Back and up.

I am reading an old volume, Tradition and Gigli, by E. Herbert Caesari, author too, of Voice of the Mind. In Tradition he advocates time and again the sense of up and back as the singer goes over the passaggio, that is, through the upper middle notes and into the high...

Alexander Technique: You can dig it

Hey boys and girls. Build a metaphor. BAM! Involve the kids. Here’s the raw material: In a recent organic gardening class, the teacher was asked what one does if a garden is wanted and all there is lawn. Answer: Buy a pick, she says, a big ole collins axe and...

The faculty that knows

I am taking chunks of sod out of a wheelbarrow. They are all sizes, small, large, and everything in between. I’m placing them in a large bare space in our lawn and I’ve just dug them up out of the garden where I’m preparing a new bed. I reach in the...

Get on up with the Alexander Technique

My wife Susan and I, like so many of you, have or had a beloved cat. Ours was a certain Casey. When Casey came to the end of her life—all her systems were shutting down—I held her in my arms as a Vet administered a life-ending drug. At the moment of her passing, her...