Orientation, Balance and Coordination

How we know what we do,
how we do it and where we are

“Our other senses – the five senses – are open and obvious; but this – our hidden sense – had to be discovered, as it was, by [the doctor and scientist Charles] Sherrington*, in the 1890’s. He named it ‘proprioception’ …because of the its indispensability for our sense of ourselves; for it is only by courtesy of proprioception, so to speak that we feel our bodies as…our ‘property,’ as our own.”
- Oliver Sacks, “The Man who Mistook his Wife for Hat”

When we practice, we are using our senses to steer and observe our playing. Knowing more about how the mind and body and instrument coordinate is essential. We know that we see and hear what we do, and that we can feel with the instrument with our touch. We also know that we can smell and taste, but do not generally use these senses for playing! However, most people are unaware of how they experience their body and the space and objects around them. This can lead to practice habits that may dull the very senses that the musician wants to use to improve their playing!

The sense that the scientist Sherrington identified back in the 1890’s is proprioception.

Proprioception, meaning “one’s own” [plus] “perception,” is the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement.It is provided by proprioceptors in skeletal (striated) muscles and in joints.

The brain integrates information from proprioception and from the vestibular system into its overall sense of body position, movement, and acceleration.
- Oxford English Dictionary

So, what is that all about? Let’s work our way through the text. I suggest you actually do the following:

• Put your hand close to your ear and then stretch your arm out to the side. You will, of course, notice that now your hand is now “far away” from your head. That is “sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body”

• Grab an object, like the edge of the table, quite forcefully, squeezing very hard, stop, and then just lightly grasp it. You will have noticed the different sensations these two actions called forth. That is the “strength of effort being employed in movement.”

• Reach one arm above your head and give it a little stretch and move it around up there for a few seconds, and then bring it down and place it in your lap. You may notice then that the arm you stretched now feels, even in rest, more as if it is “there” than the other arm. This is the stretch receptors or the “proprioceptors in skeletal (striated) muscles and in joints.”

The text goes on to talk about how these sensations combine with the information from the vestibular system, by which they mean the inner ear. The inner ear acts like a gyroscope plus a very fancy carpenters level, and helps you to know where you are in space. Try this:

• Stand up and move your head in wild circles for a few seconds, then stop. The dizziness and disorientation that you feel is the inner ear in confusion. In a few minutes, the inner ear can reorient itself and you feel fine again.

Look at the text again. It says at the end:

“The brain integrates information from proprioception and from the vestibular system into its overall sense of body position, movement, and acceleration.

This covers almost everything that a musician needs to know to play and to observe and steer his playing. He needs to choose the speed (acceleration) of his movement and direct the correct part of the body in space to carry out the action that makes sound! Singers do this even more intimately, as they ARE their instrument!

Basically, you are training your proprioception to navigate through a music score or improvisation. Like a racing car driver (or gymnast or skater) you need to stay calm, alert and at the steering wheel. For instance, rushing and tensing does not help you steer better.

You also need to know the course that you are driving. Research involving scans of musicians’ brains showed that the navigational part of the brain (our ‘GPS’) is stimulated when musicians only think of a score. In other words, we use the same part of the brain to navigate through a Bach fugue as we do to find our way to the train station. So, knowing your score (your map) is also a big help to you proprioception!

There are lots of ways that you can improve how you navigate and perceive, and by doing so, raise the level of your practice and performance. We have created a series of exercises to improve your sense of where you are and how your are moving. You can try them on the Orientation page. For things you can do during your regular practice try some of the Flashcards on this site. They are designed to get you started experimenting and finding out for yourself what you can do with this powerful sense. Then you can better understand it, care for it and include it in your thoughts and actions while you practice.

“Proprioception [is] this sense dependent on impulses from muscles, joints and tendons, usually overlooked because normally unconscious, it is this vital “sixth sense” by which the body knows itself, judges with perfect, automatic, instantaneous precision the position and motion of all its moveable parts, their relation to one another, their alignment in space…One may be said to “own” or “possess” one’s body – at least its moveable parts – by virtue of a constant flow of incoming information, arising ceaselessly, throughout life, from muscles, joints and tendons. One has oneself, one is oneself, because the body knows itself, confirms itself, at all times, by this sixth sense.”
- Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat