Thinking up on the cornetto: How to apply the Alexander Technique to cornetto playing by Carlos Rivero Moreno

With the rediscovery of the cornetto at the beginning of the Early Music movement in the 20th century, the first players solved the technical difficulties of this instrument in very different ways, resulting in a great diversity of techniques today. During my bachelor studies with the cornetto, I discovered and learned the Alexander Method with individual and group lessons. For this master's studies, I actively researched how to connect the Alexander principles of inhibition and direction with my cornetto playing. I did a case study with myself, exploring at the practice room to find the desired sound result by applying the Alexandrian principles. I continuously documented the process with notes after each AT and cornetto lesson, and during my daily practice, to observe how this connection affects my development as a player. A part of the research has been the understanding and description of the Alexander Method to share this knowledge with other cornetto players, as I have found that this technique is unknown among most cornetto students and teachers. Learning to play a musical instrument is never easy, but knowing a little better about how the human body works, understanding the body and mind as a unity, and learning to use it in a more efficient and coordinated way has made playing the cornetto much easier for me, obtaining full body resonance, achieving comfort while playing, expanding artistic possibilities, and preventing injuries and body pain.

Chapter 4: Personal evolution

For different reasons, I could not finish my bachelor's degree and be able to fully apply the principles of the Alexander Technique. My technical and artistic level with the instrument was also not enough for a professional context. That is why I still needed the feedback o of an experienced player as my current teacher, and to expand my skills with the Alexander Technique (for which I have traveled to Bremen on different occasions to visit my first Alexander teacher). Although my current cornetto teacher, Doron Sherwin, is not against AT, he does not know what it consists of. When he suggests things to improve during my lessons, it has been my job during this research not to react too quickly to the stimulus (my teacher's indication) to try to “do it right”, and before trying to achieve a result, to apply inhibition and direction to maintain the desired body coordination while playing. On many occasions, this was enough to solve problems, since certain sound mistakes were due to a shortening of the spine, which affected resonance or airflow.

In this way, I have managed to improve my technical skills with the instrument and expand my musical expressiveness without compromising the natural coordination of the body. At the beginning of my cornetto studies, I used to come to my first teacher with questions like, “Is this right or wrong?” about musical ideas. Many times I didn't know what to do and I got stuck, since in our repertoire these musical indications are not written in the score. Of course, we can turn to historical treatises to try to understand how they played and sang music in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, the different readings of the same text can give rise to very different musical interpretations. My teacher used to tell me “don't think, just do something”, but with my mentality of “doing it right” I was always afraid of doing anything. It took me a long time to understand what I quickly explained at the end of the previous Chapter. With the help of AT, I could learn not to judge my musical result and just observe it. And if I wasn't satisfied, I could always play it again in a different way as many times as I wanted. This is how I have been building my musical experience over the years, which is also constantly evolving thanks to my experiences, my practice, and at the moment the inspiration of my current teacher.

If I wanted to reach the technical and musical level required to be a professional player, I also had to learn to deal with the fact that the cornetto, due to the characteristics of its sound, is always exposed during a musical performance, whether as a soloist, in small ensembles or as a member of an orchestra. Thanks to the Alexander technique I could learn to be comfortable with that situation, which was not my nature. So now I am not only more comfortable with the audience, but I can also be grateful to them for giving their time and attention to listening to me (whether alone or as part of an orchestra).

Learning AT was not quick for me at first. I had very strong tension patterns due to my habits of playing the trumpet goal-oriented for 20 years. I had pain in my neck, in my back, in my shoulders. I could not stand for long periods comfortably. My breathing was very restricted, but for me that was normal. But there came a time during my bachelor's studies when I had to decide which way to continue, and after experiencing AT for some time it was clear that there was no turning back for me. I wanted to learn to experience life and play the cornetto through the sensory experience I had during AT lessons.

From the moment I started studying AT, I began to write down notes about what I was learning so as not to forget it later on in my practice. To these notes, I added more notes during my practice as I expanded my sensations of how I played. In this way, over the years, I have been writing a kind of personal diary, which has allowed me to keep track of which ideas work best for playing the instrument. Some of them have evolved, others did not bring me satisfactory results and were discarded. Thanks to this, I have been able to have a clear idea for this research and to express the final results in writing in a precise way.

Having the opportunity to master the cornetto playing based on the AT during my master's studies has had many implications on my artistic skills that differentiate it from how the instrument is played today. This is understandable and it is not my intention to criticize it. The pedagogy of the cornetto is relatively new, we have not found a method that tells us how to play it, only treatises that express in a more or less precise way the artistic result desired at the time. How to play the cornetto is something that has been reinvented in the 20th century with the revival of the Early Music movement, and I believe that AT can contribute a lot in this area.

Many aspects, such as creating internal space for resonance or achieving a constant air flow, mean muscular effort and shortening of the spinal column for many players. With AT it becomes an enjoyable activity as it is how the body is designed through millions of years of evolution. This is a detail that is mentioned in many of the AT books, and with which the student of the Technique can feel very identified. Many activities that we perform in our daily life become enjoyable if we pay attention to our coordination, allowing the body to expand. The audience of course perceives whether you are enjoying your performance, or nervous, uncomfortable, or in any kind of body ache.

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Carlos Rivero Moreno - Thinking up on the cornetto: How to apply the Alexander Technique to cornetto playing - 2025