BodyMinded Thinking in the Performance of Music

 by Greg Holdaway  April 28th, 2021

© The Vital Gaitway, Center for Body Education

Musicians contribute so much to the personal and cultural well-being of the community and play music because they love it. Given that, it is a shame that for some, a career and/or long-term love of playing is associated with levels of stress and discomfort – sometimes a great deal of stress and discomfort. There are musicians who have become so injured as a consequence of their playing that they have been unable to continue with their beloved music making. Thankfully that is not everyone, but in the ranks of committed musicians, struggling with well-being while performing at their best is more common than you might realise.

That statement is supported by research into musicians’ wellbeing that is growing year by year1. As a result, physical and psychological struggles with playing, particularly high intensity playing, is being increasingly recognised as a professional problem that needs to be addressed.

This series of articles from BodyMinded in Australia aims to provide a practical guide to preventing and addressing playing related injury and stress, and in the process support development of musical potential at all levels of achievement.

If your focus is on performance, rather than dealing with injury, these articles will also provide support. Musicians move in order to make music, and as an embodied sense of how to cooperate with your own structure and your instrument takes hold, you will find your instrument becoming an integrated extension of the sense of yourself and the music will flow increasingly with ease, power and facility2.

And finally, after years of providing professional development training for music teachers, I’m aware of how deeply teachers take their responsibility for the well-being of their students. Creatively teaching safe body-use as a part of music lessons will help to prevent the kinds of difficulties that often arise when a musician becomes more serious and begins spending many more hours playing.

Treating the instrument as an extension of the self is common amongst long-term instrumentalists. I had a student in a workshop one day who, when I said “hello”, leant sideways to reply to me. Curious about that, I moved to the other side of the person and asked another question. Sure enough, he leant to the other side in order to answer! The next day he came to a musician’s class, with his instrument. A large tuba, which he sat with on his lap…

© K.C. Strings Violin Shop

Let’s get started with a practical illustration. Many instrumentalists experience shoulder and neck stiffness or discomfort, or experience heaviness in the arms after playing for a while. Here is a simple question: where do your arms attach to your body? Take a moment to point or touch that part of your body. Did you point to the outside of your shoulders? This is most usual representation.

Now feel your collarbones, at the top front of your chest. Feel along towards the centre until you find the bump where the collarbone attaches to the breastbone. This is the only bony joint where the arm bones attach to the rest of the skeleton. You can feel this by using one hand to feel how your collarbone moves as you lift the other arm. Can you feel it? When your arm moves the whole shoulder girdle (collarbone and shoulder blade) are involved. The arms are suspended from the spine, via those shoulder and neck muscles that are sometimes so uncomfortable. The shoulder blades are embedded in muscles that mean they can move a whole lot; up, down, forward, back, always in support of and following the movements of the arm.

This means that when you raise or use your arms for any purpose, your shoulder girdle is involved. The collarbones and shoulder blades are arm bones! See what happens if you try to keep your shoulder girdle held still or back while moving your arms, and then compare that to letting the shoulders move with and in response to movements of your arms. Can you feel the difference?  

Thinking about this a pianist comes to mind who complained of long-standing shoulder and arm discomfort while playing. Nothing had made a difference, and she had lived with that for a long time. After exploring how much her shoulder girdle can move the instruction became: “let your shoulders move when you bring your hands to the keyboard”. The result, so much relief she burst into tears.

This story illustrates how discomfort may be a consequence of simple misunderstanding about how things work. The BodyMinded process is to practise conscious cooperation with the way things work. This is sometimes stated as: Let everything move that needs to move in service of your activity.

Each article in this series will cover a specific example of BodyMinded thinking in practise, concluding with a general principle that applies to achieving and teaching good coordination as a musician. In this way I hope to assist you with your enjoyment and wellbeing in playing, and support those who are teaching others.

1 For example, of respondents to an extensive survey of Australia’s 8 full-time orchestras “84% had experienced pain or injuries that had interfered either with playing their instrument or participating in normal orchestral rehearsals and performances” Musculoskeletal Pain and Injury in Professional Orchestral Musicians in Australia B. Ackermann, T. Driscoll, D.T. Kenny https://doi.org/10.21091/mppa.2012.4034

2 There is neurological research which suggests that the brain grows the neurological ‘map’ of the self to include the instrument, in that sense the instrument does actually become an ‘extension of the self’. Coding of modified body schema during tool use by macaque postcentral neurones A. Iriki, M. Tanaka, Y. Iwamura https://doi.org/10.1097/00001756-199610020-00010

“Every great inspiration is but an experiment.”

 

“Every great inspiration is but an experiment.”

Charles Ives

Unconscious bursts of creativity that engender significant artistic endeavors are not necessarily inspired by passionate romantic love alone. Greek mythology believed that this kind of stimulus came from nine muses, the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. Muses were long considered the source of knowledge embodied in poetry, lyric songs and ancient myths. Throughout the history of Western art, artists, writers and musicians have prayed to the muses, or alternately, drawn inspiration from personified muses that conceptually reside beyond the borders of earthly love. True to life, however, composer inspiration has emerged from the entire spectrums of existence and being. Nature has always played a decidedly important role in the inspiration of various classical composers, as did exotic cities, landscapes or rituals. Composer inspiration is also found in poetry, the visual arts, and mythological stories and tales. Artistic, historical or cultural expressions of the past are just as inspirational as is the everyday: the third Punic War or the contrapuntal mastery of Bach is inspirationally just as relevant as are the virulent bat and camel. Composer inspiration is delightfully drawn from heroes and villains, scientific advances, a pet, or something as mundane as a hangover. Discover what fires the imagination of people who never stop asking questions.

A Super Productive Summer!

 August 31st, 2026

August 31st, 2026

Credit: NPR Classical on Facebook

If Beethoven was German, then why did he have the Dutch "van" Beethoven instead of the German "von" Beethoven?

 

Mathias Weitz

 

Studied at Bundeswehr University Munich

“Beethoven” itself is not German either.

‘Beet‘ is Flemish and means “turnip.” And ‘hoven’ means “field.” So Beethoven should actually be called “Rübenacker” in high german.

Beethoven's family comes from Mechelen in Flanders. So the whole name is Flemish.

If you dig a little deeper, you'll find that the Beethovens themselves probably came from “Bettincourt,” which is the French name for a beet field or turnip field. “van Beethoven” thus means just “from Bettincourt”.
Beethoven's ancestors translated their name from French into Flemish, but then kept it when they moved to Germany.

And to be honest, I'm grateful for that, because “von Beethoven” sounds much better than “vom Rübenacker”.

Returning to the studio

 by Frances Wilson  July 15th, 2018

The late great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould made two significant and highly-acclaimed recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the first in 1955 when he was just 22, the second a quarter of a century later in 1981 when he was nearing the end of his life. Both recordings stand as benchmarks and both offer fascinating insights into the music and Gould’s approach to it. These recordings have never been out of print – a mark of their status and the respect they command in the canon of Bach recordings. The 1955 recording was Gould’s debut disc for Columbia Records and was something of a risk for the record company since at the time the Goldbergs were regarded as one of the obscurities of the repertoire, while the performer was unknown. The 1955 recording is often described as a young man’s recording, full of the exuberance of youth in its extreme tempi and avoidance of some of the repeats. In fact, the swiftness of the playing is partly due to the constraints of the vinyl format and the need to bring the recording within a certain time-frame. No matter: Gould’s Goldbergs became an instant hit, launching both pianist and the work, which entered the standard repertoire of pianists and remains widely performed and recorded to this day.

When Gould re-recorded the Goldbergs in 1981, recording technology had advanced considerably (stereo and Dolby surround sound had been invented and digital recording/editing could be used for mainstream recordings). This gave the artist greater flexibility, with the possibility of multiple takes to create a recording with which he was entirely satisfied. Gould had been unhappy with the tempi in the first recording and felt there was no sense of cohesion or narrative flow between the individual variations. The 1981 recording is undoubtedly that of a mature artist: the tempi are thoughtful, almost autumnal, and there is much greater expression throughout the variations. There are elegance and nobility rather than swooning, nervous energy.  

Gould’s two recordings of the Goldberg Variations demonstrate something profound – that two different approaches to the same notes say a great deal about how one ages and how tastes change over time.

The weather changes. The admirable impetuousness of youth usually yields to a more considered view
– John Humphreys, concert pianist

A recording is a snapshot in time, yet preserved forever, unlike a live performance which is a one-off, never to be repeated. Many artists are dissatisfied with their recordings because they know that they never play the same thing in exactly the same way and no sooner has a recording come out, than they wish they had done things differently. As amply demonstrated by Gould’s Goldbergs, the passage of time allows one to reflect on one’s repertoire and how one plays it. One’s perception of the music changes with time and so it makes perfect sense to re-record from a different, more mature perspective.

Daniel Barenboim

Other notable “repeat” recordings include Daniel Barenboim’s Beethoven Piano Sonatas. Barenboim was a young man when he recorded his first cycle (between 1966 and 1969), and like Gould’s 1955 Goldbergs, there’s an excitement and spontaneity in these readings. He re-recorded the sonatas for Deustche Grammophon in 1981-84 and two decades later Decca released the audio soundtracks of DB’s live performances of the sonatas (performed and filmed in Berlin’s Staatsoper unter den Linden and issued by EMI on DVD). Like Gould’s Goldbergs, these make for fascinating listening, offering one the opportunity to chart the performer’s artistic and interpretative development and maturity, resulting in new or renewed approaches to the music.

That artists choose to re-record works is a mark of how one develops as an artist: one does not and should not stand still artistically. Our responses to our music change with time, experience, growing maturity, and when we return to music we should always find something new within it. For some musicians, capturing the artistic changes that happen across their careers is an important goal and re-recording certain works is a way of marking these changes. In other instances, musicians respond to pressures from a record label: when an artist moves to a new label, they may be encouraged to re-record works to match the success of a previous label.

The best re-recordings don’t recreate, they reinvent. And while listening to them, we try to discover what motivations and inspirations stand behind them.

Making Fun of the Master Richard Wagner in Caricature

 by Maureen Buja  June 24th, 2023

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was a revolutionary in German music and in opera. For opera-goers, the advent of Wagner onto their stages was cause for comment, particularly in the caricature sections. In images, the cartoonists could take aim at all they saw as false or inflated in the music and person of the composer.

The French caricaturist André Gill (1840–1865) had a style that depicted enlarged heads on tiny bodies. He drew Wagner determinedly breaking a listener’s ear by hammering a note into place.

Gill: Wagner, 1868

8 years later, Gill took on “The tetralogist” Wagner by showing him relentlessly banging a pot and being served apple cider by a monkey. Wagner, in the caption, dismisses the French “The French are a people of monkeys” and the cartoonist saying that the ape people now have the art of the scream, which will easily compete with Wagner. Wagner was quoting Voltaire, who called the French a mix of monkeys and tigers (Wagner: Art and Politics, 1868), but the French quickly took the quote out of context.

Gill: Le Tétralogue Wagner, 1876 (L’Eclipse, September)

Another caricature helpfully shows how to create a shadow image of Wagner, although it does require holding your hands in seemingly impossible positions (and the note that the beard should be made with a piece of folded paper).

Trewey: Silhouette of Wagner, 1877

Kreutzburger: Silhouette de Wagner (after Trewey), ca. 1877

The overwhelming use of brass and percussion in Wagner’s scores led to several caricatures including this one showing Wagner beating his own drum for Tannhäuser.

Blass: Wagner, inventor of the bass drum with musical grapeshot, indulging in his favorite exercise

Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) depicts an audience that has been forced ‘par ordre’ to listen to an hour of Wagner. They slouch, they fall asleep, they endure, battered by a hail of notes, wielded by an authoritative hand.

Daumier: A Munich. Après une heure de Wagner par ordre!!, 1868 (Le Charivari, July 8, 1868)

The downside of this is a complaint that Sleep (Morpheus) brings to Zeus – carrying his sack of poppies on his back, he’s out of job, replaced by Wagner.

Cham: Morpheus is out of a job, 1861

Another caricature, after the death of Wagner, shows him arriving in heaven and thanking the angels for the receptions but complaining that there aren’t enough trumpets and drums – you’ll never get a production without them!

Wagner in Heaven, 1883

In a caricature after the death of Wagner, the theatre director Pierre Gailhard (1848–1918), director of the Paris Opera, and the French conductor Charles Lamoureux (1834–1899) bombarded Paris in 1891 with Wagner. They are dressed in ‘the livery of Wagner’, with ‘W’ embroidered everywhere. Wagner is depicted between the two mighty horns as a ghostly shadow. Written under the cannon is ‘Ritt’, director of the Paris Opera, for whom Gailhard worked.

B. Moloch: The New Siege of Paris in 1891

In another depiction of the Opera, Pierre Gailhard and Eugène Ritt (1817–1898) are shown on the peak of the Paris Opera holding a drum and a trombone (more brass and percussion!). Between them, holding a two-handed saw is Wagner. This caricature followed the premiere of Lohengrin at the Opèra.

Gilbert-Martin: Le Nouveau Couronnment de l’Opéra, 1891 (Le Don Quichotte, vol. 18, no. 399)

Another assault with brass, but this time depicting the field of battle as Bayreuth. Wagner is shown with the support of Hans Richter, in the foreground, the conductor at Bayreuth. Between Wagner and Liszt on the top left is Cosima Wagner. Below Wagner is Wilhelm Jahn, director of the Vienna State Opera, and the bass-baritone Emil Scaria, who sang in the premiere of Parsifal. We also have the dragon from Siegfried and Brunnhilde’s horse Grane just above Cosima. Other personalities down the left side include the German Emperor Louis II, the composer Johann von Herbeck, the Rhinemaiden Lili Lehman, actor Josef Lewinsky, and pianist Anton Rubinstein.

Klie: The Battle of Bayreuth, 1876

We’ll close with some of the greatest entry music of all time.

Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts (Born on August 25, 1918) Making Classical Music Irresistible

 by Georg Predota  August 25th, 2026

Can you name the longest-running series of family concerts of classical music in the world? If you grew up in the second half of the 20th century, this is probably not a really difficult question.

The answer, of course, is “The Young People’s Concerts” with the New York Philharmonic. That particular series dates back to conductor Frank Damrosch, who directed a concert aimed at a younger audience in 1898. It developed steadily over the decades, but it was Leonard Bernstein who transformed this series into a cultural phenomenon.

Leonard Bernstein (photo by Jack Mitchell)

As music director of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein wrote, conducted, and narrated a total of 53 episodes from 1958 to 1972. Broadcast by CBS and syndicated in over 40 countries, the concerts brought classical music into the living rooms of the world. To celebrate Bernstein’s birthday on 25 August, let’s take a quick look at this extraordinary series that won five Emmy Awards and shared Bernstein’s excitement for music with generations of young people.   

When Bernstein Took the Stage

Leonard Bernstein, 1950s

We all know that Leonard Bernstein was the first American-born conductor to lead a major American symphony orchestra. He served as music director and chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969. During his tenure, he did much more than conduct an orchestra. He basically opened the doors of the concert hall to millions of listeners and viewers.

In 1993, when Bernstein was looking back on the concerts, he wrote, “These concerts are not just concerts, not even in terms of the millions who view them at home. They are, in some way, the quintessence of all I try to do as a conductor, as a performing musician.”

“There is a lurking didactic streak in me that turns every program I make into a discourse, whether I utter a word or not; my performing impulse has always been to share my feelings, or knowledge, or speculations about music – to provoke thought, suggest historical perspective, encourage the intersection of musical lines.”

Lorne Munroe and Leonard Bernstein

“And from this point of view, the “Young People’s Concerts” are a dream come true, especially since the sharing is done with young people—that is, people who are eager, unprejudiced, curious, open, and enthusiastic. What more could an old incorrigible pedagogue ask for?” (Behind the Scenes, prelude, fugue & riffs, 1993)   

Music for Millions

Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts

One of the most popular events in the history of classical music, the Young People’s Concerts greatly benefited from the relatively new medium of television. This new technology greatly transformed the reach of classical music, and the series became so popular that CBS moved it to prime time.

Bernstein’s charisma and teaching method were central to the success of the series. He never talked down to his young audience. Instead, he introduced genuine musical ideas but slightly aimed above what he assumed they could already understand.

Essentially, his goal was to make young people listen and enjoy themselves. He certainly never talked down to them, but he always approached them as serious listeners. And to be sure, the subjects were intellectually serious, including titles such as “What Does Music Mean?” and “What is American Music?”  

Making them Curious

Leonard Bernstein with a television camera

The primary reason Bernstein was so successful as a teacher and educator is that he did not make music easy for his listeners; he made them curious. Bernstein had a natural ability to remove all complexity and make it accessible through musical examples and direct engagement with the audience.

Instead of talking down to his audiences, he made them part of the process. Above all, Bernstein strongly believed that children were capable of understanding music on a variety of levels, and rather than watering down his introductions to classical music, he issued invitations to think about it.

Bernstein had a deceptively wonderful spontaneity in his appearances, but everything took an enormous amount of preparation. Regular evening subscription concerts of the Philharmonic frequently followed his Young People’s Concerts. Essentially, Bernstein would be in the hall in the early morning for television filming, demonstrations, and script revisions, and then conduct again in the evening.   

Music as Naturally as Food

Over 14 years and 53 performances, Bernstein’s celebrity, charisma, and zeal for learning transformed the series into a far-reaching phenomenon. Bernstein was certainly passionate about integrating music into children’s education from an early age.

He testified before the House Subcommittee on Select Education in 1977, saying, “I propose that the reading and understanding of music be taught to our children from the very beginning of their school life,” he said, “and that they learn to participate with enthusiasm in the study of music from kindergarten through high school.” Every child possesses a natural ability to understand music, he continued. Young people can and should engage with music “as naturally as food.”

Young People’s Concerts

For several generations, people heard an orchestra for the first time at the Young People’s Concerts. And to be sure, it laid the groundwork for countless remarkable musical journeys. It also showed Bernstein at his absolute best as a passionate conductor and teacher.

He was a symbol of the merger between high art and pop culture, and Bernstein viewed Western music as a larger continuum, a tapestry between the academic and the everyday. To be sure, Bernstein was an eccentric who desperately pined for respect as a composer in both popular and concert idioms. He was a classical figure who behaved like a rock star, making the stuffy world of classical music approachable to all.