JAVS Spring 2011

Shoulder Socket Rotation Awareness

more or less parallel with the floor. Keeping this position, bring the instrument up to your body, and rest the bottom lip of the viola on the collar bone. The space that is left between the top of your instru ment and chin should almost be filled with a chin rest. You will want enough room to “drop” your head onto the chin rest by tilting the weight of the head forward off the back of the spine and onto the chin rest. This motion will be simi lar to a nod. • If using a shoulder rest, it should help keep the viola in place by almost filling out the available space between the instrument and body. (Your shoulder needs to be left free for unrestricted movement.) Make sure that the end of the shoulder rest is not sitting on the shoulder ball-and-socket joint, as this will also hamper shoulder mobility. • With both the chin and shoul der rests, make sure to not overfill the space created between your instrument and body. This will lead to tension in the opposite direction. • With a proper setup, you should be able to easily hold the viola with a relaxed neck while swinging the arms open and closed in a wide motion. (See “Setup Exercise” video on the AVS website at: http://americanviolasociety.org/ resources/videorecordings/.)

tiple ways to transfer weight from the arm into the bow, but a healthy bow arm will work with gravity, not against it. Working with gravity means holding the instrument in such a way that we create the maximum amount of support for the bow. Keep the head and chest upright with broad shoulders, and position the instrument as parallel to the floor as possible (ex. 1). It will not be possible to hold the viola com pletely flat, but the belly of the viola should certainly be more horizontal than vertical. We are symmetrical beings, and this symmetry means that we will often “mirror” tension in our bodies. If we “grab” the viola with our left shoulder, we will most likely create tension in our right shoulder as well. It is important to note that in order to hold the instrument properly without ten sion, a good fit is needed with the chin and shoulder rest (if applica ble). Although an in-depth dis cussion of options is outside the scope of this article, a few guide lines as to what to look for in a shoulder and chin rest are: • Finding the right chin rest can take some trial and error but is well worth the effort. When standing in a front of a mirror, relax your neck, look forward, and allow your head to pivot around the top of your spine (located between your ears). Find a “neutral” position where your chin, eyes, and ears will be • The bottom lip of the viola should sit on the collarbone.

To play without tension, the ball and-socket joints of our shoulders need to be in a neutral position. This means that the joint hangs low and to the back of the socket (never pushed down and back). The following stretch helps find this position: Step 1. Stand tall with your head facing straight ahead. Breathe. Throughout this exercise, keep breathing deep breaths, relax your neck, and aim to keep your shoul ders from rising unnecessarily. Step 2. With your palms facing each other, reach your arms up to Example 2. The beginning of the T-pose stretch.

Reach for the ceiling with your arms directly by your ears.

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