• "Tina Margareta Nilssen takes you on an exciting journey through the musician’s instrument: Your body and your brain. She shares her abundance of anatomical knowledge, presented in a way that is engaging and easy to understand. I highly recommend this book to both students and experienced performers looking for a deeper understanding of our functionality, not only to avoid pain and injury, but also for exploring our potential for greater artistic freedom."

    – Tuva Semmingsen, Opera Singer, Associate Professor at the Grieg Academy in Bergen, singing teacher at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen

  • "This book should be required reading for every music educator, student, and professional. It includes practical and research-supported advice, personal anecdotes from a dynamic range of professionals, accessible exercises, and anatomical information about joints, muscle fibers, fascia, and more. Through this information, musicians will be empowered to take their education to the next level."

    Hannah Murray, violinist and Co-founder of Corpsonore

  • "A "must-read" for all musicians, and for health professionals and therapists working with musicians! As a physiotherapist who specializes in musicians' health, Timani has given me new insights and a refinement in meeting with this group of clients. Well founded in anatomy, neuroscience and physiology, Timani hands us a toolbox with targeted exercises for performance enhancement and for preventing different overload injuries within every specific instrumental group. Tina Margareta Nilssen has managed to fuse the musical world and body science. "

    Karen van der Starre, Psychomotor Physiotherapist at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo

“Unleashing the potential of the musician’s body” (Norwegian title: “Kunsten å spille på lag med kroppen”) offers clear and practical tools for music professionals, students, educators, movement specialists, and therapists working with musicians. You’ll learn about relevant anatomy–in particular, joints, muscles, and fascia–and get information on how the brain and movement are linked together.

You’ll find about 40 illustrated performance-targeted exercises for all parts of the body, with specific instructions for different types of instruments as well as for singers. The exercises are designed to optimize movement and make playing or singing more effortless and expressive –and through this, access more musical potential. This book also touches on subjects such as warm-ups, pain, healthy living, and self-care tips.

Review: Unleashing the Potential of the Musician's Body

by H. Murray April 14th, 2021

“This book holds so many missing pieces to a complete music education. As musicians, we spend years learning how to play our instrument but very little time addressing HOW to use our body to do this. We marvel at greatness, yet it remains a mystery locked in the bodies of the masters. We struggle with pain and discomfort, accepting it as part of our music-making experience.

THAT IS GOING TO CHANGE.

It is time to fill in the blanks, to understand how to not only use our body to make music pain-free but to make music joyfully, with inspiration and intention. Many -dare I say, most- of these secrets exist in our own bodies; it’s simply a matter of learning how to use them to our greatest potential.

This book offers a comprehensive approach to using your body to make music. It includes personal anecdotes from a dynamic range of professionals, testimonials, practical and research-supported advice, accessible exercises, and anatomical information about joints, muscle fibers, fascia, and more. Tina doesn’t just explain how the body functions. She reveals how musicians can best take advantage of our complex systems to make beautiful music. If you’ve ever had a question about how things are connected, what muscle does what, how to train the brain or the fingers, then you will gain multitudes from this book and plenty of ways to implement the information easily into your own practice, performance, and teaching routines.

This book should be required reading for every music educator, student, and professional. Through this information, musicians will be empowered to take their education to the next level and create a different soundscape in the future that moves away from pain, celebrates individuality, and cultivates renewed joy in music-making.”