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Supporting Your Instrument in a Body-Friendly Manner

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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2014 Supporting your instrument in a body-friendly manner : a comparative approach Emanuela Maria Lacraru Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Music Commons Recommended Citation Lacraru, Emanuela Maria, "Supporting your instrument in a body-friendly manner : a comparative approach" (2014). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2829. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2829 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. SUPPORTING YOUR INSTRUMENT IN A BODY-FRIENDLY MANNER: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH A Monograph Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in The School of Music by Emanuela Maria Lacraru B.M., Bucharest National University of Music, 2003 M.M., Southeastern Louisiana University, 2005 M.M., West Chester University of Pennsylvania, 2007 May 2014 To my husband, LLOYD LUCIEN THOMAS ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to many people who made it possible for me to write this document, and to complete my doctoral studies at Louisiana State University. This proved more challenging than I would have thought, because of a performance injury that I sustained during the first year, which had long-term consequences. First, I would like to thank my doctoral committee. I would like to express my appreciation to my Major Professor, Espen Lilleslåtten, for his help and encouragement in my return to playing the violin after a break of several years imposed by my injury, for all his valuable musical and violin technique-related suggestions, and for his flexibility in experimenting with violin support, such as modifying chin rests, which was an inspiration for choosing the topic of this document. Moreover, I would like to thank my Minor Professor, Dr. James Byo, for assisting me in the decision of choosing the methodology for this document, for challenging me to constantly improve my writing, critical thinking, and research skills, for guiding my research, and for all the knowledge and skills I acquired in his Music Education classes. Also, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Dennis Parker, for his support and encouragement, and for suggesting the broad topic of injury prevention a few years ago; and to my Dean’s Representative, Dr. William Clark. I would also like to thank other faculty members of Louisiana State University: Dr. Elias Goldstein, for his feedback and valuable ideas regarding my survey questions; and Professor Patricia O’Neill, for her invaluable help with regard to Alexander Technique lessons, which contributed to the improvement of my situation, by making me aware of aspects I would have never thought of before. My heartfelt thanks go also to Dr. Richard Manning and Mrs. Wendy Manning, for their medical help and moral support, without which I would not have been able to return to playing, iii and for choosing me to teach their daughter. Moreover, I would like to thank all the medical practitioners who put forth their best efforts in trying to figure out the cause of my problems, and all the students whom I had the privilege to teach. I would like to express my gratitude to the authors who graciously shared their research and experiences related to customizing violin/viola support: Ms. Liz Dinwiddie; and Ms. Lynne Denig and Mr. Gary Frisch, from Frisch and Denig Custom Chinrests. As a former student of Paul Rolland, Ms. Denig has provided a valuable insight into his principles related to the topic. A big thank you goes to my friends: Yun-Chieh Chou, for her suggestions related to topic and bibliography, and for her monograph being an important source for the Alexander Technique section of this document; Sinmyung Min, for pilot testing my survey; Vasil Cvetkov and Gabriela Chihăescu, for their moral support; Simina Renea and John Austin, for their valuable advice as fellow string players and teachers, and for their encouragement. Especially, I would like to thank my friend Hannah Urdea, who helped me in numerous ways, including pilot testing my survey, and encouraged me to persevere in completing my doctoral studies and returning to violin practice despite my physical problems, at a time when I was seriously considering to quit. I would like to express my deep gratitude to my family. To my parents, Ioan Marius and Graţiela Lăcraru, for having taught me since a young age to be a disciplined worker, and for their moral and material support during all these years; moreover, to my father, for being my role model with regard to teaching young violin students. Also, to my sister, Teodora Delivasile, and my parents-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. William Thomas, for their encouragement and support. Another heartfelt thank you goes to my husband, Lloyd Lucien Thomas, for the love, patience, help, and constant encouragement he provided during all these years, putting forth all his efforts to help me improve my injury situation and accomplish challenging tasks, such as writing this monograph. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………iii LIST OF TABLES ……………………………………………………………………………….vi ABSTRACT . …………………………………………………………………………………….vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………….1 Background of the Study ………………………………………………………………….1 Brief Historical Overview of Chin and Shoulder Rest Development ……………………..4 Brief Overview of the Alexander Technique Approach …………………………………..8 Statement of the Problem ………………………………………………………………..11 Organization of the Study ………………………………………………………………..16 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………………………………..19 Possible Injury Problems Resulting from an Inadequate Setup ………………………….19 General Considerations …………………………………………………………………..23 Customizing Instrument Placement ………...……………………………………………31 Customizing the Shoulder Rest …………………………………………………………..37 Customizing the Chin Rest ………………………………………………………………52 CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ………………………………………………………………66 CHAPTER 4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION …………………………………………………71 Survey Results …………………………………………………………………………...71 Literature Results in the Context of Survey Responses ………………………………….99 Conclusions ……………………………………………………………………………..124 Weaknesses of the Study ……………………………………………………………….127 CHAPTER 5 RECOMMENDATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH .129 Recommendations ………………………………………………………………………129 Suggestions for Future Research ……………………………………………………….134 BIBLIOGRAPHY ………………………………………………………………………………135 APPENDIX 1 IRB OPINION ON EXEMPTION FROM OVERSIGHT ……………………141 APPENDIX 2 SURVEY QUESTIONS ………………….……………………………………142 VITA ……………………………………………………………………………………………146 v LIST OF TABLES 1. Question No. 1: In your opinion, the instrument should be supported: ……………………72 2. Question No. 2: You consider the support points at the instrument’s endpin side to be: .…74 3. Question No. 3: You advise your students to: ……………………………………………...76 4. Question No. 4: When addressing the position of the head, your goal is to: ……………….76 5. Question No. 5: The position of the head should: …………………………………………78 6. Question No. 6: The scroll should be placed: ………………………………………………79 7. Question No. 7: To place the instrument more in front or more to the left, you consider: …81 8. Question No. 8: The instrument should be: ………………………………………………...82 9. Question No. 9: You recommend to your students the following support devices: ………..84 10. Question No. 10: If you prefer one of these support types, your reasons are: ..……………85 11. Question No. 14: To fill the space between head and collarbone/shoulder, you build up: ...94 12. Question No. 17: Regarding instrument support, the basis for your conclusions is:……….99 vi ABSTRACT The purpose of this monograph was two-fold: (1) to bring together a scattered array of literature about performance injury prevention (related to violin/viola support) into one source, organize and synthesize this literature with the intention of identifying principal issues, compare coverage and recommendations, and identify consistencies and inconsistencies; and (2) to assess the perceptions of upper string musicians and teachers about injury prevention in the context of the literature. For the first purpose, a comprehensive bibliography of relevant literature was developed. For the second purpose, a survey based on information revealed through the literature was developed and distributed. Total respondents (N = 61) divided as follows: college professors (n = 20), teachers of pre-college string students (n = 27), and college violin and viola majors (n = 14). The research question was answered by comparing perspectives from the literature to respondents’ perspectives. Five principal issues were identified: medical problems; general considerations; customizing instrument placement; customizing shoulder rests; customizing chin rests. Their coverage was extensive in most sources. Consistencies were revealed regarding the majority of the issues. Inconsistencies were revealed relative to customizing shoulder rests and chin rests. Generally, between literature and survey there was more consistency than expected; in
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