The Guitar, Playing Well, Staying Well by Cliff Woodward (physiotherapist, kinesiologist and classical guitar player)
The Guitar, Playing Well, Staying Well, is a workshop taught by Cliff Woodward, a Physiotherapist, Kinesiologist and classical guitar player, who has taught extensively in the area of injury prevention and performance enhancement – two sides of one coin.
He is also one of the very few people who have cured themselves of focal dystonia, usually regarded as incurable. He has evolved a unique approach to this based on what he calls the Five Key Principles.
He has previously shared this with violinists at a recent workshop in Melbourne, and is keen to share this with devotees of his own instrument, the classical guitar.
We are planning to run this The Guitar, Playing Well, Staying Well workshop with Cliff in the new year, where he will cover a number of topics that we all have faced to some extent over our playing lives.
If you would be interested in attending a workshop, please register your interest here and we will notify you of dates:
From this workshop you will:
Gain new insights into guitar playing
Get information that will assist you in getting rid of an existing, playing-related problem, or stop you from developing one in the future
Teachers will gain valuable insights that will help to guide how they most effectively teach their students
Players will learn the basis of ‘becoming their own teacher’, able to discriminate between useful, useless and harmful ideas around guitar playing.
The Guitar, Playing Well, Staying Well – The Hidden Aspects
Most of us play the guitar because we love it, and for some it is also their way of earning a living. But as we all know, what we love can sometimes break our hearts! The guitar, as with all other instruments, has its challenges that can lead to pain-based issues and even, tragically, to having to stop playing. To give a context, studies have suggested that up to 80% of professional orchestral players have regular playing related pain issues. The greater the intensity of playing, the higher the risk, not surprisingly.
The good news is that the vast majority of this is preventable; the bad news is that most musicians don’t adequately know how to prevent it. Why is that? Because the training of musicians in our tertiary institutions does not include enough information/insight into this. Most courses include some token information about this – maybe an introduction to Alexander Technique for example – but students simply are not given the insights needed to keep themselves well over a lifetime of musical involvement; those students themselves become teachers and the problem is perpetuated. Some teachers would argue that the curriculum is already bulging at the seams and can ill afford to add other ‘incidentals’; but this is not incidental it is foundational! And in any event, the flipside of the coin of injury prevention, is performance enhancement.
It is my understanding that there are Five Key Principles that underpin playing well and staying well around the guitar, and any other instrument for that matter; if we really get hold of these we are very unlikely to end up with a ‘broken heart’!
How have I arrived at these Five Key Principles?
Firstly, in my professional work as a Physiotherapist and Kinesiologist, I have treated all manner of musicians, professional and amateur, over my 40 year career, having had a special interest/expertise in this area for the last 30 years. Secondly, I have taught many workshops to string players, keyboard players and singers at Melbourne, Monash and the Australian Catholic Universities; this had led to collaborations with teachers to blend my insights into movement/anatomy with the pedagogy of their instrument. Thirdly, I have been a keen player and minor performer of the classical guitar for 50 years, and am still passionately involved; also, I have, along with only one other player that I know of {David Leisner, “Playing With Ease”}, successfully cured myself of focal dystonia, normally regarded as incurable.
So, for teachers: you have an awesome responsibility guiding your students through their musical journey! Besides your musical insights, the best gift you can give them is to teach them how to keep themselves well on their journey. These Five Key Principles are the basis of exactly that.
For students: Get this important stuff now! It will prevent you from hitting problems later {which you probably think will never happen to you!} and it will improve your playing right now.
I look forward to sharing these insights with some of you very soon.
Play Well, Stay Well, Cliff Woodward