From the audience, it looks like the hard part of music is artistic, but from an ergonomics perspective the hard part is physical: long practice sessions, sustained postures, and repetitive demands that accumulate quietly until they become pain, lost practice time, or altered technique. International Jazz Day (April 30) is a good reminder that musicians are workers too, and that the same controls we use elsewhere can make performance more sustainable.
Key takeaways: Small adjustments to seating and setup can reduce sustained strain, support systems can offload the arms and improve neck posture for some instruments, and, while instrument redesign is the hardest lever to pull, targeted design changes are showing measurable reductions in muscle demands in early studies.
Do musicians suffer injuries? We don’t hear much about work-related musculoskeletal injuries amongst musicians, perhaps because there are relatively few full-time professional musicians in the world, and partly because most of them are not “paid” by employers and therefore cannot claim a compensable injury in the way that many other workers can. However, research asserts that these injuries are occurring.
If injuries are occurring, then the question becomes familiar to any ergonomist: what controls are available? I’m writing this article based primarily on research; in all our years of practice, we’ve only once been asked to support a musician; that project involved finding a more supportive seat. Much of the available research focuses on three practical areas.
- Seating
- Supporting the weight of the instrument
- Instrument design
Seating
As for any seated worker, a chair should support the spine, allow the feet to rest firmly on the floor, and avoid uneven pressure distribution on the buttocks and thighs. Musicians present a mobility challenge to chair designers; their arms need to move in ways that many traditional chairs would not allow, and they may need to hold an instrument close to their body, like a cello. They may not be able to recline at all, which means that a backrest cannot provide support. Sometimes the best we can provide is a cushioned stool that will adjust in height. An office worker would be appalled at such an offering.
Supporting the instrument’s weight
Instruments that are held in the hands, such as guitars, trumpets, and saxophones, may not weigh much by industrial standards. But in industry, it would be uncommon for a worker to hold a 1.2 kg tool at shoulder height for hours at a stretch. Neck and shoulder straps have been used for some instruments for years, transferring the weight of the “tool” to the torso, and thereby alleviating the demands on the arms. A study by Price and Watson (2018) looked at the use of support rods to transfer the weight of brass instruments to a chair, floor, or harness; these devices yielded a 15-30% reduction in muscle demands.
A tuba player in a marching band wouldn’t last a block if the tuba was not supported, but smaller instruments are more often borne by the hands. If a musician chooses a strap, the design of the strap can have a big impact. A study by Ohlendorf et al. (2018) compared a neck strap, shoulder strap, and torso-based support system (“Saxholder” ). They concluded that the “Saxholder”, which offered three-point support on the chest and shoulders, improved neck posture more than the other options. So, straps can improve neck posture, reduce the demands on the arms, and probably reduce the overall energy demand associated with practice and performance. Similar to backpack design, strap width, padding, stiffness, curvature, and adjustability will all play significant roles in how the load feels. In practical terms, a poorly-fitted strap can create just as many problems as no support at all. The instrument needs to be supported in a way that allows the required mobility, particularly considering whether the musician will be seated or standing.
Instrument design
Instrument redesign is perhaps the most challenging ergonomic intervention, because it affects not just function, but tradition. Whenever I’ve broached the subject of instrument re-design with a musician, even an amateur musician, the reaction is usually immediate and skeptical. Instruments are uniquely designed to create a very specific sound, and design involves more than acoustics—it incorporates history, tradition, aesthetics, and identity. The value of an ergonomics overhaul might be obvious to a musician who is in pain, but it may not feel justified to a music historian or purist.
Despite the challenges, research is being done in this area. For example, Orme et al. (2023) looked at the effect of an “ergonomic grip aid” on muscle demands for trombone players. The device was associated with reduced muscle demands for the fingers and upper back, particularly for small-handed musicians.
Matteoli et al. (2021) explored the acoustic design of brass instrument mouthpieces in an effort to reduce how much pressure is required to make sound; less pressure would result in less physical effort and fatigue.
As someone who once attempted to learn acoustic guitar, I might argue that an electric guitar, with its thinner strings that sit closer to the fretboard, is an ergonomic improvement over the acoustic design, although guitar still asks a lot of the wrist and fingers when you look at it through an ergonomics lens. As with “ergonomically designed” chairs and keyboards, the marketers are hard at work, promoting the benefits of ergonomic design features. These guitars, for example, claim to improve the weight/balance of the instrument and improve wrist posture. And while I don’t doubt that the design is considerably more comfortable than its predecessor, the left wrist is really bent in every photo of the instrument in use. (That’s the nature of guitar playing, of course, but someday perhaps there will be a solution.)
We’ve talked about the design of the instruments, which, in industry, we would call “engineering controls.” Not all solutions require redesigning equipment. Just as manufacturing workers can benefit from administrative controls, so can musicians find relief through:
- Interrupting prolonged practice with brief, planned micro-breaks, especially after demanding passages or drills that lock the hands, shoulders, or neck into one position.
- Using variation and rotation where you can (for example, alternating instruments, repertoire, or technical focus) so that you are not spending the entire session in the same sustained, awkward posture.
- Optimising the adjustment of your surroundings, including the chair, music stand, and support straps, because even well-designed aids cannot help you if they are set too high, too low, too far away, or simply not fitted to your playing position.
- Using feedback, by videotaping yourself or asking a teacher/coach to observe, so you can spot habits that are easy to miss in the moment, such as hiking one shoulder, turning the neck to view the score, or tucking the legs under the seat.
Musicians may not look like traditional workers, but their physical demands are remarkably familiar. Long practice sessions, static postures, awkward hand positions, and repetitive movements all create the same fatigue patterns we see in offices, manufacturing, and healthcare settings. Research into seating, support systems, and instrument redesign shows that comfort and performance are not opposing goals; in many cases, improving physical support helps musicians sustain their performance over time.
The lesson here is not that musicians are unique, but that they face the same hazards as any other worker performing precise, repetitive tasks. As ergonomists and safety professionals, we are trained to recognize risk wherever physical demands exist. International Jazz Day offers a chance to broaden that perspective. Think about the musicians in your workplace, pub, school, or community. Ask questions, observe postures, and suggest small improvements. Whether someone is typing, lifting, or playing jazz, the fundamentals of ergonomics still apply.