The first error of the musician who is conscious of his well-being is listening to people who constantly remind him that the most important thing in the practice of his art is to be relaxed but they forget to specify how to a relax! The result is the emergence of tension.To counteract these pressures, the well-intentioned musician accentuates is relaxation, which accentuates the tension.
The result of this accentuation of relaxation appears to be an escalation of tension for no apparent reason. After discussions with his teachers, colleagues and friends, all advise him to do one thing: Relax!
While it is true that relaxation may be an appropriate solution to the problem of tension, we must first understand the mechanisms that are behind the idea of relaxation.
For example, take the shoulders. If a musician wants to relax the shoulders, he lets them fall down. As a result, he complains of stiffness in the neck. This is a typical example of what I call “false relaxation.” This state involves releasing a particular muscle in order to relax a body part. What we must understand about the concept of relaxation is that each muscle has its antagonist.
Therefore, relaxation can only occur when there is a perfect balance between the antagonistic muscles. Relaxation does not involve muscle relaxation, but a dynamic tone of the antagonistic muscles that maintain the member in a position of inertia. We thus speak of an active rather than a passive relaxation. The balance of forces produces a feeling of muscle relaxation.
© Jean-François Desrosby (D.Mus.) 2019
Biomechanics and performance psychology for musicians and guitarists 