Rediscovering Balance and Ease
Rediscovering balance and ease has been a goal of mine since I started my Alexander studies in 1999. For several months at the University of Northern Iowa I had been practicing my bass many hours a day, with poor technique, no coordination and a fundamental lack of understanding about how the body works. I had will-power and I was going to push through the pain. Until I couldn’t anymore… It hurt to turn the door knob to my room. The pain was so severe I scheduled a few appointment with doctors and had a couple cortisone injections in my left hand. It wasn’t working.
Deflated, I approached a few of my teacher to report that I wasn’t cut out for this music thing — my body was failing me. I needed to quit and find something else to do. Lucky for me, one of my professors recommended I go see an Alexander Technique teacher. I brought my bass and explained the problem. She had me standing on both feet, a little taller, breathing without internal interference and wouldn’t you know it, the pain went away. This was a eureka moment for me. “You mean to tell me (I am talking to myself), that I am causing this pain myself?!”
I spent the next 10 years taking lessons with Alexander Teachers in Ames and Iowa City, Iowa. I moved to NYC to finish a Master’s Degree in Jazz Bass Performance from William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ. I took Alexander Technique lessons in Urbana, Il, in Boston, MA and New York City. I studied with authors of books about the AT and visiting master teachers. The pain was mostly gone but occasionally I would not be paying attention and it would start to creep back in.
After grad school I moved to Brooklyn, NY and immersed myself in the music scene. I played jazz and then quickly realized that if I wanted to make money, I needed to play other music too. I started playing with a few songwriters, in a couple country bands, I played polka gigs, blues, rock, folk and Americana music. I played cabaret, theater gigs, big band gigs, an occasional chamber music wedding gig. I also got a day job...
A few years later, I was able to quit my day job and I left on my first US tour with a whisper folk banjo player and my brother Alex. We toured the US for 2 months in a Honda mini-van and played house shows, club gigs, back yards and I was stoked, I had made it. Sleeping in the van, on floors, in basements, in tents in national parks. I was a touring musician. I had also made about $750 in 8 weeks. When I got back to NYC, there were still bills to pay and I needed to do more.
I landed a gig a few months later with an artist on a label. We toured the world—again with my brother Alex. We traveled in a van. We stayed in hotels. We played on TV, we played on TV in other counties... We traveled premium economy to Europe, Japan, and Japan again. We played festivals. We were tired. After 18 months of nearly constant touring, the label decided we were through. I had money in the bank and a very sore back.
A week after I turned 30, I enrolled in the Balance Arts Center Alexander Technique Teacher Training Course. I didn’t have any gigs and I was tired.