When you play an instrument, you use your body- right? Though you may not be engaged in an Olympic athlete sort of activity, you still utilize muscle groups, joints, tendons, and several different systems in order to perform the task of playing a stringed instrument- your pulmonary system’s engaged, as well as your vision, your aural skills, and your nervous system. Even when you’re not nervous. Hardy-har har.
Because your body becomes engaged in repetitive motion for a long period of time, stretching and other exercises help your body to both prepare and recover from playing. In my recent surfing expeditions I came across a fantastic article about some basic stretches for string players- and I want to share.
Violinist.com contains lots of other useful pieces of information, so while you’re over there, feel free to stroll around their website- it’s one of my favorite places to peruse. But here’s my disclaimer, for both my post and the link therein- I am no doctor or other sort of professional in anything medically related. The information provided in this blog is designed to provide helpful information, not to treat or diagnose anything whatsoever. If you have a question, go ask your doctor. The most help I’ll ever be is to wave you in the direction of the band-aids!
Here are some other fun videos I scrounged up of the YouTube. Enjoy, and keep that left shoulder nice and relaxed! 🙂
Also from violinist.com, an editor, Laurie Niles, shows a few stretches from a recent seminar she attended.
Red Desert Violin’s founder Loralyn Staples offers a sampling of stretches she uses to keep the fingers and wrists flexible-
she believes this to be helpful with avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome. But she offers a disclaimer in the beginning, too, so… listen to it.
Shar Music opened up a master class to an apprentice/ licensed massage therapist, Laurel Humiston, to gain some ideas for relaxing the shoulders- the place where I often find the most tension. And by tension, I mean pain…
A video made by Dr. Marshall Bronstein, this addresses the neck and shoulders for those who are often on computers quite often. I find my sources of tension on my instrument are very similar to the areas he addresses.