Musical techniques and resources





The performer's physical activity

  • Muscular control and injury prevention

    • Here we have some booklets with a few "Basic advices to musicians to prevent injuries", followed by some stretching, and neck and spine exercises, to be done before and after playing, and published by the "Institut de Fisiologia i Medicina de l'Art", in Terrassa, which is a place specialized in funtional problems of the performer musician.

    Everybody knows of someone who is going or has gone to "Medicina de l'Art",to heal that tendinitis, or that pain, or that hand whichs goes to sleep and out of control ....

    It's not always a magical cure, but at least you are not being told: Don't worry, just stop playing and do some other thing!


  • More on injury prevention

    • This article, prepared by the "Conservatori Municipal de Música de Barcelona", was standing in a forum of musical discussion in Argentina, were I found it in September 2006!
    I copied the page into a .pdf file, available clicking the hand at left, because many times the information in a forum doesn't stand for long, but if you want to visit the forum, click at Club de Músicos, sure you will find other interesting things.

    La majority of body injuries are caused by repetitive movements


  • Hearing risks for the musicians

    • This is the title of an article published in the February 2009 issue of the magazine: Revista Musical Catalana, written by Dr. Montserrat Bonet, especialist physician and professor at ESMUC, et al., who talk about the professional risk of hearing injuries and disorders on the musician.
    This paper begins with the following words: "Hearing is the most valued sense to the musician, because it is the organ which collects the sound sensation".

    As usual, prevention is better than cure.


  • Alexander technique

    • Webpage of Mireia Mora, teacher in Alexander Technique. In this page we find this comment: ... "when a musician plays an instrument, he/she uses his/her hands and arms, but also his/her breathing, with atention to his/her environment (the other performing members, the audience), his/her back, legs, feet, neck ... : all his/her body parts are interactuating. In spite of this, very often musicians are paying so much attention to the body parts which are directly involved in the musical performance (hands and arms in the case of violin players, lips in the case of wind players), that they forget to listen to the rest of the body".


  • What may happen if we suffer a severe physical problem?

    • This article (also in English) which comes from "Fundación Música Abierta" ... "With a specific focus on music and disability as its two major concerns, the Foundation was set up with the goal of promoting the musical involvement by people with physical, cognitive or sensory impairments. Due to their limitations, some of these people are prevented from playing a musical instrument, dancing or enjoying musical creation. Music is a cultural asset which must be made accessible to all individuals so that they take advantage of its full benefits in the fields of education, therapy, emocional regulation and improvement of social relations".

    The history of this violinist ... leave us speechless. Read on.



    The activity of musical composing

  • Fear based composing

    • Here you will find the original english text (and its translation to catalan) of a fragment of the book EFFORTLESS MASTERY, by Kenny Werner, mainly devoted to our improvement as performers, but where we find also this short but very interesting chapter devoted to composition. In fact, the whole book is worthwhile.
    [you can find it at http://www.jazzbooks.com/]

    the problem solver of composition


  • To write music, similar to getting a plane to fly ...

    • An article by Francesc Taverna-Bech, which appeared at Revista Musical Catalana, September 2009. As the article deals with musical composition, which was his trade, and he wrote it shortly before he died in April 2010, I like to think that this is his kind of will, in condensed form.


  • The musical inspiration and the composer

    • A research work on the musical inspiration that I wrote in 2003, it is an overview of the manner with which the scholars and the composers themselves have seen the phenomenon of the inspiration in the different historical times. Originally filed together with my research works in the Research section, it is also linked from here due to the potential interest for the composers.



    Aural perception

  • Train and improve yours with these exercises

    • Click to access a musical theory page with several "Exercises". To me, the most interesting ones are those for recognition of intervals, and chords . And if you find them too easy, you can make them more difficult at will, by entering at "Would you like to customize your exercise?"