Alternative Treatments Can Benefit Musicians: Body Tuning

The physical problems of musicians, particularly injuries due to misuse of the body, have received considerable attention in recent years. Most of the interest has been focused on resolving injuries that already exist, rather than on preventing these injuries. A recent discussion with Shmuel Tatz – a rather remarkable Manhattan-based physical therapist and physical education […]

Double Acts

Shmuel Tatz is the favoured physiotherapist of many of Manhattan’s Leading Musicians, among them New York Philharmonic Violinist Hanna Lachert I WAS INTRODUCED TO HANNA ABOUT 20 YEARS AGO THROUGH her husband, the Manhattan violin maker David Segal; she has been a regular client ever since. Eighty per cent of her treatment is using hands […]

Physical Therapy for Pianists

Jerzy Marchwinski’s Road to Recovery About ten years ago, the well known Polish pianist and pedagogue Jerzy Marchwinski began to lose control of the fingers of his right hand. Within a few years, he had stopped playing altogether. “At first, I started to make a few mistakes in concerts,” he explained, ” and eventually I […]

An Interview with Shmuel Tatz, Body Tuner

With this column Chamber Music introduces a series of short articles about the ways by which various musicians are trying to overcome the problems that came between them and their audience, ranging from the many manifestations of performance anxiety to the actual physical pathologies that can affect them with pain, debility, and even atrophy. Here, […]