Ep 7: Making Friends with the Body with Tina Margareta Nilssen
About TinA
Tina Margareta Nilssen (f. 1977) is passionate about helping musicians to get more out of their musical potential and to have a better life. She herself is a classical pianist with lots of additional courses in physical and mental fields, so that she could understand the mysteries of how we humans are put together. Her driving force has been to discover what it really takes to develop fully as an artist and gain a genuine expression through music. To build bridges between what science and body geniuses already know about the body, mind and brain, and deliver this in a practical and understandable way through effective tools that musicians can gain from.
Tina has taught thousands of musicians from the whole world, and has through this experience discovered where there are common answers for everyone, and where the individual needs time and space to grow. All musicians are unique, and all lives carry their own history that can impact the body and the life as a musician.
in this episode
Tina’s training and background as a pianist
How Tina (reluctantly!) became interested in the body
What Timani is and how it works
How cultivating understanding and trust of the body can change our experience of both practice and performance
The difference between mental effort and physical effort
The fascial system and what it means when we say that everything in the body is connected
Breathing and how it both effects and is effected by everything else in the body
How physical insecurity can translate to mental insecurity in performance and how learning to use the body with more intention can lead to greater security onstage
Music-making and empathy
Learning to differentiate movement by sensing which muscles to use
What it means to be inside the body while playing
learn more
Timani website and Timani online community
Timani podcast
Tina’s website
Master’s thesis: When my feet help me play pianissimo
