F.M. Alexander was born in Tasmania, Australia, in 1869 and later lived and worked mainly in London and the US. His work originally developed out of his search for a solution to his own voice problems as an actor. Suffering from chronic hoarseness for which doctors could find neither cause nor effective treatment, Alexander reasoned that if his vocal structures were not damaged or diseased, he must be doing something inadequate while speaking to cause the problem (-“use affects function”). He was confident that if he were able to identify this habit, of which he was unaware to begin with, and learn to stop or or “inhibit” it, his voice would recover, as he would then be “using” his voice “naturally”, i.e. in accordance with the design of the vocal structures.
In the course of his long process of patient self-observation and experimentation, he realized that his problem was not localized and specific, but that the quality of his voice and breathing was directly influenced by the way in which he stood, balanced, moved and breathed not only when on stage, but in his everyday life. In order to regain his voice, what needed to change was not only the use of his voice, but the “use of the self”, as he later called it.
He began began teaching his work at the turn of the century in Australia, moving to London in 1904, where he died in 1955. He soon began to incorporate the use of touch while teaching, in order to let his pupils experience, understand and learn kinesthetically through the body, complementing and clarifying his verbal guidance.
Meanwhile there are over 4000 teachers worldwide, with professional societies and teacher training courses in 18 countries. Teacher training as required by the societies encompasses 1600 hours of training over a period of three years, and guarantees a teacher-student ratio of no more than 1:5 (1:7 in Germany). This reflects a key principle of the work that we can only transmit or communicate what we understand and know both cognitively and through experience, what we are able to embody in teaching and to apply practically in our own lives.
Many music, theatre and dance schools include the Alexander Technique in their curriculum, recognizing that it can help performers not only to maintain a long and healthy working life, but also to refine and deepen the quality of the performance.
F.M. Alexander was born in Tasmania, Australia, in 1869 and later lived and worked mainly in London and the US. His work originally developed out of his search for a solution to his own voice problems as an actor. Suffering from chronic hoarseness for which doctors could find neither cause nor effective treatment, Alexander reasoned that if his vocal structures were not damaged or diseased, he must be doing something inadequate while speaking to cause the problem (-“use affects function”). He was confident that if he were able to identify this habit, of which he was unaware to begin with, and learn to stop or or “inhibit” it, his voice would recover, as he would then be “using” his voice “naturally”, i.e. in accordance with the design of the vocal structures.
In the course of his long process of patient self-observation and experimentation, he realized that his problem was not localized and specific, but that the quality of his voice and breathing was directly influenced by the way in which he stood, balanced, moved and breathed not only when on stage, but in his everyday life. In order to regain his voice, what needed to change was not only the use of his voice, but the “use of the self”, as he later called it.
He began began teaching his work at the turn of the century in Australia, moving to London in 1904, where he died in 1955. He soon began to incorporate the use of touch while teaching, in order to let his pupils experience, understand and learn kinesthetically through the body, complementing and clarifying his verbal guidance.
Meanwhile there are over 4000 teachers worldwide, with professional societies and teacher training courses in 18 countries. Teacher training as required by the societies encompasses 1600 hours of training over a period of three years, and guarantees a teacher-student ratio of no more than 1:5 (1:7 in Germany). This reflects a key principle of the work that we can only transmit or communicate what we understand and know both cognitively and through experience, what we are able to embody in teaching and to apply practically in our own lives.
Many music, theatre and dance schools include the Alexander Technique in their curriculum, recognizing that it can help performers not only to maintain a long and healthy working life, but also to refine and deepen the quality of the performance.
