Over the years I’ve worked with a wide range of musicians — guitarists, cellists, double bass players, pianists, trumpeters, and even a highly successful opera singer. Today I had the pleasure of working with an outstanding viola player named Catherine, formerly of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire. Our shared goal: holistic, healthful playing.
We began with Catherine playing freely so I could observe her structure and habits. This is one of my favourite parts of working with musicians — you can hear instantly when a subtle physical adjustment connects from the body to the instrument.
The missing piece in musical training
Over time I’ve come to understand that body-centred training is largely absent from music education. Schools like the Guildhall in London rightly focus on the instrument — pitch, resonance, tone, quality of sound. But precise sound without deep physical support is a hindrance, and in the long run, a negligence. A holistic approach would give performers both a higher performance ceiling and the self-awareness to avoid injury caused by poor form. A musician can then develop a body that integrates effortlessly with their instrument, built around their own unique physiology.
I have a nose for weak links in sportspeople, martial artists, and performers of all kinds. Musicians are no different — and I’d argue that a truly awake musician is an athlete.
The session
My three objectives with Catherine were:
- Assess her structure while playing and help her connect to the ground through her feet, developing a felt sense of weight transferring downward.
- Give her a hands-on understanding of the deeper core structures — the muscles and connective tissue (myo-fascia) that bind to the spine and back.
- Integrate breathwork with core activation.
We moved straight into a prone core exercise combining controlled breathing with core engagement. From there, we worked through positions that open the neck and shoulders to build an internal felt-sense connection — not to the superficial abdominal muscles, but to the deeper connective tissue along the front of the spine. The goal is central equilibrium.
Returning to standing, we made small adjustments to her lower leg positioning to release tension and allow the core to fire properly.
The result was immediate. The sound changed. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Catherine’s eyes lit up as her core synchronised with the viola — the sound became vibrant, amplified, alive. She looked a little shocked. I wasn’t surprised, though the degree of amplification was remarkable even to me.
The bigger picture
Much like professional dancers, musicians sustain their craft through hours of repetitive practice. But repetition without awareness can make you an automaton. Institutions tend to clone their students for efficiency, and the result — as with dance schools — is often a technically proficient but soulless performer who has lost their intuitive spirit.
Many performers are so focused on outcomes — mental images of success — that they skip the inner exploration that makes performance meaningful. The ego can quietly strangle inspiration. Years of repetitive strain, poor posture, and performance pressure can lead to burnout, depression, and creative stagnancy. Stage actors experience this during long runs or tours: a slow dulling of the spark.
Lee Strasberg, one of the great masters of American method acting, understood this well. He ran classes specifically designed as safe spaces to explore, make mistakes, and try new things — places where even highly successful actors could work through performance anxiety and unfreeze bodies locked in professional tension.
Our bodies hold a physical and emotional record of our lives. For musicians, even a small amount of poor posture, left unaddressed, can end a career.
The work with Catherine was just a beginning. The rest is consistent core retraining until healthy, integrated movement becomes habit. That’s exactly where I like to start.
