Body Mapping for Musicians
When  was the last time that you really felt good in your body when playing music?
Body Mapping: saving, securing and enhancing musical careers.
Body Mapping promotes the power of intentional movement to prevent and eliminate performance-related injuries. It teaches self-awareness, practical anatomy and efficient and dynamic movement in music-making.
Body Mapping for musicians
Jane Shellshear is Australia’s only Body Mapping Educator (LBME) and Training Mentor licensed by the Association for Body Mapping Education (ABME). The ABME trains musicians to deliver accurate information about the body in movement and to present its licensed course – ‘What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body’. The Association’s LBMEs are highly regarded for their ability to deliver what is an essential tool in promoting healthy movement that simultaneously preserves a performer’s artistic freedom.
How it Works
Body Mapping invites musicians to refine or correct faulty body maps through:
- self observation
- self-inquiry
- movement explorations
- palpation
- anatomical images, animations & models
- analysis of video footage of performance
Musicians can learn to recognize the source of inefficient or harmful movement they may be making and how to replace it with movement that is efficient, elegant, direct and powerful based on the truth about the body’s structure, function and size.
What you will learn
- To find support and buoyancy using 6 main places of balance
- To conserve energy in playing by mapping your whole arm
- To include ease of breathing in your approach to playing
- To perform in dynamic relationship to the ground
- To connect deeply with yourself, the music and your audience
Benefits
- less tension
- improved technical facility
- enhanced musical expression
- reduced risk of injury
- clarity of communication in performing and teaching
If you’re experiencing performance-related tension, fatigue, injury, technical limitations or performance anxiety, your wait for an effective solution is over. Blue Mountains Alexander Technique’s Body Mapping programs can give you the anatomical clarity to move with freedom and transform your playing and teaching today.
A musician’s ‘technique’ is how they move to play, to achieve the sound they want.
Take a tour of our Body Mapping eLearning
About Jane Shellshear (LBME AUSTATcert BMus)
Jane’s background and training have formed her unique and profound perspective on movement and performance. With 40 years experience as a professional musician and teacher she understands the need for bespoke movement solutions that honour the performer’s musical intentions and priorities.
It is Jane’s lifelong passion to share somatic insights with performing musicians and empower them to bring these to life in free and expressive music making.
Through Blue Mountains Alexander Technique’s Body Mapping programs Jane teaches you the Art of Movement in Music to take your performance and teaching to new levels.