Volume 1 Issue 8
Musicians And Music
Issue Editor Vivien Mackie
Contents
Playing in a Symphony - Evangeline Benedetti
Butterfly Soup - Vivien Mackie
How to Play Beethoven - Mark McGee
Stage Fright - Ulfried Tölle
Conceptions & Misconceptions - Nelly Ben-Or
Blessed Helicity - Troop Mathews
What the Fossils Tell Us - Professor Phillip Tobias
The Cortical Function of Attention - Dr David Garlick
Friends of Alexander: Dr. Stewart McKay Part I - Margaret Long
Self Help - Robert Rickover
Counterpoint - Letters to the Editor
ViewPoint - Robert Rickover
Abstracts
"Playing in a Symphony"
Under Bernstein's watchful eye, Evangeline Benedetti, a member of the New York Philharmonic quickly learnt how to put Alexander's discoveries to practical use.
"Butterfly Soup"
Vivien Mackie, a long-time student of Pablo Casals, learnt to surrender into the music, creating it moment by moment, so that it emerges transformed and released from unnecessary constraint.
"How to Play Beethoven"
Alexander's discoveries merge with elemental music powers to sweep away author Mark McGee's deep-rooted delusions about how to play Beethoven.
"Stage Fright"
Ulfried Tölle discovered that active inhibition of reaction relies upon acceptance of our fears. Learning how to perform in daily living can teach us how to live inside of performing.
"Conceptions & Misconceptions"
Nelly Ben-Or, a concert pianist & AT teacher, sorts the wheat from the chaff dispelling some common myths and fantasies about Alexander's application to music making.
"Self Help Alexander"
Robert Rickover looks at what you do when lost on a distant isle: with a book, mirror and enough perseverance, Alexander work can be pursued alone.
"Blessed Helicity"
Ever heard of the double helical structure of our muscualture? Not in any anatomy book but here, based on Raymond Dart's observation, Troop Mathews explores the spirals that integrate our movement system.
"Man the Tottering Biped: Part III - What the Fossils Tell Us"
How fossils are used to investigate and used to infer the evolutionary development of bipedalism (two-footed stance) is explained in this, the third of Professor Phillip Tobias's five part series.
"Garlick Report: The Cortical Function of Attention"
Despite having no training as a physiologist, Alexander developed quite sophisticated ideas. Dr Garlick explores two aspects: how attention functions in a movment system and the function of muscle fibres.
"Friends of Alexander: Dr. Stewart McKay Part I"
Scholar, doctor, surgeon, author, bon viveur, indefatigable worker - Margaret Long writes that Alexander was very lucky to have Dr McKay as his mentor, friend and referee for his move to London.
"ViewPoint" by Robert Rickover
"The ear builds, organises and nourishes the nervous system" wrote Alfred Tomatis - a man whose life and discovery parallels much of Alexander's own. His discovered is reviewed.