can also feel if the student is actually using these muscles, or
if he just thinks he is. The student can also be asked to feel
the teacher's muscles working in this way to get an idea of the
muscle tone that can be achieved. This is useful because it is
difficult to believe that unused muscles can actually becaie involved
in energetic support. The success of this type of teaching depends
on the personalities involved. Some students and teachers are more
inhibited about such forms of instruction than others. If a student
takes Alexander Technique lessons, he will become more familiar with
learning new ideas through the sense of touch and will learn to
direct new instructions in the muscle that can feel the teacher's or
his own touch on the surface of his muscle layers.
It is not possible to overstate the increased powers of communication

that the teacher can gain by training as an Alexander teacher. The
training course initially increases one's own powers of direction all
over the body and then one learns to communicate this through the
hands by directing in one's own body and thinking directions in the
student's body. It sounds simple in words but it takes three years
to learn. There is no way that a singing teacher can learn to teach
Alexander Technique without completing this demanding course. The
results', however, are very satisfying. Che’s powers of observation
are increased a hundredfold; one's understanding of body mechanics
helps with the understanding of singing technique; one's ability to
identify the muscles that are not working becomes a vital tool in
one's own singing and in the students' singing; and, most important,
one is given the power to actually change the posture for the better
in those students that are being hindered by habitual postural
imbalances.
However, not all teachers can afford the course, have the time, have
the desire, are suitable 'Candidates for, or are the right age group.
Before I was able to successfully teach an Alexander Technique lesson,
I worked in co-operation with several Alexander teachers, telling them
what I was hoping a particular student might master in singing and
describing some of his difficulties. Once the student got started
on Alexander lessons, I would suggest to the student that he ask his
teacher to teach him ''whispered ah" or "monkey” because I felt that
the student would benefit by learning how to incorporate this into his
singing lessons so that ultimately he could learn what it feels like to
134
release tension in certain parts of his body while he was singing. I also
taught the students while an Alexander teacher was present and their
muscle use was observed when I asked the students to carry out a parti
cular exercise.' The Alexander teacher would then comment on unusual
tension while the exercise was being sung, and then it would be
repeated with the Alexander teacher placing her hands on an area
of the body which would encourage the student to release while singing.
Then the student would try to do this on his own trying to maintain
the release in action. In this way the singing teacher and the Alexander
teacher could deal with tension problems as they arise. It is quicker
in the long run because the student is largely unaware of his tension
habit and usually unable to cure it through will power. If there is
limited time for this sort of co-operation, the mere fact that a teacher
is willing to attend Alexander lessons can hardly fail to add to the
quality of the teaching.
These then are the means whereby the teacher can help the student
apply new ideas in breathing. Obviously they apply whether or not
the student has taken Alexander Technique lessons.
Balanced stance
It is usual for an Alexander Technique lesson to start with learning

releases while standing. The idea is for the student to find a distribution
of his weight that allows him to make the most of his postural reflexes.
I found a very clear description of the way in which this posture is
maintained in Tidy*s Massage and Remedial Exercises:
"Normally the body is kept in the correct posture by the beautifully

balanced action of opposing muscle groups, and by efficient working
of the nerves which control this type of muscular activity. Such
activity is, in effect, an anti-gravity reaction. It is known as
postural tone, and exists throughout the body. This form of work
does not, however, produce fatigue in the same way as do voluntary
contractions of the same muscles. If a man be asked to extend his
spine, or even his knee, repeatedly, the muscles will soon tire; yet
he can remain in a sitting or standing position for a very long time.
Although the muscles are in a state of contraction, and although the
impulses producing this condition are carried by the same nerves which
initiate voluntary movement, the contraction is a static (isometric)
one, and the stimuli reach the muscle fibres at a much slower rate -
only about 8 or 9 per second, instead of the 50 or so per second
wv t
'
V W 1 Illustration 5 . |
Pelvis balanced Pelvis tilted Pelvis tilted forward

Weight on sitting bones Weight behind sitting bones Weight in front of
Head forward and up sittiry; bones
Chin too far up Neck stiffened w
ui
136
required to bring about a tetanic (isotonic) contraction. Moreover,

each stimulus reaches only a small number of muscle-fibres, one set
contracting, and then relaxing as another set contracts, so that no
single fibre is in action for long at a time." ^
It is this postural tone:that Alexander Technique helps to regain and

the student learns.a growing awareness of how to retain it even
while s--:,ging, and certainly when preparing to sing. This means
that the muscles begin their voluntary contractions for breathing
from a balanced resting state rather than an already hard-working
tense state. An example of this would be the student who tends to
lean forward on the toes while singing, especially high notes. This
leads to a tightening in the small of the back and, of course, makes
the high notes much more difficult. Whereas, if he keeps his
balance, the back can be brought into the support mechanism with no
resistence from the series of muscles that were distorted to strain
the body forward.
Sitting balance (See Illustration 5.)
The same principle can be applied to sitting. The Alexander student

will learn very early on how to find his sitting bones and thereby
stimulate all the reflexes that enable to torso to maintain an
erect posture while sitting. These two lower points of the pelvis
(ischial tuberosities) can support the trunk with the pelvis tilted
in forward or backward positions and it is important that the student
learns the middle position where he supports his torso without
becoming tired.
Reflex-facilitated Breathing
It took me a long time to work out the value of naturally

co-ordinated breathing as taught in Alexander lessons and its
relevance for singers. Singers use different techniques and
change their ideas about breathing throughout their lives.
A thought process is enough the help one singer while another
singer is help by a "doing" action in the breathing. Everyone,
including singers, operates a slightly different balance in
normal everyday breathing. Yet the mechanism is constructed
the same and one feels there must be an "ideal" system.
1. Tidy's Massage and Rsnedial Exercises, pp. 339 - 340.
137
The problem with research on breathing is that it invariably includes

people with poor postural co-ordination. Thus the picture of natural
breathing is distorted from the start. Any breathing-technique
evolving in such a situation would therefore include some element of
compensation for interferences. The value of Alexander Technique
when examining breathing technique is that it aims at reducing the
interferences, rather than compensating for them.
Reflex-facilitated breathing, therefore, is allowing the breathing

mechanism to operate without interference. Practically, that means
with as little interference as possible. I learned this breathing
in Alexander lessons, I experienced the guidance of my singing
teacher towards this breathing, and gradually taught myself to
sing with this natural breathing while practising. In time I
learned to allow it into rehearsals and performances. Singers
and non-singers alike interfere with their natural breathing and
it is a most liberating experience to re-learn the natural flow
of supported sound.
Lying on the table
The student follows the process described for.lying on the table

on page 39, releasing as much tension as possible. He then follows
the process of the "whispered ah", described on page 41. A more
detailed observation of what he is actually doing with his breathing
now follows:
he lets all the air out of his lungs

he allows the breath to be drawn in by the lungs - it is a process
of allowing the air pressure within the lungs to equal the air
pressure outside
he counts numbers 1 — whenever he runs out of air, not necessarily
well enunciated
he allows air to fill his lungs after he has stopped counting by
letting the ribs spring out sideways
starts counting again.
N.5.
This process highlights the idiosyncrasies of the breathing
mechanism. Some ribs do not spring out automatically, ESPECIALLY
THE RIBS OF SINGERS, who have learned many complex ways of inter
fering with this spring. Some have flexibility in the epigastrium
(stomach wall) and the upper chest area, so that their mechanism
works on a vertical plane - their ribs move very little. Some
138
find it difficult to empty the lungs - this has to be achieved by

letting the ribs fall towards the centre of the body NOT BY
TIGHTENING THE EPIGASTRIUM OR ABDOMEN. This tightening can be
observed easily by an onlooker', and not easily felt by the student,
so it has to be pointed out the moment it occurs, otherwise he is
usually unaware that it is time to stop for the next in flow of
air.
The process can then be refined. The student can deliberately start
counting when the ribs have sprung only half way to their full
capacity, cr when only quarter of the way. Then he can compare this
.with allowing the ribs to spring to nearly full capacity before
starting to speak or sing. In this way he can decide how many numbers
he can count according to the amount of air he has allowed to flow
into his lungs. The sensation of speaking right to the last quantity
if air WITHOUT TENSING is the one that allows the rib reflex to
spring. Experiencing that last released "squeeze" on the air gives
the singer
1. access to the reflex spring
2. several more seconds to add on to the length of his phrase
3. a sensation of the "core" of his sound
A. help with the UP direction of the body on expiration
5. extension of the full range of rib capacity
6. avoidance of the necessity for fixing the ribsat the most
extended point because he learns to trust the extra reserve
of the inner core
7. the tapering of the phrasing associated with the expiration
of the last quantity of controlled air flow.
This' is the process of becoming re-acquainted with the natural

breathing capacity, obviously leamt much more successfully by
demonstration rather than by reading. At no stage should the
singer gasp for or drag in air - if he does this, he prevents the
ribs from acting in a reflex-facilitated manner. It cannot be
expected that a singer will never interfere with this reflex by
forcing his ribs outwards, but it is useful for him to be able to
distinguish between the two sensations. This is a practical
experience of Tidy's description of postural tone (see page 134)
- he is differentiating between a reflex-facilitated manner of
of allowing the ribs to operate and a voluntary manner of forcing
the ribs to move in an outward direction. The most important aspect
of this differentiation is the energy expended. Furthermore, the
ribs become the phrasing controllers, which gives the singing that
139
essential warmth and sincerity associated with natural airflow.
Sitting (on a stool about 60 cm. high)

The added bonus to the reflex-facilitated rib action is
that the muscles in the lower abdomen start to supply the
energy in the vocal tone of their own accord. Releasing
tension in the lower abdomen before making sound allows
the natural connections of the flexor muscles running between
the upper leg/front lower abdomen and the lower back ribs,
vital to the coordination of support for the diaphragm and rib
controlling action. Sitting on the stool makes the singer
more aware of the actual movements in the muscles of the
pelvic floor and he can learn to mentally direct the
quality of this action. He can experience the same sensations
sitting on the horse without leg tensions.
Standing
The whole system of reflex-facilitated breathing can be
interfered with by tightening in the legs. Achieving success
in lying and sitting positions encourages the singer to
believe that tightness in the buttocks and legs is not
necessary for making good sounds. The legs can be encouraged
to stay free by testing whether or not the knees are braced -
if the student stands with weight on one leg, the muscles of
the thigh should not be hard and fixed, but respond loosely to
rolling by the hands. The student can also stand on one
leg and allow balancing and rebalancing to occur before
placing the other foot on the floor - he should keep this
balancing and rebalancing sensation in both legs while singing.
"Monkey"
The mechanical advantages of the "monkey" position can be
put to good use once the Alexander student is advanced enough
to sustain the "monkey” without undue strain. (Small children
use this position automatically for bending and picking up
objects, but in general adults have to re-learn the freedom
in the joints designed for bending - ankles, knees and hips).
"Monkey" enables the student to carry out an action with the
extensor muscles of his body at their maximum length. To achieve
this length he must release the whole extensor system from under
the feet, behind the calf, through the thigh, behind the buttocks,
1AO
up the spine and into the base of the skull. In addition, he

develops strength in the flexor system which balances the extensor
system throughout the body. Reflex-facilitated action is stimu
lated by clear mental intention, which in turn allows muscles
to lengthen, which in turn enables the muscle fibres to carry
the intended action. By lengthening all the extensor muscles
in the body the student is working from a position of maximum
advantage which discourages him from shortening in his singing.
Once he trusts this lengthening and it has become a part of
■his breathing mechanism, of course the "monkey" position has
served its purpose.
Even if the singer develops ways of achieving the sounds he

wants with specific deliberate actions within his breathing
mechanism it is important that he should retain his ability
to operate reflex-facilitated breathing. If he does, then
he can use this ability to measure how far from naturally
co-ordinated breathing his technique is taking him. In
practice this means that if an operatic role requires constant
tension-producing breath control, or he is abnormally tired
after singing the role, and he is losing his ability to
operate reflex-facilitated breathing, then he has a tool for
making a knowledgeable decision about the role. He can also
use the reflex-facilitated breathing to release whatever
tension is being retained in his muscles after a strenuous
rehearsal or performance. He can use the reflex-facilitated
breathing while learning the role in order to save himself
from building unnecessary tension habits into his performance
of the role. It is, however, my own experience that the
performances I have given in which I have used reflex-
facilitated breathing to my maximum ability are the ones which
have been most enjoyable for both the audience and myself.
The Reality of Tension

I return, however, to the point made by Leigh Howard on page
6 - "awareness of physical tension as a fact..." In reality
one has to live with tension as a singer and one is also faced
as a singing teacher with students at very different stages
in relation to the ideal of reflex-facilitated breathing,
141
some of them moving further and further away from it. Each
student has a different combination of difficulties:
a) learned habits of "breathing technique" - rigid abdomen,

fixed ribs, pushing diaphragm, tight gluteal muscles, tight
thighs, stiff knees and feet. These can take years to
eliminate.
b) minimal breathing flexibility that requires conscious
development.
z) Imbalanced activity in the breathing mechanism that eventually
relies on the total support from one muscle group while
cancelling out the activities of another muscle group.
d) loss of belief in the breathing system that leads to a
"shut down" in the whole system.
e) good natural breathing balance that needs to be increased
for extension of range.
Whatever category a singer fits into, his responsibility is to

use his breathing mechanism as flexibly as he can at every
stage, if he wants to retain his vocal quality throughout his
career. Over-tense muscles become exhausted over the years of
undue wear and tear and it is a sad event for the singer's
main skill and means of self-expression to become prematurely
exhausted. Alexander Technique assists the singer in finding
the balance between effort and ease and redressing it when
necessary.
From the teacher's point of view, it can be a long, painstaking

path from the over-tense breathing mechanism to the flexible
command of natural air flew; but, for the long term health of
the student's voice, it is necessary to keep the student's
direction aimed towards the natural breath support. This is as
true for professional students as it is for those who take
singing lessons purely as a therapy.
Once the breath support attains an easy flow, the finer details
of vowel formation , mouth position, tongue agility, jaw release,
facial tension and "placing" of resonance become much more
responsive to true mental direction. The increased powers of
mental direction gained in Alexander Technique lessons are invaluable
142
when dealing with these factors.
It must be recognised that a skill learned with ingrained tension

habits will be dominated by those habits until such time as the
Alexander re-education is strong enough and clear enough to
compete with the ingrained response to the stimulus of wanting
to execute the skill in an "end-gaining" manner. To reach this
stage, it is necessary for the singer to have a sufficient
numbers of lessons to apply the principle of inhibition and
thereby allow the skill to "happen". There is no standard
"course" of lessons because this stage is reached by different
people at different speeds. Descriptions and theoretical
principles are useful, but do not take the place of the direct
experience gained with the assistance of an Alexander Technique
teacher. Once the process of applying improved use becomes an
integral part of the singer's awareness, he has acquired a
fundamental skill vital to his development as a performing
artist.
143
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Vol. 21, February 1947).
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Medical Faculty of the University of the Witwatersrand.
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Garcia II, Manuel, A Complete Treatise on the Art of Singings Parts One
and Two, (New York, Da Capo Press, 1984 from 1841
and 1872 editions).
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1894).
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Gormon, David, The Body Moveable,Vol I, II, & III.
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Kahn & Averill, 1978).
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1951).
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Ltd.,1983.)
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the Art of Singing, (University of Missouri-Kansas City,
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INFORMATION TO USERS

The following explanation o f techniques is provided to help clarify markings or

2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a round black mark, it is an

4. For illustrations that cannot be satisfactorily reproduced by xerographic

The application of the Alexander technique to the teaching and

Lloyd, Gwyneth, M .Mus.

University of Stellenbosch (South Africa), 1987

Copyright ©1988 by Lloyd, Gwyneth. All rights reserved.

300 N. Zeeb Rd.

1. Glossy photographs or pages_____

2. Colored illustrations, paper or print______

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15. Dissertation contains pages with print at a slant, filmed as received_________

16. Other __________ ____ ________

TO THE TEACHING AND PERFORMING OF

A CASE STUDY APPROACH

Thesis presented in partial fulfilment

Supervisor t Miss Nellie du Toi fc

All Rights Reserved

FREDERICK MATTHIAS ALEXANDER

The Alexander Technique is an important addition to man's

Grateful thanks to the Conservatorium of Music of the University of

Bursaries received with grateful thanks:

Special thanks to my supervisor, Nellie du Toit, whose constant

I acknowledge an enormous debt of gratitude to Wayne Long, vocal

The Alexander Teachers:

Walter and Dilys Carrington, whose encouragement and constructive

The Photographers: my father Geraint Lloyd, Neil Schapera and

The Alexander Technique/Voice Teachers:

Beret Arcaya (private teacher in Manhattan, New York) who devoted

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

I had been singing in London for seven years, initially in the

I decided to devote a year to examining my vocal technique.

1. My torso gradually dropped forward and downward while singing.

2. My arms were tense while I sang. This was also an old

A. My lower back did not participate flexibly in the breathing

These were the most noticeable symptoms of a singing technique

As I was casting round for solutions, I noticed that other singers,

Each singer has his own combination of physical tensions and

1. Fixed neck - either with chin too high or too low.

2. Fixed eyes - habitually on the floor or directed over

3- Stiff jaw - almost every singer has to pay attention to

A. Pulling down the chest - another very common problem

5. Over-tensed diaphragm - the epigastrium (stomach wall)

6. Rising shoulders - part of the pulling down in the

7. Lower back - either a rigid tension or total lack of

9. Tight thighs - often associated with the effort of high

10. Knees braced - tends to encourage rigidity throughout

11. Feet tense - also stiffens the whole body, right up to

16. Other __

I return to Frank Pierce Jones , Research Associate at Tufts Insti