David Steinhardt conducts this series' final interview for tonebase. Leisner explains the origins of Playing with Ease, returns to dystonia and explores composition, Schubert arrangements and his duo with Eduardo Fernández. For me, it brings together two important needs: understanding our own bodies and remaining musicians above all.

The Book Is More than a Dystonia Manual

The interviewer points this out at the outset, and Leisner expands on the distinction. The book draws together decades of teaching, anatomy, the work of both hands, practice and performance. His specific experience of FD is concentrated in one section. The other topics also matter to people without dystonia.

Leisner says the first draft took approximately six weeks, but the insights were not invented in six weeks. He had formulated them over many years of lessons before finding time for sustained writing. His experience with Oxford University Press is also interesting: the manuscript fitted its interest in health and long-term musical practice.

The First Improvement Was Not Yet a Return to the Stage

Leisner describes twelve years between the onset of dystonia and what he considers full recovery. He mentions the ring finger being primarily affected, related reactions in other fingers and a period of playing with thumb and index finger. Following an initial suggestion from Neil Anderson, he began exploring how larger muscles support movement.

He felt hope quickly, but initially explored these new possibilities at home. For some time, he continued using substitute solutions in public performance. This is a practical distinction: a skill that sometimes appears under favourable conditions may not yet be ready to support a whole concert.

Over another four years, he gradually gained more reliable control. His story does not invite immediate testing of every small improvement in the hardest repertoire. Rather, it shows the importance of distinguishing an environment for discovery from one requiring stable performance.

What Cannot Become a Universal Promise

Leisner strongly believes in the protective effect of his way of working, even speaking of injury being impossible when larger muscles are engaged correctly. I do not adopt such an absolute claim as a guarantee. The interview describes his conviction and experience; it does not prove that someone following a particular principle cannot develop a health problem.

He also acknowledges gaining something from approaches that did not themselves cure him. He mentions the Alexander Technique, the Feldenkrais Method, yoga and various experiences of bodywork. Small useful insights may accumulate without allowing us to assign a definite share of the outcome to each one.

Teachers Also Need Limits on Their Capacity

Recalling his work at the New England Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music, Leisner discusses travel fatigue. Combining teaching in Boston with concert travel was becoming unsustainable, so he reorganised where he worked.

Details about chairing the department and alternating with Mark Delpriora belong to the 2019 interview; they are not statements about current positions. More generally, what matters to me is that even a successful musician need not accept every logistical burden. Organising work is part of creating conditions in which the body and attention can function.

An Empty Mind, an Open Heart and Working in the City

Leisner describes composition as a private activity. He does not necessarily seek an isolated residency: his own study in New York and walks that allow ideas to loosen suit him. Among specific pieces, he introduces Empty Mind, Open Heart, written for his former student Steve Cowan.

He also discusses West Wind, his cycle setting poems by Mary Oliver, and why he writes for other instruments and voice. Collaboration with their performers expands his imagination. The relationship between composer and performer is not a one-way commission: testing ideas and discussion can transform a work.

Schubert: Preserve the Essence without Transferring Everything

For Die schöne Müllerin, Leisner arranges the piano accompaniment for baritone and guitar, working with Michael Kelly. In the Arpeggione Sonata, he again does not transfer the main melodic part to guitar: the guitar takes the piano's role, while a cello can play the melody.

He explains arranging as a gradual process of subtraction. Not everything in the original piano part can be transferred, but Schubert's character and musical relationships must remain. The result should feel natural in its new instrumentation, rather than constantly remind us of what the guitar cannot do. Leisner acknowledges both his arrangements' difficulty and the possibility that someone might eventually find an even better solution.

What a Singer's Breath and a String Player's Line Can Teach

Leisner says working with singers develops a sense of phrasing, colour and breath. String instruments bring experience of continuity of line and vibrato. Guitarists need not copy those instruments, but can become more aware of what they overlook in their own playing.

Breathing should be neither a noisy obligation nor something continually held back for fear of making a distracting sound. The point here is to connect natural functioning with the musical phrase. It is not a separate treatment for FD or a reason to forcefully manage every breath.

A Duo as a Meeting of Similar Ways of Thinking

His collaboration with Eduardo Fernández began when Leisner recognised a similar way of thinking in Fernández's teaching. An invitation to play together quickly led to discussion of repertoire. He mentions Sor, Antoine de Lhoyer, Steve Reich and both partners' own works among their programme.

The tour described took place in 2019. More important to me than that travel schedule is the joy of listening to one another. Another person can restore questions and spontaneous responses to familiar work that a solitary player can easily lose in the practice room.

An Étude Can Be a Story or a Joke

Towards the end, the two Davids discuss Villa-Lobos's études as a whole containing different characters. They are not merely a collection of difficulties for the right and left hands. One may have lyrical depth, another urgency, and another humour. A technically demanding passage need not sound ponderous and serious.

This brings the whole series to a natural close for me. Leisner's experience of dystonia is essential, but does not exhaust the meaning of his work. Music remains, with all its possibilities: exploring, transforming, listening, collaborating and allowing ourselves to be surprised.

Approximate locations in the transcript: 04:50 origins of the book; 10:17 dystonia; 21:24 teaching and travel; 23:48 composing; 27:08 Schubert; 33:38 chamber music experience; 35:52 the duo; 39:31 Villa-Lobos. The beginning and end contain longer musical excerpts.

Conversation source

• Podcast:The tonebase Classical Guitar Podcast, with David Steinhardt.
• Episode:Season 2 Episode 7: David Leisner.
• Interviewer:David Steinhardt.
• Guest:David Leisner.
• Published:2019-04-08 at 02:32:56 UTC.
• Platform of the supplied source:Apple Podcasts.
• Listen and programme information: The tonebase Classical Guitar Podcast, with David Steinhardt – Programme archive; the title and date above identify the episode.
• Source material:the supplied English transcript10 - Season-2-Episode-7-David-Leisner.txt. Obvious automatic transcription errors in names and titles have been corrected editorially; this article is a thematic treatment rather than a verbatim translation.

Another direct source: David Leisner: the book Playing with Ease. Personal experiences and pedagogical opinions in the interview are not a universal treatment for focal dystonia.

David Leisner - all ten interviews

1. David Leisner: less control, more music
2. David Leisner: how to connect the body, the technique and the sense of the composition
3. David Leisner: own musical voice, stage fright and confidence
4. David Leisner: return after dystonia, creation and life support
5. David Leisner on focal dystonia: the first discovery is not the end of the road
6. David Leisner: first man, then guitar
7. David Leisner: what hides Bach, Ginastera, Villa-Lobos and Mertz
8. David Leisner: a wider musical life, exercises and a journey from dystonia
9. David Leisner: music beyond the fingers and the concert
10. David Leisner: Playing with Ease, Composition and the Joy of Collaboration (this article)