An excerpt from Dr. Jameson's ebook, The Musician's Guide to Health and Wellness, (c) 2004 Timothy Jameson, D.C.
Why is Wellness Important for the Musician?
As a musician, your music speaks about your current level of wellness. Don’t believe me? Listen to the music of musicians who are in deep levels of depression or hold tremendous anger. Their angst pours out of their music and impacts the listener as well. Could the impact of this type of music on the listener also impact his/her psyche? You better believe it! (Although that is the goal with some bands!) So who you are and what you play impacts countless lives. You have a vital link to the health and wellbeing of your listeners, by you yourself being healthy and full of vitality.
If you are a touring musician, you will last only as long as your body is healthy. Lowered levels of health produce interesting effects: lowered resistance to colds and flu, body aches and strains, back pain, repetitive injuries, impaired digestion, mental sluggishness and lost creativity. All this can be avoided with the tools you will learn in the chapters ahead.
Wellness is directly related to mind power and creativity. A healthy body and mind lead to higher levels of creativity. How important is creativity to the performing artist? It will determine whether your song gets published or not. It will determine whether you can come up with a new “lick.” It will determine your endurance while on the road. It will determine whether that song “hook” comes into your head or not. So you can see that wellness is vitally important to every musician’s life.
How does Wellness Impact the Art of Playing an Instrument?
We’ve talked a bit about creativity and mental health, but how about the art of playing music? Having a healthy body is paramount to a powerful performing style and good technique. I often come across musicians with terrible posture because of years of neglect. That bad posture is amplified while playing a guitar or while sitting at a piano. They come to me because of the pain they’re in, seeking an answer for their health crisis. Because of their level of sickness, their playing ability has been severely hampered. Many instrumentalists come to me with problems like tingling and numbness in their hands. Some have to give up playing entirely for a while to recover. Do you wonder why your hands are aching and tired after just one hour of playing? Do you wonder why your neck and shoulders are screaming at you after a two hour gig? It all comes down to the health and wellness of your “human frame.” The good news is that you take steps to prevent this!
Your overall bodily health will determine your posture, dexterity, and fingering speed. It will also determine your endurance! A healthy body allows for a more erect posture and better integrity of the spinal muscles that create that posture. Higher levels of efficiency of the muscles allow for faster hand movements and more precise fingering on the keyboard or fretboard. Body wellness will allow for longer playing sessions as your creativity flows out in abundance.