All musicians are aware of “importance of good posture” for the best results and for avoiding repetitive strain injuries. Most musicians have tried some method for improving posture and performance. Sage advice is abundant:
From the FM perspective such advice is useless or may be even counterproductive. Useless because what does “keeping head straight” means exactly? Head is kind of roundish and also – straight relative to what? Such advice is counterproductive, because it is a misuse of our nervous system to apply conscious mental and muscular effort to correct activity that should be regulated unconsciously. A musician needs all their mind for performing, rather than for maintaining a certain posture.
Instead of posture, FM deals with ‘acture’ – a dynamic position from which required movements can be performed with the least effort and hence with the maximum efficiency. So “good posture” is the one that requires minimum effort. In FM it has to be arrived at individually, because every person has their own way of organising head on top of rib cage and rib cage on top of pelvis and pelvis on top of the feet, not to mention the instrument. Correctness is measured by the sense of comfort and ease while playing and at rest, not by walls and spirit levels.
In conclusion, note how effortlessly Charlie Chaplin stands on one leg in the post’s title image. It’s taken from his famous duo with Buster Keaton in Limelight (1952). In the skit he has legs of wildly different lengths and can still move and even play violin amazingly – a true acture.
Best of luck!
Acture FM 