Integrating Vision Training into Music: Part 1
While musicians train extensively in sight singing, sight reading, and accuracy on their instrument (or voice), we rarely talk about one of the key components to our success in these endeavors: vision.* At any given point, our body is sending a lot of sensory information to our brain for processing, from the temperature of the air to our position in space to the amount of light in the room, and so on. Our brain then processes that input and may elicit an output: movement, pain, an adjustment in position, and much more. Our sensory system can be divided into three components: interoception (awareness of internal environment such as hunger, digestions, breath), exteroception (awareness of external environment such as temperature, pressure on skin, etc)) and proprioception (awareness of where we are in space). If we dig a little deeper into the sensory input that affects our posture, it comes down to three systems: visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive systems. If there is a deficiency in one of those systems, it can negatively affect your performance, pain, or how you feel in your body.
While that can be a lot to take in, let’s simplify it. The sensory input to your brain affects your posture, your movement, and your pain. If you’ve taken a class in most movement modalities, you’ve worked on your proprioception, and maybe you’ve noticed how your movement or instrumental practice feels different afterwards. Working on your visual and vestibular systems can also help your movement and instrumental practice. For today’s blog, we’ll just be looking at some ways to start to integrate vision training into your practice.
Most of us think of vision as going to an optometrist, looking at a chart 20 feet away, and then getting a prescription. While that is one test of visual acuity, it is not the only test of your actual visual skills! Some of the skills not tested are: how well your eyes can follow a moving object without moving your head, how well your eyes can adjust to an object close and an object far away, how well your eyes can move side to side, and how well your eyes can adjust to an object coming towards you and moving away. There are many other skills that are important, but these are just a few to start with.
Let’s look at how they apply to music first: if someone has a visual deficit, they may adopt a head forward position of their head and spine in order to see the music more clearly, and they may not actually experience pain there. We often think of posture as good or bad, but in fact it’s a reflect of the nervous system and what is prioritized at a specific time. If someone’s visual system is weak, changing the posture to be head forward may actually bring the music or object closer to them, solving the lack of accurate sensory information. While that head forward position has other consequences (breathing, muscular, lack of ease), their body may not interpret it as pain or probelmatic because it actually solves the biggest issues, which is “what are the notes.”
With that being said, let’s look at how these skills translate directly to music.
Skill #1: Linear Gaze stabilization, or can your eyes track a moving object without moving your head, tensing muscles, or altering a natural breath pattern. This is crucial for watching conductors, watching other players when playing in orchestra or chamber music, or just walking and driving . Many people struggle with this in one area of the visual field, perhaps on one side or just in one direction. You can practice this with a pencil or pen, focus your eyes on the point, and move the pencil up, down, side to side, and diagonally, and then film yourself to notice where you move your head and neck.
Skill #2: Eye circles or spirals. There are a few different ways to tackle this, but this is gaze stabilization with slightly more challenge to it. Using just a pencil or pen, start to create a spiral in front of you, going from small to big. For a second challenge, start to move the pen away from you as you make the spiral or move it towards you.
Skill #3: Saccades. A saccade is moving your eyes back and forth between two objects, something that’s needed in order to read, jump between lines of music, and so forth. For this, hold two pens in front of you, and see how quickly your eyes can move back and forth, roughly 10-15 times. You can additionally try up and down saccades and diagonal saccades.
Skill #4: Pencil Push ups. This basically tests how well you can see an object moving towards you and have both of your eyes turn inwardly (cross or converge), and how well your eyes can handle an object moving away from you (diverge). Often times one eye may be weaker or slower than the other in this. To practice this, hold one pencil in front of you and bring it towards your nose until it become a little fuzzy, and then move it away from you. While most musicians don’t have objects hurdling towards their face typically, we do need to adjust our vision to different distances, i.e. look at our instrument in front of us, music 2 feet away, conductor far away, and so forth.
Skill #5: Toggling distances. Using your pencil or even some sheet music, bring it about a foot away from your face and look at something farther away- a book, a tree out of a window, whatever. That far away distance is up to you and dependent on your space. Can your eyes focus on something close and then something far? What if you move the pencil or music closer to your face or further away? This ability to relax the eyes to look at something far away and then quickly readjust is incredibly valuable for musicians, especially if you’re spending a lot of time on the computer looking at something close.
With any of these exercises, you can practice them for short bursts of time and then take a break. 30 seconds to a minute is plenty! If you wear corrective lens, you can also try these exercises with lens and without and just see how you do. It’s ok if the image is fuzzy, but there is value in letting the eyes adjust without glasses or contacts. Lastly, if any of these exercises cause any significant discomfort or dizziness, check with a medical professional to make sure there aren’t any underlying issues.
*This is not to say that visually impaired or blind individuals cannot be fantastic musicians, just that vision is an important sense to train when available.