Interview with Dr. Ann Shoebridge musicians' health specialist about how to be the best on stage

, »It’s your time to ask questions from established musicians «
Before the interviews I will record with the artists, we invite you to share your questions and suggestions about the topics which will be included in the interviews. For this, we organize a group discussion for music performance master’s students where you will be able to state your interests.
How long does it take and where is it?
The planned length of the informal group discussion is about and hour. The possible form of the conversation is ONLINE or IN PERSON. And don’t worry, these will not be published anywhere, as it these conversations will be used only for including your questions and ideas into the public artist’s interviews.
Your contribution will be highly appreciated. So here is the time and space, and if you are interested, feel free get in touch with me by emailing to
[email protected]
In my reply email, I will be sending you further details regarding your participation.

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Ann Shoebridge is a musicians’ heath specialist. Currently works in the area of musicians' health and performance at University of Melbourne.
She teaches undergraduate and postgraduate music students Alexander Technique for performance and health. Also, she teaches on professional symphony orchestra fellowship programs, as well as pre-professional, school student and amateur musicians and actors.

Ann is highly experienced as a physiotherapist (completed her degree in 1980) and an Alexander Technique teacher she gained her AT teacher certificate in 1989. From an initial interest in neurology and pain management, Ann has developed particular expertise in wellbeing and performance for musicians and actors, and completed her doctorate in musicians’ health.

In case you are not familiar with Alexander Technique: AT is helps performers to access the mind-body or ‘psychophysical’ coordination through Alexander Technique which provides a means to enhance authentic and focused performance, and to avoid problems caused by excessive tension, poor posture or entrenched habits.

In the interview Ann shared her views and observations of musicians about the external and internal circumstances which may increase the risk of injury. You will learn from the interview that it is quite common that musicians suffer of musculoskeletal issues. For instance, players of asymmetrical instruments may experience physiological problems more often than players of the symmetrical instruments, and one research study found that singers had the highest prevalence of performance-related pain. Would you believe that?

When discussing the process of playing effortlessly, you may suspect that keeping calm is the tool which makes this possible. But Ann corrected me saying that CALMNESS IS AN OUTCOME.

Instead, physical technique by which this outcome can be reached. In order to play effortlessly, we need to free up the neck and the head area particularly, so the whole spine can lengthen a little bit and give us space to breath.

Professional and pre-professional musicians tend to hide their performance-related problems in front of their managers and their peers as well. According to Ann, it is quite common that musicians suffer of musculoskeletal issues. “We already knew that players of asymmetrical instruments may experience physiological problems more often than players of the symmetrical instruments.

Ann was also highlighting the key point of her doctoral research. One of the intriguing finding from this was that if musicians take a break for less than 10 minutes, it has an affect on the body as they didn’t have taken that break at all, so it does not give the body any recovery time, and does not give the brain any downtime to be able to digest what the musician just have done.



“We have to create a culture where it’s understood that musicians are athletes of the small muscles!”