http://www.thefunctionalmusician.com/

The Functional Musician, 139 W Broadway, Waukesha, WI (2026)

02/15/2026

Breathing doesn’t improve when you train yourself to work harder than you need to.
In my mind, this is one the core concepts Arnold Jacobs was after.
Clear intent, minimal interference, and efficient pressure - all while you let the body organize around the sound.
But what if you have a smaller window to organize your body?
What if your body has lost the capacity to self organize into different shapes or positions?
In this case, you’re going to work harder than you need to, and you need a new strategy.
A strategy that will help your body reduce tension, create space, and reorganize, all of which will give you a bigger window AND a more efficient approach.
This is exactly why I practice daily positional breathing drills. These exercises help me reduce tension, improve my breathing coordination, and make playing easier.
If you are struggling with tension, related breathing, or want to find an easier more efficient approach to breathing, this is exactly what breathing foundations was created for. This program dropped soon and limited spaces are available.
Head to my bio to sign up for the waitlist or shoot me a DM

02/14/2026

Happy Valentine’s Day to my love .pancner !
I love living life with you and exploring new places. Can’t wait to see what the next year brings!
❤️

02/13/2026

I’ve always struggled with articulations and hesitations on the trombone
Although it’s cliche to try everything, it took about 20 years to figure out that my problems didn’t stem from the trombone…
They stemmed from my breathing patterns.
My breath was ramping up the tension I needed to play.
My breath was also constantly compressing my pelvis, ribcage, and neck - making me feel like I had a VERY tiny window to work with when I played.
When I started addressing my breathing patterns is when things started to shift.
I felt less tension when I breathed. My neck finally relaxed.
My posture improved! And my breath started to become more reliable on my instrument.
Sure, there were other instrument-related concepts and exercises I had apply and work on after, but this was the first step towards developing a foundation my playing could be built upon.
If you feel tight or tense when you play - I see you.
If you feel like you constantly take in air still feel like your body is squeezing you - I see you.
And if you feel like active breathing exercises make you more tight and tense - you’re not alone.
There is a better way, one that revolves around efficiency and working with your body, and it’s called breathing foundations.
And it launches soon.
Stay informed and head to my bio to join the waitlist, a special surprise waits for those on that list!

02/12/2026

Belly breathing is something we should stop (mostly) teaching in wind and brass pedagogy...
If belly breathing is the primary strategy being taught.
As many of you know, I am VERY against belly breathing when we play our instruments, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its place!
It can be a helpful tool if you are someone who feels a TON of tension in your abdomen, which can happen as a natural response to a posture that is VERY far forward (think weight over the balls of your feet and toes)
However, when we breathe, we want (and need) to expand in all directions at the same time, and unfortunately, belly breathing is an ineffective strategy that can cause excess tension, effort, and make playing your instrument more difficult.
We do need the abdominals and obliques to expand while we inhale, but we also need the side ribs and pump handle to move as well. If this isn’t happening, you are missing out on a TON of performance-related benefits that can help you improve and perform at a higher level!
Some exciting things around the corner. Every iteration of the breathing program has resulted in positive feedback, and I’m excited to announce the news next week. If you are curious about learning more or want to stay informed when Breathing Foundation drops, head to my bio.

02/11/2026

If you are a musician who feels worse after doing active breathing exercises before you play, this is for you
Following up on yesterday‘s post, active breathing exercises can be very helpful, but for many, they seem to result in more tension, tightness, or stiffness
Why might this be?
Whenever the body uses active inhalation or exhalation, there is a degree of muscle behaviors that help bring in or expel air.
This is normal! However…
If there is already an increased base line of tension through the system (the body), the body will start squeezing itself.
this increases the amount of effort that is needed for both active inhalation and exhalation. This also decreases the amount of “relaxed” breathing we have access to.
So essentially, depending on the amount of stress, load, and how your body or system is responding to the environment, this could make playing our instrument a laborious effort.
In this case, performing active breathing exercise exercises may feel like you are giving your body what it needs, but chances are… You are reinforcing the need to recruit more musculature during breathing.
This reduces the amount of space your body has access to
This increases overall effort to perform basic movements and activities on and away from your instrument
Decreases the window you have to play efficiently
And yes, this can greatly affect your endurance
So instead of focusing on active breathing exercise exercises, focus on reading, positional drills, that help;
Reduce overall muscle tension
Improve your ability to stack (alignment)
Restore your ability to breathe with efficiency
From there, these active breathing exercises, become usable, and trainable again. Without the capacity to access your tidal volume, muscle behavior will continue to ramp up.

02/09/2026

This post is inspired by a recent lesson. I had with a student where they were told to use act of breathing as a way to build lung capacity and make playing the trombone easier.
Unfortunately, for them, these exercises were keeping them in a tension feedback loop actually made playing their instrument harder.

This isn’t to say active breathing exercises aren’t helpful, they are!
but when they are used as a general recommendations when someone is struggling with their breathing, you’re essentially flipping a coin and making these recommendations without enough context.
PS - if you’d like to explore some decompression-based breathing exercises, comment BREATH and I’ll send them your way!
What are your thoughts?
musiciansofig

02/08/2026

Five years of wrist pain doesn’t mean you’re broken…
It often means you haven’t found the underlying root cause.
And as I say that, it’s important to recognize that as injury cycles continue to develop overtime, there are usually multiple factors and physiological element elements that play.
But with that said, for this professional cellist, approaching their pain from a full body perspective was the difference between temporary relief and rebuilding a movement foundation that can support the different movements and demands that their life has.
I’ve been behind on my case studies over the past couple of years for a variety of reasons, but I’m happy to start getting back into sharing these stories and destigmatizing performance related injuries in the music population
If you are curious about what working together would look like, shoot me a DM for more info, or go where you go when you want to find stuff in someones profile 🤓😎

02/02/2026

We tend to talk about musician injuries as isolated events
Aka, something went wrong, something needs fixing.
But when you zoom out, a different picture emerges…
high prevalence
recurring symptoms
patterns that track closely with load and recovery
These are not random occurrences, nor a failure of discipline or technique.
Rather, when a population shows high prevalence, recurring symptoms, and flare-ups that track with load, that’s not just personal: it’s chronic exposure.
And chronic exposure is a shared responsibility.
If we want different outcomes, prevention can’t live solely on the musician’s shoulders.
It has to be built into the training culture: how we schedule, teach, recover, and support the musicians that we are educating or employing.
At the same time, if you are a musician navigating your career and haven’t been exposed to health education, implementation, or other resources to help, it lies on you to seek out these resources and take ownership of your health.
We must move forward together if we want to change these statistics.

02/01/2026

Support problems got ya down?
I feel you.
As a bass trombonist, high range used to always feel effortful.
I remember my old teachers telling me that it looks like I was straining in the High register, even though it sounded good.
Years later, after multiple courses and years of biomechanics mentorship, I realize that I lacked the ability to pressurize the pelvis
If you can’t pressurize the pelvis, Support isn’t going to feel as efficient as it could be.
when we inhale our diaphragm contracts and pushes the viscera (guts and organs) down and forward.
If we have full relative motions, the pelvis should open up like a flower to catch the guts and organs.
During exhalation, the pelvis needs to be able to push the organs back up.
This is where exercises away from the Horn is going to be most beneficial, but in this video, I am working on connecting the bridge from my personal movement practice to my fundamental practice
By sitting on a hard surface, or ideally a foam roller, I am creating pressure through my bones, allowing me to more effectively push my organs back up on exhalation
You’ll even see me stand a couple of times in the sped up video to try and connect the same feeling from sitting to standing
People may view this as a necessary, but for me pattering, healthy, breathing mechanics into my plane, has made my trombone playing easier and more efficient.
I have have improved endurance, range, articulation speed, dynamic contrast, and increased access to my true lung capacity.
If you’re interested in learning more, shoot me a message about trombone lessons! I’d love to see how I can help you play with more efficiency, ease, and control.

01/29/2026

I’ll just wait until things calm down…
I’ll just wait for the perfect time….
When life is calmer.
When I have more energy.
When I feel “ready.”
When I feel “in control and comfortable”
And there is a time and a place for these feelings.
But for many, that moment never comes.
Every season has its chaos, rehearsals, travel, stress, injuries… and life.
And after coaching hundreds of musicians over that past six years, there’s one pattern I can’t ignore:
The people who get results don’t wait for perfect conditions.
They commit to their health for themselves and keep showing up, regardless of the struggle.
I’m still the same way and catch myself falling in the pattern of waiting. Sometimes it’s necessary, and other times it’s me holding myself back, always saying, I’ll do it later.
But if later comes paired with health, an unfortunate reality is that it isn’t going to change unless you HAVE to make a change.
And for me, the longer I waited, the more disconnected my body felt.
My turning point was realizing, after another injury prolonging my three-year injury experience, that no one is coming to do this for me, and true control comes from prioritizing MY health.
If I didn’t prioritize my health, things would, at best, stay the same… or slowly get worse.
Everything shifted when I stopped chasing control and started making the decision to show up for my health. Not for a day. Not for a week. For a lifetime. This is what true change is about.
This gives you a deeper sense of self-worth.
So if you’ve been waiting for the “perfect time” to work on your breath, your body, or your playing, this is your sign.
If you’re ready to stop guessing and start rebuilding your body for playing, my 1-1 Recovery Program is how we do that.  Through this transformative program, we’ll identify what patterns are driving your tension/pain, rebuild your breathing and movement foundation, and create a long-term plan you can actually follow during your real life demands. All it takes is 15-20 minutes a day.
If you want details, DM me RECOVERY, or head to my l1nk N Bi0

The Functional Musician

02/15/2026

02/14/2026

02/13/2026

02/12/2026

02/11/2026

02/09/2026

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01/29/2026

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