Help! Major tension and pain

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wackiejackiexox
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:55 pm

Help! Major tension and pain

Post by wackiejackiexox »

I started noticing that while practicing my shoulders would hurt. So today I've been standing in front of a mirror for 20 minutes now trying to fix this. But when I get rid of pain in one shoulder it goes to the other because I tense that up. Then when I focus on both my arms being relaxed I start getting tension in my neck.
I have no idea what to do and I can't contact my flute teacher for another month. What should I do? I hate practicing in so much pain

fluteguy18
Posts: 2311
Joined: Sun Jul 16, 2006 3:11 pm

Re: Help! Major tension and pain

Post by fluteguy18 »

Without seeing you play we can't really help that much. I was in a masterclass with Jean Ferrandis and he called this one of the points of the 'Death Triangle.' All I can say is make sure you're not smashing your flute into your face, relax your elbows, don't clench at the base of your spine and play from the floor. Feel rooted in your feet. The floor isn't going anywhere. Let gravity stack your bones and let that hold you up. Muscles aren't meant to hold your bones up but to move them around. They're designed to stack and stand on their own (sort of).

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