music

According to research a shocking two-thirds of professional musicians live in chronic pain. Those of you who are music makers may have felt challenged at times by the lengthy periods of sitting or standing required for practice and rehearsal. Continuously holding an instrument, maintaining a playing position, or just standing holding sheet music, can, sooner or later, trouble your neck, shoulder, or wrist. Playing can become a physical challenge rather than an activity integrated with the music making.

This graph shows the distribution of pain reported in a group of 490 musicians.

Finding harmony in your body

The good news is that healthy posture can allow music-making to be not only a pleasure for the ears and nourishment for the soul, but also something comfortable and good for your body. Each time you play, practice, or perform, with your body in harmony, it will feel all the better for it, rather than sore and achy. 

In this series of blog posts about making music with healthy posture, you will meet some of our students and teachers who are also musicians. Some are professional while others are keen amateurs, but they all treasure music-making in their lives. They share having had their musicianship curtailed at some point by back pain, and having resolved it with the Gokhale Method®. This first blog post talks about playing the piano. 

As infants we naturally stacksit well to play an instrument. These youngsters have their behind behind them, shoulders posterior, and a tall neck. Their stool is too low though!

Playing the piano pain free

Juan Zurutuza holds the unique position of pianist with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Sweden. Juan discovered the Gokhale Method online and then took the Gokhale Method Foundations Course with John Carter in the UK in 2016. He followed up with two one-day Pop-up courses with me in Werkhoven, Holland, and Bonn, Germany. In a recent catch-up he said:

Most of my musician colleagues have problems—that are solvable. I see many fixable postural problems, for example, tight, forward shoulders causing tingling in the fingers and impaired sensation, which causes immense difficulty to string players. But there are examples all over. 

When it comes to physical ease in playing piano, I find two things resonate for me. For the particulars of piano playing, the Taubman Approach. For whole-body posture, the Gokhale Method is an invaluable baseline. I’m not claiming to be perfect, but I know if my lower back gets tight I need to work on my sway with my rib anchor, and my neck position. At least I am aware and can change. 

The straightforward guidelines given in the Gokhale Method have made a huge positive impact on my playing: learning how to glide your neck back, how to lengthen your spine, how to sit using a wedge. . .All these things help me to be able to sit down and practice for what can very often be all day. People may say “oh, all that sitting is really bad for you,” but it really depends on how you do it. 

This photo shows Juan playing in 2008, before he found the Gokhale Method. It shows how his pelvis tucked when he played, rounding his back and sending his shoulders, neck, and head forward. When the pelvis is tucked, coming to an upright position demands the lower back muscles tense up.

(Concert at the Railway Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands.)

Being pain free isn't a requirement to be a great musician, certainly. But for me, being pain free, comfortable, and able to move in a coordinated way, increases my chances of conveying my musical intentions. I would say that I am seeking to align my physical and musical experiences as I play.

Juan practicing in Gothenburg, 2023, applying what he has learned with the Gokhale Method.

Teaching the piano along with healthy posture

Sigrun Franzen is a recently qualified Gokhale Method teacher based in Madison, Wisconsin. Sigrun is also a professional pianist, organist, and harpsichordist. 

I was never completely comfortable playing the organ, but I thought that was just the price you paid for a more awkward instrument which didn’t allow you to balance your feet on the floor when using the pedals and using your arms at different heights to get to the manuals (keyboards). Doing these things gave me back pain because I did them by letting my ribs pop up and contracting my back. Applying the Gokhale Method techniques of rib anchoring and engaging my inner corset solved that problem!

My own piano teacher recommended Esther’s book 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back to me, as she had another student who had benefited from the Method. It was the structural integrity I got from the Gokhale Method that proved to be the key to pain-free music-making. In fact to pain-free everything! For example, I suffered with persistent sciatica until I learned to glidewalk. The postural techniques I use at the piano are also directly transferable to healthy working at a desk computer. 

Healthy sitting for working at a computer follows the same posture principles as playing the piano. 

I play and teach piano with the Taubman Approach. In addition, with the Gokhale Method, it feels wonderful to offer a healthy postural role model for my students, which goes a long way. If they are still sitting poorly and in discomfort I can give them a little wedge for easy stacksitting—a light touch that makes a lot of difference. I have had some of my piano students’ parents take the Gokhale Method Foundations Course, which is a great way for them to support their kids. I like to have a few suitable stools and images of good positioning around in my studio. One of the parents said “Oh, you’re kinda like a professional sitter.” 

Here was Sigrun teaching a young pupil piano, back in 2016, before she discovered the Gokhale Method. Like Juan, she was tucked and rounded forward. Sigrun’s young pupil still has her natural posture intact and is setting an excellent example!

Learning the Gokhale Method enabled Sigrun to sit tall and relaxed as she plays. This video excerpt shows Gokhale Method teacher Sigrun Franzen giving a harpsichord recital. (Johann Jakob Froberger, Suite in A minor. St Matthias Episcopal Church, Waukesha, WI.)

Special Free Online Workshop for all musicians

Join Gokhale Method teacher Julie Johnson for our special free online workshop End the back pain and get back to music-making with the Gokhale Method, Monday, November 20, 11 a.m. (PST), 8 p.m. (CET). Julie is a pianist and choral singer in her spare time, and particularly enjoys helping other musicians to make music without strain on the body. You can sign up here.

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you would like insight on your posture, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online, or in person.

You can sign up below to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops. . .

Feeling that Thanksgiving exercise motivation? Learn how to work out smarter, not just harder, today and every day! Image courtesy Andrea Piacquadio on Unsplash.

Ah, Thanksgiving. For many of us, it’s a time for gratitude and connection. It’s also a time when many people’s minds turn to exercise to offset the rich and abundant food on the menu. How can we make that extra push, enjoy it, and not injure ourselves in the process? Due to the pandemic, more and more of us are working out at home, without our usual exercise partners or in-person access to recreational facilities. Now’s the perfect time to learn to work out smarter, rather than harder.

Exercising harder and longer on top of poor structural alignment is like continuing to drive a car with a mechanical problem. Better to address the root of the problem so nothing slows you down long-term. Image courtesy Pixabay on Pexels.

#1: Fix your posture
Fixing your posture helps you work relevant muscles more efficiently. It also prevents unnecessary wear and tear. When people want to get more exercise, they often simply increase the time spent or the intensity of their exercise. Sometimes they drive themselves to exercise more because of an injury. But if they don’t address systematic posture problems while exercising, they may in fact exacerbate their injury. The analogy that comes to mind is driving a car with a crooked axle. If the car begins to have problems, the solution is not to drive extra or drive faster; you need to fix the axle. Fixing your posture can do wonders for getting more out of your exercise time.

If our daily activities are done with good posture, they can dovetail with exercise. Image courtesy Mark Timberlake on Unsplash.

#2: Use your daily-life activities as the main dish in your regimen
We’re all busier than ever, so it makes sense that it’s challenging to shoehorn separate exercise time into our schedules. A way around this is to use the activities you do every day, around the home and/or office, as the central piece of your exercise regime. Much like this recent Medium piece in which a Japanese writer shares the central role walking plays in keeping Japanese people fit without dedicated gym time, using our bodies wisely as we go about our day means that exercise is built into everything we do. Think of it as clever, efficient multitasking for the body.

To really encourage healthy habits to stick, it helps to do them in community — whether that’s friends, family, or fellow participants, or a combination. Image courtesy Andrea Piacquadio on Unsplash.

#3: Include friends and family if you're going to dedicate time for a workout
Working out smarter can also happen by incorporating the community aspect of exercise. It’s simply smarter to double up your exercise time with social time by exercising with friends, family, or online classmates. Working out with others is wonderful for both habit retention and our mental well-being. On this very strange Thanksgiving, where we can’t be together in the usual ways, having a ready-made vehicle for time spent together safely is another purpose that exercise can serve. Everyone within a family has their individual exercise needs that are valid and more important than ever to satisfy, so be sure to pick something with variety that is accessible to everyone.

We aren’t machines, but humans born of rich traditions, who need things like art, music, dance, and culture to thrive. Exercise that incorporates such enrichments satisfies multiple needs simultaneously. Image courtesy Omotayo Tajudeen on Unsplash.

#4: Include art, music, dance, and culture
You only have but so many hours in the day, and art, music, dance, and culture are universal human needs that must be met somehow. Especially in COVID times, when we cannot attend live, in-person performances, go out dancing in groups, or easily visit museums, incorporating art, music, dance, and culture into our exercise helps fill our primal human need for creative input and enlivens our spirits. And our spirits can use every boost they can get these days!

Every journey begins with a single step. Why not start yours today? Image courtesy Bruno Nascimiento on Unsplash.

Get going on the good foot, starting today
With the live, daily Gokhale Exercise program, we have arrived at just this combination of ingredients. Starting out with figuring out how to meet my own needs, I realized the audience has roughly the same needs for a textured, multi-layered, upbeat offering. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we’re offering 3 free days of access to our vibrant and ever-growing Gokhale Exercise program, beginning today. Feel free to invite your friends and family to join you in a safe way this Thanksgiving weekend.

Feeling happy after a lesson. 

If you ask Joan Baez what keeps her in good enough shape to do worldwide musical tours at age 78, she will hand you a little brown card that says “Esther Gokhale, Creator of the Gokhale Method.”

My wooden business card.

Joan has used various kinds of bodywork throughout her career. Music tours invariably involve bumpy bus rides, late-night performances, uncomfortable beds, and other challenges to the human frame, and Joan, like most seasoned musicians, has experienced her share of neck and back strain. Joan lives in California, the mecca of massage therapists, chiropractors, osteopaths, and other healers who smooth and soothe soft and hard tissue into more harmonious states. So it’s not surprising that she has found many helpful interventions and intervenors. But one stands out in getting to the root of her musculoskeletal challenges, and in altering the usual trajectory of wear and tear, degeneration and dysfunction. It’s the Gokhale Method. And thank goodness for the Gokhale Method, because there’s only one Joan Baez, and the world needs her right now, though she is at an age where we would expect her to be winding down. 

Joan stretchlying on her side, very relaxed and comfortable.

It’s been a treat to work with Joan. My interaction with Joan began after college in New York City, when I was involved in an organization called CRY (Child Relief and You). CRY was trying to raise money for central audio/video/media cultural centers in India so less-privileged youth could have access to video cameras, slide projectors, audio recorders, and other wonders of modern technology, which they could learn to use and which would keep them abreast of a useful aspect of the modern world. Joan Baez, whose music and mission had moved me deeply, seemed like the ideal person to craft an appeal to. I fantasized that she would do a concert in India and bring awareness to CRY’s mission. I spent quite some time crafting my letter, sent it (through someone who knew someone who knew someone) — and did not get a response. When I told Joan this story decades later, she said sadly, “We tried so hard to respond to the kids especially…” I assured her the letter probably got lost because it was sent by “hand delivery.”

Joan hip-hinging to pick lettuce. Notice how her externally rotated legs create space for her torso to settle between her legs.

Shoulder rolls help the shoulders settle further back and further out from the body. Joan is enjoying having her shoulders return home.

I forget exactly how Joan, her buddy Jeanne, and her other buddy Karen ended up in my studio 11 years ago, in 2008. Each of them were able to use the Gokhale Method techniques to rid themselves of a deep-seated and seemingly inevitable degenerative symptom that many practitioners had been unable to give them relief from or hope around. Three for three was impressive to them. They decided I was the “real thing” and have championed my work since then. Joan gave me and the Gokhale Method a ringing endorsement, which we have since used on flyers and brochures to good effect.

After years of struggling with chronic neck and back pain, I had the good fortune of meeting Esther Gokhale, who introduced me to her Method. Although stunningly simple, Gokhale's Method turns much of conventional wisdom about pain and posture on its head. Each session of the course gave immediate results which have affected my life profoundly, and I now look forward to many years of a healthy neck and back. I would highly recommend that others seek out this very special woman, or read her book entitled 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back.

Joan Baez

In the course of our lessons together, Joan and I hit it off and became friends. My relationship with Joan continued at a sauntering pace, peppered with highlights like being invited with my entire family to her 70th birthday celebration at Teatro Zinzanni. This event, a comedic showcase employing impressive theatrical talent, will forever remain in my memory as our 16-year-old son Nathan was chosen to go up on stage and become a part of the spectacle. And spectacular it was, as well as bawdy, hilarious, and entirely “incorrect.” At the end of the evening, a woman came up to me and humorously remarked that she hoped we have enough saved up for therapy for the rest of our son’s life. Christine Deaver was the Maitresse d’ for the show. Christine is a large woman who owns every centimeter that she occupies. At one point in the evening, in joking with another volunteer she pointed out that her breast was larger than his entire bald head. The way she did it was very funny indeed. Nathan was one of three competitors for the role of Romeo against her Juliet.  There were several sections to the competition, including singing (for 200 guests) Mary Had a Little Lamb in a high-pitched falsetto, reciting a heavily adapted version of the balcony scene including lewd lines such as “I’ll come a-knockin’ when the balcony’s a-rockin’,” and the grand finale, in which all contenders had to pull a sword out of a scabbard to declare their love for Juliet. Christine expressed her disappointment in the limp and fallen-to-the-side swords of the other contenders, and approval of Nathan’s upstanding and sturdy sword. The show ended with Christine feeding a reclining Nathan grapes as their float circled around the stage. Oy vey.

Nathan playing Romeo opposite Christine Deaver’s Juliet. In addition to his sword remaining upright (see story above), his neck looks pretty upright too! Original photo courtesy Teatro Zinzanni, 2011.

On another occasion, Joan invited me to her fundraiser concert with Emmylou Harris and Jackson Browne for the Downtown Streets team to support local homeless shelters. Vintage Joan in her sixth decade of supporting people in need — I felt so inspired.

There are many stories: too many to recount here. Suffice it to say that our friendship has truly been a delight.

When hip-hinging for extended periods, like in a garden, it’s normal to rest on the knees as Joan demonstrates here.

In the last year, Joan has returned for refresher lessons. I feel lucky that Joan values my lessons. Joan ups my game. She inspires new turns of phrase, her paintings inspire posture lessons, we dance with good posture. And Joan helps me remember just how much is possible, well into your higher decades.

Joan in a “ready position,” preparing to hip-hinge to pick some calendula.

Maintaining healthy posture during the activities you are passionate about is SO important. Good form will allow your body to partake in your favorite activities pain-free now and into the future. It often gives the additional benefit of performing better (because of a steadier hand, improved blood flow,...or just increased comfort and relaxation). We've seen a lot of musicians have to stop playing their instrument due to pain, and able to return to playing after learning the Gokhale Method.

A few months ago, I noticed that Nolan was playing guitar with a tucked pelvis and neck forward and I snapped this photo:

Forward head position puts strain on the neck muscles and threatens the cervical discs, ligaments, and nerves.

He asked how to play with good posture, so I put him in a stacksitting position and had him hold the guitar so it was slightly tilted towards him. He was able to keep his J-spine and have his neck in a much better alignment:

Sitting well and keeping the neck in good alignment makes playing for long periods of time more comfortable.

Esther’s note:

I like how Nolan and Monisha recognize the value of posture improvements without getting overly preoccupied with perfection. Incremental improvements is the best way to make bigger improvements anyway — insisting on perfection overnight comes with its own set of problems. Go, younger generation!!

There’s been a lot of nice music around our home lately. Here is a bonus photo of Nolan singing along to guitar played by a Foundations Course alumnus at our recent South Bay alumni potluck!

Here’s one more, in which Nolan is sporting a nice J-spine by using a pillow as a sitting wedge:

Nolan’s brothers Bryce and Conner have come to join my household for the summer, while also interning with our company. The Walsh brothers love to play music together as can be seen in the short clips below. We in the family and in the company are excited about the musical evenings and events ahead of us this summer! We’ll also be working on each other’s posture.

Do you play music? Have you found comfortable and healthy ways to play your instrument?