The musical comedy team Igudesman and Joo have come up with one solution for the pianist with smaller sized hands learning Rachmaninoff :

Nancy Byl is a physical therapist who cares for patients in the physical therapy clinic at UCSF Medical Center and administrative director of the Peter Ostwald Health Program for Performing Artists. She has a special clinical interest in repetitive strain injury, chronic pain and focal hand dystonia as well as the neurological rehabilitation of patients with integrative balance disorders and those recovering from stroke. She is involved in research related to neuroplasticity, specifically strategies for sensorimotor retraining to decrease pain, improve fine motor control and maximize general function.

Featured music is Variations on a Tune of Stephen Foster: #5 by Richard Winslow, copyright 2002 by Azica Records, as performed by guitarist David Leisner post-recovery from focal dystonia.

Robert Rickover teaches the Alexander Technique in Lincoln, Nebraska and Toronto, Canada, working with individual students and with groups. He graduated from the School of Alexander Studies in London, England in 1981 where he also served on the faculty. He studied for over fifteen years with master Alexander teacher Marjorie Barstow and frequently assisted her in teaching her Alexander Technique workshops in Lincoln, Nebraska. Robert began a private teaching practice in Toronto, Canada in 1981 and maintains a dual practice since moving to Lincoln, Nebraska in 1990. He holds degrees in physics and economics from Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Robert is a teaching member of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT), the American Society for the Alexander Technique (AmSAT) and Alexander Technique International (ATI). He is the creator of The Complete Guide to the Alexander Technique and is the co-host of Alexander Talk. He is the Director of Alexander Technique Workshops – Bring a Workshop to Your Area and Movement Coaching by Phone and is on the faculty of the Annual High School Solo Singer Workshop at Nebraska Wesleyan University.

The featured music on this podcast is Quicksand, which is on the new release “Takeoff” by Legends of the Potomac. Many thanks to member Darren Beachley for this track!

Jamie Ridler MA CPCC is a professional certified coach and an expert in creative living. Through one-on-one coaching, workshops and online resources, she helps creative independent spirits align their lives with their deepest truths. Her background in the arts includes dance, theatre and the expressive arts and infuses her coaching at every turn. Her popular website, Jamie Ridler Studios (http://www.openthedoor.ca), is home to a variety of online events ranging from weekly wishing (http://www.jamieridlerstudios.ca/wishcasting) to Full Moon Dreamboards (http://www.jamieridlerstudios.ca/full-moon-dreamboards). She also hosts a weekly podcast, Creative Living with Jamie (http://www.creativelivingwithjamie.ca), on which Diana has had the honor of appearing, and is about to launch a free-form dance party in her hometown, Toronto. At the heart of all of Jamie’s work lies a commitment to helping people bring their creativity to life!

Links:

website: http://www.jamieridlerstudios.ca
twitter: http://www.twitter.com/starshyne
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jamieridlerstudios

Principal Clarinetist of the Columbus Symphony in Ohio since 1989, David H Thomas has had an outstanding career as a soloist as well as an orchestral player.

During his previous position as Principal Clarinetist of the Kennedy Center Orchestra in Washington, DC, he was also well known in the Washington area for his numerous solo and chamber music recitals.

Beyond his many appearances as soloist with the Columbus Symphony, Mr. Thomas has performed concertos with the Baltimore Symphony, the National Symphony and the National Chamber Orchestra. At age 18 he won First Prize in competitions sponsored by the International Clarinet Society and the Music Teacher National Association.

Born into a Foreign Service family, David grew up as a world traveler, living in India and Iran as well as Washington D.C. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, collecting antique quilts, cooking, gardening and writing for his blog, The Buzzing Reed.

Direct download or play podcast here.

Gary Kosloski, Canadian-born violinist and winner of the Governor General’s Medal, has been highly praised for his outstanding qualities as soloist, chamber musician, concertmaster and teacher. He has performed in Canada, Europe, and the United States, making a successful New York debut in 1985.

Mr. Kosloski has been the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards from the Canada Council of the Arts and from the Indiana University School of Music. He holds a Doctor of Music degree in performance from Indiana University where his teacher was the renowned pedagogue, Josef Gingold. Additional training in Canada, the United States and Europe includes studies with Howard Leyton-Brown, Max Rostal, Tadeusz Wronski and Franco Gulli.

Mr. Kosloski is a founding member of the Elysian Trio, acclaimed in the New York Times for its “musical vitality and intelligence.” He has also served as concertmaster and soloist with the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, the Cleveland Ballet Orchestra, and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony. He has participated in the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, the St. Barth’s Festival, and the Sunflower Music Festival.

Dr. Kosloski has taught on the faculties of Baldwin-Wallace College, the University of Oklahoma, and Florida State University as a professor of violin, and has coordinated the chamber music programs for the Music Academy of the West, the Lucca Festival, and the Oberlin-in-Italy program in Urbania. He has had articles published in Strad Magazine and the American String Teachers’ Journal, and is completing an English translation of Dominique Hoppenot’s metaphysical look at violin playing, Le violon interieur (The Violin Within).

Gary Kosloski currently teaches privately in New York City and at the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, NY. He also serves on the board of The Golden Key Music Institute directed by Madeline Bruser, author of The Art of Practicing.

Recording credited to Hänssler Classics, with the Oregon Bach Festival and Helmuth Rilling.

Stephen Burns

Trumpet virtuoso and conductor Stephen Burns is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Fulcrum Point New Music Project in Chicago. He has been acclaimed on four continents for his consistently and widely varied performances encompassing recitals, orchestral appearances, chamber ensemble engagements, and innovative multi-media presentations involving video, dance theatre, and sculpture. He began his studies at the age of ten and made his professional debut at the age of 14 performing Handel Aria “Let the Bright Seraphim” with coloratura soprano Elizabeth Phinney. In 1988 he won First Prize at the second Maurice Andre International Competition for Trumpet in France, which brought him numerous international engagements, including a Paris recital, national television appearances and tours of Europe, Asia and the United States.

Mr. Burns has performed in the major concert halls of New York, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Houston, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, and Venice. He has been a guest at the White House and has appeared on NBC’s “Today Show” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” His European tours have taken him to Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland for guest appearances with orchestras, as well as recitals and performances on radio and television. On tour in the Far East he won rave reviews, which singled out his remarkable tone, musicianship, and technical facility. In recent seasons he has appeared with many leading international orchestras including the Atlanta Symphony under Neeme Jarvi, The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Iona Brown, The Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, The Arturo Toscanini Orchestra of Parma, the Japan National Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony under Gerard Schwarz, and a United States tour with the Leipzig Kammerorkester. His recital programs often feature his own transcriptions of Falla’s El Amor Brujo, Prokofiev’s Lt. Kije, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, the latter scored for trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, bass trumpet, and piano.

In 1998 Stephen Burns was invited to create innovative new music programs as the Artist in Residence with Performing Arts Chicago. He founded Fulcrum Point New Music Project whose mission is to champion classical music influenced and inspired by Pop culture, Jazz, Rock, Blues, Latin, Folk, Klezmer, World Music, literature, film, art, dance, and theatre.

A conducting student of Jorma Panula and Pinchas Zukerman, Mr. Burns often appears as both soloist and conductor with orchestras performing repertoire ranging from the Second Brandenburg Concerto and Haydn’s Eb major concerto to works by Copland, Shostakovitch and André Jolivet. He has performed this dual role with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, the Simon Bolivar Orquesta, the Orquesta da Camera del Tachira, the Sea Cliff Chamber Orchestra, and the American Concerto Orchestra.

He has given numerous premiers by American composers (Rorem, David Stock, Gunther Schuller, Robert Rodriguez, Philip Glass) as well as composers of international renown (Stockhausen, Franck Amsallem, Somei Satoh, Sallinen). Committed to new music, Mr. Burns has written for trumpet, electronic music, chamber music and symphony orchestra. His composition “Reflections,” a work created in collaboration with choreographer Ruby Shang, was performed around the Henry Moore reflecting pool at Lincoln Center. In 1993 he composed and performed the Inaugural Fanfare for the Kuhmon Talon Concert Hall and his most recent composition, “Variations in America” was premiered in Hyannis, MA as part if their Independence Day celebration. He is currently composing Phalanx, a multi-media work based upon American military musical themes.

Stephen Burns is a frequent guest artist at many prestigious summer festivals including Santa Fe, Kuhmo, Tanglewood, Mostly Mozart, Spoleto, Caramoor, Lieksa, Grand Canyon, Moab, Estate Musicale St. Cecilia, and Divonne les Bains. His recordings include Telemann for Trumpet, with the American Concerto Orchestra, on Dorian, The Complete Sonatas for Brass by Paul Hindemith on Helicon, The Complete Brandenburg Concerti with Helmuth Rilling on Haenssler Classics, and Trumpet Voluntary on ASV records. He has also recorded for Kleos, Musical Heritage Society, Delos, Classical Masters, Ess.ay and Grammavision.

Originally from Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, Stephen Burns studied under Armando Ghitalla, Gerard Schwarz, Pierre Thibaud, and Arnold Jacobs at the Tanglewood Music Center, the Julliard School (BM/MM 1981-82), as well as in Paris and Chicago for post-graduate studies. He has won many prestigious awards including the 1981 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, 1982 Avery Fisher Career Grant, the 1983 National Endowment for the Arts Recitalist Grant, the Naumburg Scholarship at Juilliard, “Outstanding Brass Player” at Tanglewood and the aforementioned 1988 Maurice Andre Concour International de Paris. Sought after internationally for master classes, Mr. Burns is a former tenured Professor of Music at Indiana University and Visiting Lecturer at the Arturo Toscanini Foundation Corso MYTHOS in Bologna, Italy. He presently resides in Chicago with his wife, school psychologist, Kate Neisser and their twin sons Edward and Isaac. Stephen Burns is a Yamaha performing artist.

An interview with Stephen Burns.

Recommended resources:

Embouchures.com
The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer
The Art of Brass Playing by Philip Farkas
Windsong Press
The Art of Possibility by Benjamin Zander
The Empty Space by Peter Brook
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa

Contacting and working with Stephen Burns:
Email him at stephen@fulcrumpoint.org
Amici Della Musica
The Center for Advanced Musical Studies
Teaching Materials:
Art of Phrasing
Mind Word
Music First

There are lots of reasons to play music. I can think of a few:

To get famous
To get rich
To feel superior to others
To feel powerful
To feel angsty and misunderstood

I can also think of a few others:
To connect with others
To share with others – beauty, humanity, despair, fun
To communicate in new ways
To experience and share love

Chances are, you have experienced many of these reasons for your music and more. I have.

Which feel good in your body? Try on each thought in the above lists and notice how it makes you feel physically.

Which create stress?

Which feel true for you?

Connecting with your truth about why it is you make music will help you make music less stressfully, more joyfully, and feeling good inside and out.

1. More is better. Practice until it hurts. You need repetition and drills to really get the piece into your system.

Consider this thought: There are many ways of learning, including listening, visualization from a first-person or a third person perspective, improvising in the chord/rhythm/style of the passage, and alternating activities or passages, as well as repetition of the same passage in the same way again and again.

2. If it gets really bad you should stop altogether and lose all work on your instrument. Complete rest is the only alternative.

See #1 above.

3. Playing should feel hard for you to know you’re getting something done.

Consider this thought: The body communicates through feelings. If you don’t listen to your child as they say, “I’m having fun”, “I’m hungry”, “I’m upset”, or “My stomach hurts, I’m so hungry”, they will start screaming for your attention.

Your body communicates different messages in different degrees, too, but if you aren’t listening to it, it needs to resort to “screaming” in pain! There could be a lot of helpful messages for you buried underneath the pain.

4. Go it alone. If you have pain, that’s something to keep to yourself because it just means that you need to practice harder to get stronger. Only see a doctor if the pain gets so bad that you can no longer play two weeks before a huge concert.

Athletes have doctors, therapists, trainers, and psychologists on their teams in order to play their best. They don’t expect their bodies to magically feel perfect all the time and then berate themselves for consulting experts when necessary.

You use your body just as finely and constantly as a musician! Have a team of experts in place to keep you at your best and get you back on track before things get out of hand.

5. Pain is a sign of weakness and should be ignored until it goes away.

See #3 above. Also consider that most musicians do not lack the strength to play their instruments. In fact, they are overusing the areas in pain, and the last thing they need is to strength train muscles that are overcompensating for other areas or for poor body mechanics!

Strength may be needed in the large areas of the body for overall body stability and endurance, but the small muscles of the fingers and forearms usually do not need any more work than they already get!

Melissa Hullman

In addition, Ms. Hullman served on the faculty of the Peabody Institute for eight years as a member of the Violin and Viola Faculty, where she was co-founder and co-director of the Peabody Chamber Camp, and co-chair of Peabody’s Young People’s String Program. As an undergraduate, Ms. Hullman was a teaching assistant at the prestigious Meadowmount School and Executive Director and Chamber Music Faculty of a summer string program at the University of Michigan. Her versatility as a player has taken her from concerts as a recitalist and orchestral musician to engagements with a kaleidoscope of musicians, including Americana songwriter Caleb Stine, Indian slide guitarist Dave Cipriani, tabla master Debu Nyack, contemporary percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani, and Carnatic singer KS Resmi. Recent performances include engagements at Canadian Music Week, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland Hall for the Performing Arts, the Creative Alliance, the University of Baltimore, and Old Dominion University. Ms. Hullman holds a Bachelors of Music in Violin Performance from the University of Michigan, and a Masters of Music in Violin Performance and Pedagogy from the Peabody Conservatory.
Melissa’s website
International Association of Yoga Therapists
Anusara Yoga