“Laurel, your sound stops at your butt.”
Ground
All hilarious Family Guy-esque
mental pictures aside, this interchange, ladies and gentlemen, comes from my
first lesson with Dr. Karl Paulnack while at The Boston Conservatory. Imagine my surprise when one of the most
profoundly gifted, insightful, and dear teachers I came to know began a series
of comments in my first lesson with that!
He continued:
“I’m sitting here listening, and you are so
ungrounded that it actually feels like your sound stops at your butt. You’re only using half of your body to
play. You need to get grounded!”
The idea of getting grounded was not new, but it was
still a rather elusive concept. First
introduced to me in an acting class, I learned there how important it was to
“find your feet” in order to breathe openly (aka properly) and connect with the objectives of my character. In my musical training before this lesson
with Dr. Paulnack there was only brief mention of such a concept, and it was usually
tied into getting “centered” for a multi solo or timpani excerpt, never just on
its own as an important factor.
Throughout the rest of that lesson, Dr. Paulnack and
I talked about ways to find the support of the body; he spoke from a pianist’s
point of view, which was still incredibly helpful, as they have an additional
obstacle in the process due to the fact that they sit when they play. The body is the body and playing music is
playing music, regardless of the medium – I learned much from Dr. Paulnack,
even though we only had four lessons together.
Find Your Feet
We call someone “grounded” when they seem to have a
solid handle on the priorities of life, are not thrown off balance by shallow
encounters or arguments, and know who
they are. The phrase “down to earth”
is synonymous, too.
But here’s the one I really like – find
your feet.
It reminds me of two important things when playing
music: 1- make sure your sound doesn’t stop at your butt; and 2- find the depth
and priority of a piece, and then get comfortable with it. These two ideas are more connected than they
may seem. The process of physically
getting grounded incorporates an emotional and psychological calm, a sort of
inward focus that facilitates full-body connection. Through this calm we see more clearly into
the analysis and understanding of a piece, and find a relaxed freedom that grants
even more discovery during practice.
“Find your feet” is a remarkably literal phrase for
physically grounding yourself. I’ll
never forget an experience during a Stage Movement class in undergrad – on the
first day, the teacher had us take off our shoes and led us through an exercise
to find our feet. I felt like, for the
first time, I felt the floor, and it
made me stand up in better alignment, move with ease, and gave me a bit of
confidence that I had no idea could begin at the soles of my feet. Here’s what she took us through:
1 1.
Barefoot,
with both feet on the floor, shift weight towards left foot and roll the right
foot from flat to balanced on the tip of the toes (think ballerinas on
pointe). Do this a few times, noting
sensations and connections to the floor.
2 2.
Still
with the right foot, place the top of the toes on the floor and gently
press. (This will make your foot into a
C-shape, with the sole on the inside curve of the C.) Alternate between that and step 1.
3 3.
Shift
your total weight to your left foot, and with the right slightly off the
ground, roll the ankle in slow circles alternating directions: clockwise and
counter-clockwise.
4 4.
Repeat
steps 1-3 for the left foot.
5 5.
Stand
balanced on both feet and take notice of the sensation of the heel on the floor, the big toe on the floor, the pads
of all other toes on the floor. Notice,
too, the texture and temperature of the floor itself. Chances are, you’ll notice more than you did
before going through this exercise.
Our teacher said something that really stuck with
me: the floor comes up to meet you.
Sounds odd, but bare with me. The
implications here are that the relationship between foot and floor is dynamic;
when we stand, we aren’t static on a surface, but there is “give” on both
sides. (Don’t believe me? Remember your parents’ squeaky wood floor and
you’ll see that I’m right…) More than
that, the image of the floor rising to support me gave me a larger sense of
power and confidence, and I realized immediately that such an idea could not
only transform my playing (and acting), but also help with performance anxiety,
which is, of course, very real.
Barefoot Craze
Chances are you’ve noticed that some people like to
play barefoot, and I’m not talking just we young’uns in the practice room. Dame Evelyn Glennie likes to play barefoot,
and she’s Evelyn Glennie, so… just saying.
Here’s a clip from an interview.
I think most musicians would very much like to take their shoes off frankly. And of course, most musicians are already connected with their instruments…they have that instrument resting on part of their body. With percussion you often don’t. You’re detached by the stick, or mallet. So it just gives me that extra dimension of feeling the sound… (source)
But seriously, there is something about playing
barefoot that is comfortable in every sense of the word. What’s cool is how it sets us up to find our
feet and ground ourselves. For Evelyn to
feel the sound she needs a dynamic relationship with the floor, not a reactive
one.
Connection to the floor also reminds us that we
have legs. When I’m in the middle of
a marathon practice I know I’m guilty of forgetting that my legs can be
active, not just supports for my torso.
Whenever I feel disconnected, I free them by first locking all the
joints in my legs and playing a passage, then unlocking everything and playing
the passage again: it always
sounds better the second time. Sometimes
I even do a few squats to help my hips unlock – we, as the bipedal animals we
are, tend to lock them far forward, with the pelvis pushed out of alignment
with the spine. It’s painful in the long
run, but doing a few squats helps restore the proper relationship.
Of course, not everyone plays barefooted, or plays standing
up for that matter. I’ve seen NaokoTakada play a concert in 5 inch heels, and then there’s Pius Cheung, who
negates all of this by sitting down while he plays. I’ve asked him about it, and he says that
sitting helps him feel relaxed and connected to his breath. I’m sure you’d agree: it seems to be working,
because he’s a badass.
Full Body Sound
As we feel the floor we establish a connection with
our legs. When this happens we set
ourselves up to play with our entire bodies, not just our arms or our
wrists.
I drew some diagrams to help explain what I mean.
 |
| breath/mind connection (in orange) flows freely into the floor and back up support from the floor (in green) rises to the top of the head and back down |
 |
| breath/mind connection is blocked and cut short, not even reaching the wrists support from the floor is completely blocked, rendering the legs inactive |
In addition to helping with loud dynamics and expressivity, playing with the whole body in mind can greatly reduce the risk of injury. Personally, I’m drawn towards rep that forces me to use my legs, which usually means there will be some wide range spreads in the piece. Every time I reach for them I am reminded to unlock my leg joints, which gives me a sort of checkpoint for grounding and connection.
All of us would rather play easily and freely from a body that is fully connected; when we don't do that we resemble the second drawing: a body in two pieces, neither of which is properly supported.
A disconnected body makes technical passages more difficult, expressivity feel forced, and creates a sound that stops at the butt. Since I want my playing to go much farther than the butt (ok, it even feels weird to type that), I remind myself to get grounded by visualizing the first drawing, especially if a practice session isn't going well. Once I find my feet there's usually a profound difference.
Getting grounded is still something I remind myself of everyday, but hopefully one day it will be just as natural as my heart beating - that's the goal, anyway.
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Next in the Marimba Body series: Hips and Sciatics
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