PSU Magazine Winter 2006

he late Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, one of the world's most gifted inter– preters of JS. Bach's music, hunched over the piano and disconcertingly contorted his body as he played. Early 20th-century composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff canceled engagements because of horrible pain in his hands. What these virtuosos probably had in common were injuries caused by misusing-and misunderstanding– their bodies, says Lisa Marsh, director of the Coordinate Movement Program al PSU. She teaches pianists and other musicians the right way to play their instruments. With body awareness, a musician can bring out the potential of the instrument. Without it, the instru– ment can become a kind of torture device. "Show me your arm," Marsh says to me as l interview her for this article. "Show me where it begins and ends." I'm silting with my classical guitar resting on my knee. I'm a rank ama– teur, but I know a little bit about how playing an instrument inefficiently can trigger aches, fatigue, and shooting pains. When I'm in a bad position l can get radiating jabs that go all the way up my spine, and I've had to ice my left wrist at times after long practices. l extend my arm and state the obvi– ous: It starts at the wrist and ends at the point of my shoulder. Wrong. Marsh, who was a registered nurse for 19 years, brings out a life– size skeleton model of the human torso. One of the problems with how most musicians view their bodies, she explains, is that they isolate their com– ponent parts. Pianists, for example, will keep their arms and shoulders rigid and make their fingers do all the work. Doing this over a period of years can produce tendinitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and chronic back and neck pain simply because the pianists lock up the rest of their bodies. "You should think of your arm as including your wrist, your hand , and Instructor Lisa Marsh uses a skeleton arm to illustrate how a musician's body moves.