Interview
of Claudio Jacomucci
Accoridionist and Alexander Technique teacher (STAT) |
| Interview by Jakob
Ter Leeuw |
| |
| Publication: |
| General |
| |
| Date
written: |
Amsterdam, February
2001 Jakob Ter Leeuw
|
I was always very interested and fascinated
by the Alexander Technique. I've heard about it, the first time,
at the Royal Academy of London, where the Technique is one of
the integrated disciplines in the musical training. So I met Claudio
Jacomucci to ask him some questions about this famous ri-educative
technique of movement and his experience as an accordionist and
teacher.
|
Q:
What is the Alexander Technique?
|
| A:
It is a methode
to correct and improve the way we use ourselves (our body and
mind) in daily activities. It helps us to increase our coordination,
to minimize the tension, to not react unconsciously and impulsively
to stimuli and to prevent physic discomfort and troubles. In short,
it gives to ourselves more conscious control on everything we
do. |
| Q:
What kind
of problems a musician meets playing his instrument, in this case
the accordion? |
A:
If we take as example the accordion playing and its problems.
Let's start from the support: even with the "correct" mechanics
or a suitable position of the instrument in relation to its performer,
in order to support its weight we react stiffening or collapsing
the thorax. This makes the spine shorten and reduces the breathing
capacity.
The ordinary activity of the bellows (open and close it) usually
provokes the twisting of the shoulders and the thorax (specially
at the moment of changing direction of the bellows) with an increased
tension of the neck and so the thorax (holding the breath). This
inadequate postural support and its rigidity reaches the limbs,
arms and legs, stiffening wrists and creating a limitation for
the freedom of the fingers.
Then, other specific problems come into playing, as the articulation,
the big jumps, fortissimo sonorities, difficult and "impossible"
passages, the bellows shake and other techniques. To all that,
we can add problems such as sittings for hours during the daily
practising (often embracing heavy instruments) and the inevitable
impact with the audience (stage fright).
Many musicians (like many people who professionally use their
body in intense and ripetitive activities) meet serious troubles
with their backs, hips, shoulders and don't have a reliable means
to solve them, except the medical or surgical one. |
| Q:
What is a lesson like and how can you apply the Technique
to playing? |
A:
First of
all, it's important to remember that musicians are individuals.
Their principal instrument isn't the object in which the blow
or the key they touch but their psycho-physical mechanism, it
is to say the mind and the body and the way they use them.
During a lesson, the teacher ask the pupil to perform a simple
act (such as sitting or standing up from a chair); the teacher
guides with his hands this movement and try to make the pupil
aware of the way she is interfering with her primary mechanism
(her natural poise).
Alexander discovered that from the coordination of neck-head-back
depends the freedom and the balance of the general movement.
The teacher then encourages his pupil not to react impulsively
to the stimuli of doing something and help her to perform the
act with an increased freedom, coordination and control, making
use of thought during the act. This is the most important thing:
to stop and think within the act, not after (or at all!).
When the pupil is able to mantain this thought, she can start
dealing with more complex activities mantaing also her expansion
and elesticity. |
| Q:
Where does
the technique come from? |
A:
F.M.Alexander
was an Australian actor (1869-1955) who was forced to leave the
scene because of the loss of his voice during his recitals. After
many years of investigation, he found out that the cause of his
trouble was the way he was using "himself" and that it was affecting
also his general physiological functioning.
The Alexander Technique does't teach any new skill: the efficiency
of our psycho-physical unity is innate; we can observe the grace
and the elasticity which children (up to 4 years old) move with. |
| Q:
Can you say that your personal experience in music has changed?
The AT principle has affected your musical conception? |
A:
If music is the art of communication through the sound and not
a game of criticism and competition, if during a performance we
are able to communicate a touching experience, then I believe
it is a nonsense to let our bad habits build a barrier against
a forgotten instinct.
To many people the word "technique" is synonymous of "virtuoso
or dizzy" but I think that the technique is a whole of expressive
recourses that allows musicians to freely conceive an interpretation
without adapting the musical will to his own limations. Tasting
every sound, every phrase, every subtle variations of musical
"direction" is becoming more and more a recurrent experience. |
| Q:
What are
your projects at the moment? |
A:
I moved to Umbria, I live in Orvieto. I teach the Alexander Technique
and hold workshops for musicians (including accordionistes!),
actors and dancers in different institues and as an invited teacher
in Italy and abroad.
There are various musical projects which they will come up in
some months, like the presentation of the duet with Antonio Politano
(accordion and recorders), the collaborations with different european
composer and various premieres. |
Thank
you Claudio. I wish you good luck and lots of fun in your work.
Amsterdam, February 2001
Jakob Ter Leeuw |
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