AU NATUREL
Sitting is another example of a held or static body position. Most string players must sit to play and it is important to maintain a natural position.

Try this: stand against a wall with your heels, upper back, head, and shoulders touching the wall. Now slip one hand behind your lower back above your waist. This natural curve needs to be maintained while sitting. Still standing against the wall, notice that there is a natural curve in the neck as well.

Now bend your knees and mime playing your instrument as if you are sitting in a chair. You may discover that this position feels “wrong” and does not correspond to your accustomed playing stance.

Perhaps without realizing it, you tend to play while tilting or turning your torso, or thrusting one shoulder more forward than the other. Good posture should be balanced and relaxed.

You shouldn't be straining to maintain it.

Keep your lower back in as natural or neutral a position as possible, that is, maintain the natural curve that is neither exaggerated nor flat.

Also, keep your shoulders down and level, not pulled upward, backward, or forward.

A forward shoulder position, or “hunching,” destabilizes the arm during movement, making its motion more difficult.

When sitting, your center of gravity and your body weight should be on your sitting bones and your feet. Do not play when your legs are crossed at the knee or ankle, or while curling your legs around the chair legs. This throws your back into a “C” curve, preventing you from distributing your weight evenly throughout upper body and pelvis, and it prevents you from keeping your weight on your feet.

To test your sitting posture, put your instrument aside and sit with your feet flat on the floor. Now try to get up. Your weight, if balanced far enough forward, will allow you to get up without any major re-shuffling in your position.

Bring the instrument to you, keeping it closer to your body as you play, rather than compromising your posture to reach for your instrument. Avoid twisting or leaning to either side, backward or forward.

Most often string players must sit to play, and musicians who are able to play while standing should alternate while practicing. Maintain that proper, aligned posture while sitting and make sure when standing that you maintain that natural curve in your back. Avoid a sway back by keeping your knees slightly bent instead of locked and your shoulders and hips level.

Your body should feel fluid.

Those who cannot play while standing should wiggle in their seat, move, take frequent breaks, and get up and move around. While sitting, shift leg positions frequently. For cellists, one foot slightly in front of the other seems to work well.

Tension in your back muscles from long hours of sitting in awkward positions can proceed from your muscles to the discs in your spine.

Careful avoidance of twisting or turning your back and neck, or thrusting your head and chin forward can literally save your spine.

With your pelvis correctly positioned, and with your head in a neutral position, the spinal alignment follows naturally, freeing your ribcage and allowing free breathing.

Remember, any awkward position or poor posture that is held can produce fatigue, which can eventually lead muscle pain, but also long-lasting damage to joints, tendons, and ligaments.

MUSICAL CHAIRS
Chairs sometimes force us to make compromises in our posture. Many chairs are too low, or molded, and sometimes slope backward, forcing us to adjust to our chairs rather than vice versa. Tall people feel that their knees are “in their face” and short people’s feet dangle.

It is important to sit in a position where your knees are lower than your hips and your thighs slope downwards. Forward sloping seats are advantageous because one’s center of gravity is placed forward over the sitting bones rather than thrust backward. Tall musicians should look for a chair with a seat height that reaches a level above their kneecaps, if possible. This ideal position can be achieved by using cushions, such as portable foam wedge seat cushions to “raise the seat.”

Blocks placed underneath the chair’s legs to raise the seat can also work. Several of my colleagues have made their own blocks to raise their chair height: four three-inch squares of wood with a height of either one, two, or three inches (depending on the height of the musician), with a groove in the center of the block in which the chair leg is placed. Make sure it is stable! Another solution to a low chair is to put the entire chair on a platform while keeping your feet on the floor.

Try to choose a seat that is higher at the back than it is at the front. Short musicians should sit forward in the chair until feet are flat on the floor and weight is shifted forward. Build up chair backs with cushions. Fortunately, there are several companies that have manufactured ergonomic chairs and several types of seat and lumbar support cushions for the long hours and stress of musicians’ work.

Don’t settle for the dismally hopeless “multi-purpose” chair. Experiment so that you can maintain proper back posture at all times. Try to avoid the urge to freeze. Keep tension from building up by taking every opportunity during practice and performance to move and wiggle, to dangle your arms, to shrug, to stand, to pull your arms back and to stretch your neck.

Any posture that is rigidly held for any length of time is exhausting. If you move around when you play you are making the position dynamic rather than static. Take breaks. A minimum of 10 minutes per hour is a good guide.

Janet Horvath is the author of Playing (less) Hurt—An Injury Prevention Guide for Musicians, which is available online at www.playinglesshurt.com.