Performance Wellness Institute Launched
“Musicians move for a living,” says body mapping specialist Jerald Harscher during a spring-semester workshop sponsored by Berklee’s new Performance Wellness Institute (PWI). “Some musicians believe that the only parts of the body that move while they play are those that touch the instrument.” Harscher related how, after launching his career as a classical guitarist, he encountered debilitating performance injuries that he overcame only by gaining awareness about the physical structures of the human body. By learning proper movement, he improved his technique.
The workshop was one in a series of events that spanned the spring semester and offered insight for members of the Berklee community. Beginning in January, workshops on such topics as body mapping, the Alexander Technique, mind-body discipline for musicians, and self-awareness through Kenpo were presented by faculty members Doug Johnson, Bertram Lehmann, Paul Del Nero, Karen Wacks, and Ricardo Monzon. Visiting experts included Harscher, Vanessa Mulvey, Betsy Polatin, Bob Lada, Dr. Heather Buchanan, and Dr. Anita King.
The Berklee PWI is directed by Associate Professor of Voice Jeannie Gagné and Piano Professor Neil Olmstead, with help from a steering committee comprising a dozen other faculty members. The idea for the initiative began after surveys that were conducted in 2010 and 2011 indicated that a large number of Berklee students and faculty members experienced pain, strain, numbness, or injury while singing or practicing their instruments. Mindful that a lifelong career as a creative performing musician requires healthy vocal and instrumental technique and an overall healthy lifestyle, Olmstead and Gagne spent two years investigating methods for avoiding performance injuries and related problems. They made a case for establishing PWI with college leaders and gained support for the initiative.
“The creation of the institute has offered an opportunity to address instrument-related pain, strain, and injury in our students and ourselves,” Olmstead says. “But even greater excitement for us lies in creating bet- ter music. Deeper musical results are discovered through coordinated and organized motions of the human body yielding a more beautiful tone, and the connection of harmony, rhythm, and melody in a piece of music.”
In early April, the institute brought in body-mapping specialists King and Buchanan for two daylong sessions. An associate professor of music and director of choral studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey, Buchanan worked with vocalists during the two days. Chair of the music department at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and a pianist, King worked with faculty and student instrumentalists. Both visitors are certified Andover Educators who teach somatic pedagogy in addition to music courses.
In a session that King presented to a packed house in the David Friend Recital Hall, she spoke about the need to properly align the top half of the body with the bottom half. She showed proper posture for sitting at the piano and also demonstrated the orientation for instrumentalists who stand while playing. “Each instrument requires specific movements,” King notes. “We all need to know how to move well.”
For Olmstead, Gagné, and the PWI committee, the events this spring are the beginning of an effort that they hope will help Berklee musicians avoid performance injuries and play optimally for life. “We are very excited that PWI is finally launched and running pro- grams,” Gagné says. “This is essential work for the health of our students and faculty. Developing awareness of balanced technique also enhances tone and musicianship. Berklee is on its way to becoming the cutting- edge model of superb playing that is also healthy. This could very well change the very culture of contemporary music.”