F.M. Alexander on Tension and Freedom in Guitar-Playing

Tuesday Quotes are short explorations of music, life, and the daily endeavor of practicing classical guitar. Find more here. Enjoy!

“When you stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing does itself.” 

F.M. Alexander

Frederick Matthias Alexander created a work whereby he could break free from habitual patterns of tension. We all have these patterns. Some are constructive, others are not.

The Alexander Technique is a practice whereby students can inhibit automatic muscle contractions. It’s widely used by actors, musicians, and people with chronic pain.

His idea was that if you stop all the non-desirable tension patterns, the best use of the self could emerge. This means that we can do any action with the least effort needed.

This is the implication of the quote, “When you stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing does itself.” If we don’t go wrong, we’ll go right.

This is not a universal truth. In many areas, we can topple one bad element only to have it replaced by one worse. We may not be aware of all the forces at play. And changing just one element in an ecosystem can cause an imbalance in which new problems can arise.

Alexander counters this by focusing on the prime directive: freedom in all joints, appropriate tension for the task at hand, and a general sense of “up.”

A common mistake beginning guitarists make is to assume that what feels “natural” is the best way. It rarely is.

That is because these feelings are only based on previous comfort (homeostasis). Much of playing classical guitar well is counter-intuitive.

So we must avoid what we know to be wrong while allowing for new possibilities. Meanwhile, we continue to discover, through teachers and experience, what to avoid.

Viktor Frankl also spoke to this in more general terms: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.“

Avoiding the wrong gives space for something different and new. This can feel strange because it is not our usual way of doing.

If we continue to inhibit (prevent) excess tension while keeping the prime directive in mind, we can play with more ease, fluidity, and awareness.