More and more singing teachers complain about the low standard of singing in their students. They ask where this lack of professionalism comes from.

Children learn posture from their parents, their teachers and all their friends. When children are born, they exhibit only small individual differences in the functioning of their bodies. During their lifetime they develop, through experience, their individual way of posture. Unfortunately, even children slouch. In school or at home they collapse in seats that slope backwards - seats which they cannot adapt to their height. Sitting there for hours, their backs tire and they begin to slump. In addition, they have to bend over their desks to read and write.

The children develop a serious misuse of the self, which causes numerous problems as soon as they start singing and pursuing a career in singing. Parents and teachers recognized the lack of physical stamina already more than a hundred years ago and started to employ exercises to remedy the situation. Physical trainers started teaching physical exercises designed as stretching and/or strengthening exercises. These exercises often cause more harm than good, because they cause the students to elevate their chests, bend their spines backwards or strain their necks in order to achieve a better posture.

I surprise singers with the statement that the Alexander Technique has only little to do with posture. Nevertheless, it will influence the postural behavior in the long run. The Alexander Technique achieves its results of improving the postural appearance of singers by changing their thinking habits and by applying the principles of the primary control, i.e. the head-neck-back relationship. The voices of students will develop on their own and in accordance with the improvement of the psychophysical mechanism. Then the voice has a chance to get healthier and stronger with age.

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