Barbara Conable
Barbara Conable, Founder of Association for Body Mapping Education (ABME), began her career as an Alexander Technique Teacher who worked primarily with performing artists. Together with cellist and AT teacher William Conable, they discovered that their students began moving more freely and feeling and sounding better once they absorbed the truth about how they were anatomically designed to move. Barbara wrote three books on Body Mapping, created the *WEM Course, founded ABME and began training musicians to teach the WEM information before retiring in 2005. The discoveries she made have saved & enhanced thousands of musicians careers over the last 40 years.
*WEM- What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body
From the Director
I met Barbara Conable in 2004 while looking for answers to my career-long issue of playing-related injuries. Her teaching, founded on her keen observational skills and a genuine desire to improve musicians’ lives was revolutionary to me and gave me a sense of empowerment I had not experienced in my music education up to that point. I trained with Barbara and then became licensed in 2005 and have been on ABME’s Training Committee for 15 years.
In 2022, about two years into the COVID pandemic, I mentioned in passing to my friend Duane Andrews, (jazz guitarist in the documentary and documentary score composer) that I’d like to interview Barbara and make a documentary about her discoveries. Having just resolved an arm issue through the Body Mapping work, Duane jumped on the idea immediately and together we made the necessary contacts to get this project off the ground. I was thrilled to get to sit with Barbara and interview her, asking her questions I had always been curious about but had never had the chance to get clarity on. I am very proud of ABME and the contributions that Licensed Body Mapping Educators continue to make around the world for the health of musicians. And I am thrilled to have been able to record some of these LBMEs sharing their personal transformation stories. Equally thrilling was being able to interview some of the world’s leading musical artists and educators as they discuss how Body Mapping is sweeping through music education and changing it forever. For information on how to rent the film for your music institution, please see the website’s Screenings page.
Jennifer Johnson
Moments from the Documentary
“It’s my hope that Body Mapping would be part of any core curriculum…in music schools… It’s just missing information.”
Nathan Cole, Concertmaster, Boston Symphony Orchestra
“I went to the most famous music college in the world…and no one ever told me how to turn my arm to play!”
Ásdís Valdimarsdóttir, Founding Member of Miami String Quartet
“Our kids…they’ll only have one body…wouldn’t it be great if they knew how it worked?”
Diane Daly, Head of Strings, Royal Academy of Music, Dublin, Ireland