Physicians and music teachers have recently encouraged musicians to incorporate exercise into their daily lives. Wolff (1999)1, writing in his monthly “Medical Corner” for the I.T.A. Journal, suggests that one of the main benefits of a regimen of strength and endurance training for musicians is balanced and efficient performance posture and increased energy. These benefits, he argues, will allow musicians to have increased stamina for performance-related tasks. Roberts (2000)2, a trombone instructor and an active runner, reports that out of 211 participants surveyed at the 1991 Keystone Brass Institute only 49.3% of the participants said that they exercised on a regular basis, and 82.1% of these individuals were under the age of 40. Since this survey, Roberts has continued to encourage his pupils and other professional musicians to add Cyclic Incremental Over-training into their exercise program. Sirbaugh (1995)3, like Wolff and Roberts, believes that both aerobic and anaerobic exercise is vital for musicians, especially singers who need stronger abdominal muscle conditioning in order to perform bel canto literature.
Martial arts are a popular form of exercise that music teachers are encouraging their pupils to incorporate into their schedules. Bruenger (1994)4 believes that T’ai Chi helps in brass playing, as this martial art requires an awareness of the area known as the “tant’ien” located a few inches below the navel in the lower abdominal muscle region. The development of these muscles through exercises and drills, he feels, will aid in better control and production of air needed during a brass performance. Benson (1998)5, a pianist, advocates the martial art known as Qigong. Following a personal injury involving a broken arm, she used Chinese Qi (life) gong (energy) as a type of physical therapy. Benson reports regained strength and flexibility, a loss of bursitis, and lowered performance tension due to a 20-minute daily exercise routine. Similarly, Roskell (1998)6 believes that exercise training using Iyengar Yoga will help keyboard musicians. She reports a 20-year improvement in her personal back pain and thumb tenosynovitis through the use of this yoga exercise. Roskell has taught a “Yoga for Pianists” class at the London College of Music, and claims that this martial art is aimed at improvement of alignment, coordination, and strength throughout the whole body.
Good posture is vital to keyboard musicians who wish to avoid pain or performance injuries. In a survey of leading piano teachers at conservatories and colleges across the United States conducted by Clavier magazine (1994), Paul Pollei of Brigham Young University said “one of the most awkward examples (of poor posture) is the young child whose legs do not reach the floor and therefore has cramping back muscles and possible injury to structural development” (p. 15). Glaser (1994)7, a former pupil of Schnabel and Casals, states that good posture must begin at the torso and that 75% of weight should rest on the hips and 25% should rest on the feet. Organists, however, are not able to balance themselves using their feet during a performance due to the nature of the instrument. Thus, like the child that Pollei describes, organists too often break their performance posture at the upper and lower back due to weak abdominal muscles. Fishell (1996)8, a well-known organ pedagogue and recitalist, notes in her organ technique manual that bad body position at the console can be seen when an organist’s torso leans or curves back excessively, which can result in technical insecurity as a result of reduced range of motion. She states that such posture breaks can also result in physical pain.
At least two music instructors use physical therapy exercises to aid in posture and the reduction of performance injuries (Wristen, 1996,9 and Steele, 199110). Wristen, a piano teacher whose master’s thesis involved issues of performance injury, says that over half of all musicians seeking medical treatment for performance-related injuries each year are keyboard musicians. In addition to recommending that all practice sessions be broken into 25–30 minute segments followed by a 5–10 minute break, Wristen advocates the use of a 10–15 minute pre-practice warm-up session involving at least seven repetitions each of arm, shoulder, shoulder blade, elbow, palm of the hand, and wrist exercises. Steele (1991), a percussion instructor, also believes in the benefits of physical warm-up exercises before and after practice and performance. A 1988–1989 study by Steele sought to design pre-task warm-ups in correlation to necessary musculoskeletal segments used by percussionists. After videotaping his students’ performances, he invited a physical therapist at Frankford Hospital to review the videotape and to recommend appropriate warm-up exercises for them in order to lesson the risk of performance-involved injuries. The physical therapist suggested that the students should warm up for at least five minutes before each practice or performance using a combination of 18 different exercises: shoulder stretch, shoulder shrugs, shoulder rotation, shoulder-arm windmills, neck-limbering, elbow curl, elbow windmill, shoulder lift, shoulder diagonal rotation, forearm twist, wrist stretch, hand massage, finger wiggle, hand shake, arm shake, back flexion and extension, and trunk rotation.
As there is no reported literature on the effect of exercise on organists’ posture, the purpose of this study was to investigate the benefits of physical stretching exercises on three organ performance majors’ posture as demonstrated at weekly lessons.
Method
The subjects for this study were Ji Young, Shiela, and Seung Eun. All three females were organ performance majors at a major research university in the Pacific Northwest portion of the United States. Ji Young was a doctoral student from South Korea. She had been physically active for the past ten years and enjoyed swimming, weight training, and attending yoga classes. Shiela was a master’s degree student. Though she reported taking occasional classes in ballet and yoga, her busy schedule prevented her from exercising on a routine basis. Seung Eun was an undergraduate student, and like Ji Young, was originally from South Korea. Seung Eun stated that she had not been actively involved in an exercise program. All three women were proportionate in their height and weight and were under the age of 35.
In December 2001, a certified physical trainer was invited to attend the subjects’ organ class and lecture on the importance of exercise in a musician’s healthy career. The subjects were shown a series of four physical stretching exercises that were designed by the trainer and the subjects’ organ professor to be of benefit to organists in the reduction of postural performance problems: a warm-up “leg over” exercise involving the lower oblique muscles, a lower abdominal exercise, an abdominal plank exercise, and a postural strength/endurance exercise labeled the “prone cobra.” The subjects were told that they would be required to perform these exercises during the next quarter of classes.
At the start of the new quarter in 2002, the three subjects were selected out of a class of ten, as their schedules were flexible enough to allow them to meet with the experimenter once weekly, at the same time, over a period of three weeks. At each session the subjects were asked to demonstrate all four exercises, were tested on the amount of time they could perform the postural endurance test using a stopwatch, and were asked to submit a daily exercise time-log for the week. At the third and final meeting, the subjects were asked to comment if they noticed any benefit of the exercises upon their performance posture or upon their general feeling of well-being.
The subjects’ organ professor was asked to record the number of postural breaks that were noticed when the subjects were performing during their weekly lessons. A tally sheet was used to record these observations, and each subject was recorded at four consecutive lessons. The first observation began before the students began their exercises, in order to record a pre-test score. They were told if they needed to correct their posture at their subsequent lessons, but were not shown their professor’s tally sheets and written comments.
Results
The three subjects’ self-reports of weekly minutes of exercise show that they were able to exercise at least 45 minutes or more per week using the four designed stretches (Figure 1). Both Ji Young and Shiela reported a high level of exercise their first week, because they had been to the gym three times for yoga or weight-training classes. Seung Eun did not attempt any other form of physical activity during the three-week period other than the required stretching exercises. However, she was consistent in the performance of these. Shiela experienced a significant decrease in her amount of exercise during week two, due to illness. While the amount of exercise that Ji Young was able to perform decreased each of the three weeks, her self-reports show that she was the most active of the three subjects in the study.
Each subject was tested weekly on the amount of time that they were able to perform the posture/endurance stretch. Results showed an increase for each of the women over the three-week period (Figure 2). Both Shiela and Seung Eun showed steady improvement at each testing session. Ji Young showed a decrease during week two, because she reported that she had over-trained at the gym the day before the test and had sore muscles. However, her final score showed an increase from her first session.
The subjects’ organ professor recorded the total number of postural breaks observed when each student was performing during their weekly lessons (Figure 3). The first observation occurred before the subjects were asked to begin their stretching exercise program, in order to record a pre-test score. Lesson two occurred on the same day that the students began their exercise routine. The observations show that both Ji Young and Shiela demonstrated a decrease in the number of performance posture breaks over the four-week period. Seung Eun appeared to have remained the same; however, her two posture breaks at lesson four were reported by her professor to have been minimal.
Discussion
The observations made during this study show that all three subjects were able to perform at least 45 minutes of exercise per week using the designed stretches. In addition, all of the women showed an increase in the amount of time that they could sustain the “prone cobra” posture/endurance test, and two of the three subjects showed a decrease in the number of posture breaks during their lessons. While these results are not conclusive, they do suggest that physical exercise involving stretches might aid in the reduction of postural problems observed when playing the organ.
Comments made by the three subjects at their last testing session revealed that all three believed that these exercises would help them over time in avoiding performance-related injuries resulting from postural problems. Ji Young said that her organ professor had noticed a continued improvement in her posture since she began using the stretches. Shiela said, “When I think of posture, it helps me to think of the abdominal muscles working.” This suggests that core muscular conditioning and training might be beneficial to organists, who must support their weight in the pelvic area more than other keyboard musicians. Seung Eun, like Shiela, noticed the most improvement in her abdominal region. She also said that she liked the warm-ups and that they “felt good.”
Perhaps the most interesting finding was that Ji Young demonstrated only one posture break at her third lesson and no posture breaks at her final lesson observation. Furthermore, she spent more minutes per week exercising that the other two subjects. While Ji Young did practice physical stretches, she also reported having taken several yoga classes, and was active in swimming, jogging, and weight training. This seems to confirm Wolff’s (1999) medical recommendation for musicians to use a combination of strength and endurance training to help improve performance posture and stamina. Future studies may wish to compare subjects who use a combination of aerobic, anaerobic, and stretching exercise to those who only use stretching exercise and those who do not exercise at all. Also, future studies should involve a greater number of subjects and should test behaviors over a longer period of time.
On a personal note, soon after this study was made this researcher was involved in a serious rear-end car collision, which resulted in a lower-back injury. With the help of a physical therapist and a personal trainer, who was a certified public school instructor of physical education, I was able to soon regain my normal active practice and performance schedule as a professional organist, music teacher, and choir director. For the past six years I have adopted a weekly schedule of aerobic activity along with weight training and physical stretches. As a result, my back injury has caused me no pain and I feel a greater personal sense of well-being than before my accident. I wholeheartedly believe in the power of exercise, and I encourage all of my musician colleagues to remind themselves to get off the bench and begin their own exercise routine.
