Good playing habits

One of the most common bad habits that I see students making is playing with tension.

It’s hard to play relaxed at first because you’re thinking about so many things and trying to do so many different things at the same time. You’re also moving your body in ways that are new and unfamiliar. The positions that you need to get into to play an instrument aren’t often positions that you are in normally (think about playing trumpet or violin).

But even if it’s difficult you should try to play as relaxed as possible.

One way that you can do this is to scan your body as you’re playing for tension. This is a technique that I learned from one of my teachers at Berklee College of Music. He noticed that I had my foot up on it’s toes and that my calves were tensed while I was playing. So he pointed it out and told me to set my foot all the way down and to relax it and then play again.

It can be a hard to feel tension without thinking through each part of your body and checking whether you feel tension there.

Some common places that I’ve seen people having tension, to get you started, are in their forearms, hands, shoulders, and face. Those are some of the most common places to have tension.

As you check through areas of your body for tension try shaking those parts of your body out or stretching them to get yourself to relax more. If you’re able to relax those tense areas of your body you should notice how much easier it is to play. Playing relaxed feels much better and much more effortless than playing with tension.

ISJ