If anyone is looking for new reading material, a new book by a member of the Mercyhurst faculty has recently been released.

Amanda Sage, M.M., is an adjunct flute professor in the D’Angelo Department of Music at Mercyhurst as well as a Certified personal trainer and corrective exercise specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine.

This background ties into the subject matter of her book, “Performance Health For Musicians: Exercises and Techniques for Staying Strong and Injury-Free.”

This book is “developed and written specifically with the performance health needs of musicians in mind,” according to the summary on the back cover.

However, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

“The book discusses not only proper playing technique and the prevention of performance-related injuries but also discusses topics such as the human movement system (nervous, skeletal and muscular systems), posture, stress and anxiety, time management, breath and the body, different bodywork modalities such as Alexander Technique and nutrition,” said Sage.

The book also contains visual aids with examples of exercises that can help prevent injury.

All of these things are related when it comes to preventing injuries.

“Musicians must care for their entire selves, both body and mind, to be able to perform optimally,” Sage said.

When asked what inspired her to write a book on this subject, Sage said that she “became very passionate about this subject almost a decade ago when [she] suffered [her] own performance health injury.”

“Readers can learn all about my story; I go in depth with it in the very first chapter,” Sage said.

Of course, this does not mean that the book is tailored only for musicians who have already sustained a performance related injury.

The book promotes injury prevention as well.

“The audience I had in mind when writing this book is the musician who might currently be suffering through or recovering from a performance-related injury,” Sage said.

“Additionally, just as important are musicians interested in the prevention of these types of injuries and also teachers desiring to help themselves and their students on this topic.”

When asked if she ever plans to write another book, Sage said, “I would absolutely love to write another book and plan to do just that, hopefully within the next two years, since the writing and publication process can be a long one.”

As for the potential subject matter of her next book, Sage says: “I touch on a lot of performance health topics in my current book, but I feel as though stress and anxiety management and time management tools for the musician might be another topic to expand upon and discuss.”

Her current book was independently published on Dec. 1 of last year and is currently available on Amazon.

Simply searching the book by its full title, or by the first part of the title (Performance Health for Musicians) will be enough to find it, as well as turn up many pricier options dealing with similar subject matter.