Welcome to the Body Freedom for Musicians Course!
Course instructor Peter Jacobson here.
Let me tell you about a powerful dream I had earlier this year.
I was sitting around a large oval conference table with a group of "gatekeepers" discussing the Alexander Technique – how it should be taught and who can benefit from it. The press was there with their bright lights, cameras and furry microphones filming the whole thing.
After listening to everyone bicker back and forth awhile, I stood up slowly and brought my hands down firmly on the table and exclaimed:
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“Alexander’s discoveries belong to humanity!”
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The room went silent as my words echoed throughout the room.
I woke up and smiled.
The message of this dream is what drives me and my work, including this course. For I believe that Alexander’s profound discoveries truly do belong to humanity.
My passion is to share these discoveries with my favorite corner of humanity – the musical one. And I firmly believe that any musician and/or music educator who devotes time and energy to study and apply this work will experience new levels of freedom, ease and satisfaction in all areas of their life.
Having dedicated my professional work to sharing this work it should come as no surprise that I myself have been deeply impacted by it.
I first encountered the Alexander Technique as a young musician of 22. For 4 years before that, I was experiencing chronic pain, massive discouragement and was desperate for answers. As I began to study the work, I experienced a slow but steady improvement in not just my pain levels, but many other areas of my life. It was a quiet revolution. Through this work I found so much of what I was looking for and I haven’t looked back since.
This course draws on my 20+ years of study as a student of this work and 10+ years teaching it. I’m creating the course from the perspective of an Alexander Technique teacher, a music educator, a musician and someone who cares deeply about about the health, well-being and success of musicians.
My longtime fascination has long been how to stitch together the Alexander Technique, Body Mapping and best practices in music education and performance into one unified and coherent approach.
This course is my answer to the question:
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What are the fundamental principles and practices that musicians need to know from this work in order to cause a lasting and fundamental shift in their music-making?
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This course is for any musician who has an interest in learning more about the healthy use and functioning of the human self in their work and life.