Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Table of Contents
Energy .......................................................................................................3
Strategy for controlling performance energy
Preparation I ............................................................................................7
Strategy for developing better practice habits
Preparation II .........................................................................................10
Strategy for improving your learning
Confidence I ...........................................................................................20
Strategy for improving self-talk
Confidence II ..........................................................................................25
Strategy for mental rehearsal
Courage ...................................................................................................28
Strategy for building courage
Concentration .........................................................................................33
Strategy for concentrating on demand
Focus .......................................................................................................39
Strategy for focusing past distractions
Resilience I .............................................................................................42
Strategy for recovering from mistakes
Resilience II ............................................................................................45
Strategy for becoming mentally tough
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Energy
In this Success Program, you'll learn how to Center. Centering is a powerful strategy that helps performers manage their energy. Its dramatically effective and with practice, it can be amazingly quick. Centering works for a number of reasons. First, it gives you conscious control over your breathing. Second, it releases the muscle tension that accompanies stressful situations. And third, because it triggers an important shift in your mental activity, from the left hemisphere to the right. The left hemisphere is the noisy critic, the irrational doomsday voice, the scatterbrain that can't focus. The right brain is where muscle memory, imagery, and sound take over; it's the nonverbal hemisphere whose quiet allows you to stay on task and in the moment. Shifting into right-brain thinking, with practice, can take mere seconds. Working from the right brain, you can picture what you want to do, get a feeling for how you are going to do it, and hear the sound or see the movements that youd like to create. This state of mind is the source of all great performances. The disparity in your Energy scores indicates you're a victim of stress because you're not able to make adrenaline work for you when you're under pressure to do your best. You can't manage the voltage; you feel like you're going to fry. Or it's the opposite: You just can't get revved up enough. Either way, in an audition, during a performance, or at the moment of your solo, stress is your undoing, your enemy. Not any more. You're going to learn how to make it a powerful ally.
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say, "I am going to nail the high D in the aria." For right now, your Clear Intention might be, "I'm going to learn how to Center." Try it: Write down three Clear Intentions, as precisely and concisely as you can. (1) ______________________________________________________________________________________ (2) ______________________________________________________________________________________ (3) ______________________________________________________________________________________
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These are your Key Muscles. When scanning for tension, pay particular attention to these areas, because under stress these are very likely the muscles you can least afford to have immobile. The simple act of checking them leads to releasing the tension. Coordinate your scan with your breathing. On each inhale, check one area, feel it and, on the exhale, release any tension you find there. Visualizing can help: Maybe you picture a knot. See it open up. Continue scanning and releasing until all your Key Muscles are ready to function well.
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Getting Better
Centering must be practiced until it is second nature. I recommend practicing three to five times a day at first. If you do it as part of your daily routine--before you warm up, practice, and perform--you will note significant changes within a week. The goal is not speed but true mastery of each step. Eventually you'll be able to Center in one to three breaths, or about ten seconds.
Centering Log
Keep track of your efforts as in the example below. Seeing your progress will help you progress faster. For instance, each initial attempt may take you upwards of three minutes. After a few days of practice, you'll be Centering in less than a minute. The ultimate goal is to be able to Center in less than 10 seconds. Knowing you can regulate your breathing, release muscle tension, and channel performance energy will give you the focus you need to perform your best. Day/Date: My Clear Intention: How well I realized my Clear Intention: Beginning Time: Ending Time:
10
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Preparation I
In this Success Program, youll learn how to get the most out of your practice sessions. Practicing constantly doesn't necessarily prepare you to do your best; you must also practice efficiently. By developing better habits, you will find practicing becomes easier, and more enjoyableand then you'll be willing to put in the time it takes to become a consistently great performer. Having good practice habits will also develop your self confidence. Self confidence comes from knowing that you deserve it, that you've worked long enough and trained hard enough that you have what it takes. But for some performers, even relentless practicing doesn't produce this confidence because they aren't able to progress, despite all those sessions. They don't know how to practice properly.
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(4) Take a break between sessions or whenever your attention lapses repeatedly
If you can't focus properly, stop and take a break, even if you've been practicing only 15 minutes. There is absolutely no point in continuing if you're not paying attention. To get your focus back, leave the room. Do not just lean back in your chair, or check your email, or make a phone call. Go outside and get some fresh air. Walk the halls, or run up and down the stairs. Move. Get your blood circulating. Your brain needs the oxygen. Clean out the cobwebs. Go splash water on your face. Take five or ten minutes and get the energy flowing.
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Preparation II
Strategy for improving your learning
Are you getting the kind of instruction that works best for you? You may have teachers who are tops in their field. You may be in one of the finest performing arts programs in the nation. But you may not be making the most of your learning opportunity. Being at the receiving end of a fine education does not necessarily mean you're profiting from it. In order to optimize every learning opportunity, you need to learn how you learn. You need to understand exactly how you take in information, how you process new material, and how you retain what you absorb. Once you understand your learning style, you can 1) choose instruction that's going to work best for you 2) help your teachers understand how to elicit your best work and 3) use instructional materials, including my own, more efficiently.
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Why, you may be wondering, should you bother with the 3rd , 4th, and 5th learning modes? These least preferred modes may be more helpful than you think. They offer new ways of refining previously learned techniques. If you revisit what you learned some time ago, employ one of these less dominant modes to unlock hidden potential.
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In fact, you'll want to employ all five modes in any learning situation, whether the material is new or old, because then you'll really have it under your belt. You will have brought all your faculties up the learning curve, so that if one sensory faculty "forgets," another will cover.
Prioritizing Material
In order to be most efficient in learning something new, it pays to map a route to your ultimate destination so you don't waste time being off-track. Say you need to learn Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. Consider how much time you have, and how much learning you can pack into that time frame. How can you break down the task? If there are three main sections, for instance, perhaps you give yourself a week or two to learn each. Then in that timeframe, how can you further break down each section into daily assignments with specific goals? Make yourself an efficient game plan at the outset and then stick to it. This way you'll remain challenged enough not to get bored, but not so overwhelmed that you shut down out of fear. Both boredom and fear make learning inefficient because they make your mind wander. You wind up reviewing sections you already know or practicing what you've already got by heart and bogging down on difficult sections until you're discouraged and it's too late to save yourself.
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That simply doesn't describe your path now, not because you're not learning, but because progress at this stage of your career is very, very hard-won. Getting from good to really good takes an incredible amount of work. It can take weeks, even months. You can't help but wonder, at times, if you're even moving forward. Sometimes it feels as though you're revving an engine that's in neutral. In fact, the engine is in gear: You're just on a plateau. It's long. It's flat. It's possibly even boring, at least compared to the rocket runs of your youth. But you can't afford to get frustrated: That will put you in reverse. You've got to keep on trucking in order to rise, eventually, to the next level. And you canyou've done it many times already. Look at the maps below. It shows the learning plateaus of two of my students.
Bass Trombonist
Bigger Sound ? Months (Next Plateau) Stable Whole Notes Clear Attacks 6 Months (Previous Plateau) 2 Months (Current Plateau)
Violinist
More Bow Speed 6 to 9 Months? Vibrato 1 Month Left Hand Articulation 1 Year Now I want you to draw your own map. Let each line represent a learning phase. Name the phase above the line. Below, indicate how long the phase lasted. Your lines may tilt sharply upward or look pretty flat, depending on how you feel about your progress in that phase.
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When you're done, see the last phase for what it is: long, flat, dull, but a phase. You can gut it out. You can stay with it. You will get to the next level! Here's a tip that may make the journey easier. Approach your current phase from a different learning modethe 4th or 5th one you listed above. You may need to hire a new teacher or structure your practice differently so that you're forced to see the same old material in a new way. That new perspective may be enough to either speed up your progress or make the plateau more interesting.
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Your mentor needn't be in your exact field. If you're a violinist and she's an oboeist, that may not matter. What matters is that she can draw on years of experience in the performing arts. She should know the ropes and be eager to share her wisdom. In the end, no teacher or mentor makes or breaks your performance career: YOU do. You can and muststructure your learning experience so that, overall, you make the most progress you're capable of in the timeframe that you're given. You can augment what your teachers offer with self-guided instruction; everything from tapes and CDs to books and software can fill in any gaps. Be proactive! Your learning experience is what you make it. Make it work for you.
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Preparation III
Strategy for memorizing music
In this Success Program, youll learn how to commit to memory music of any length and complexity. You'll be able to play it anywhere, at any time, without having to consult the score. What distinguishes this strategy is its multi-faceted approach. Instead of using brute force and mindless repetitionplaying a piece over and over in order to pound it into your head you're going to rely on your sensory faculties, the full range of your emotions, and both the right and left hemispheres of your brain. The more memory systems you employ in learning a piece of music, the more places you have to store that data in your body and brain. Through association, imagination, and testing, you will reinforce what you memorize until you can utterly depend on retrieving it under any circumstances for years to come.
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(5) Perform each segment in each location as if you were the individual you assigned to it
You're trying to embody the style of this individual. How would Bach render this tempo? How would Yo Yo Ma bow these phrases? Be that individual! If necessary, repeat your performance of each segment until you have literally incorporated it.
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Confidence I
Strategy for improving self-talk
In this Success Program, youll learn how to develop an effective dialogue with yourselfwhat I call "positive self talk." It's often the first step in optimizing performance, because it reprograms expectancy, or what you believe you can do. You may not be aware of the effect of your words on your performance, but what you tell yourself will happen plays a powerful role in determining what eventually does happen. You may not even be aware that you have an internal critic, telling you all the time what to think, and what to expect. But based on your Profile, I can assure you, you do. And it doesn't have very encouraging things to say. Some performers feel justified in reproaching themselves. My students at Juilliard have said absolutely awful things to themselves while performing. "Why do you suck so bad?" an outstanding pianist used to say to herself. "Don't miss the freakin' entrance again!" a talented string player would comment. "Great! Now everybody thinks you look like a fool," was a piece of commentary one of my performers heard after a missed cue. They all relied on a motivational approach that was more stick than carrot. This is not a long term winning strategy, believe me. In my experience with hundreds of artists, positive reinforcement leads to greater confidence and much better outcomes. Think of the best teachers and coaches you've had. I'm willing to bet they were so effective because they believed in you and were relentlessly encouraging. Now you're going to learn how to be that supportive teacherto yourself. You're going to learn how to be your own best coach.
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Transcribe those comments here: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________
Now let's hear from your inner cynics. Write down anything that even borders on selfabuse (You are pathetic, what's wrong with you?!). Make sure you include all those sarcastic remarks too ("Oh, nice work on that trill," or "Well, you sure aced that."). _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________
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Look at some of the doubts and worries that you've expressed: "What if I miss that high D?" or "What if I stumble in the second act?" or "Maybe I should have practiced the opening a few more times." Why do you listen to these saboteurs? Replace each with a statement of confidence or courage. ("I've done this a million times," or, "I know I can do this!") _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Use the first person pronoun. Statements that begin with "I" and an action verb reprogram your subconscious. So you might say, "I've trained long and hard for this." Stick to statements you can absolutely defend, such as "I am getting better with my fingering every time I play this concerto." _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ You might see in your self talk what I call outcome thoughts. They sound like, "I need to wow this recital panel," or "If I don't win this job my career is down the tubes." Such thoughts are not helpful; they crank up the pressure until it becomes debilitating. Replace outcome thoughts with process thoughts, functional commands for how to perform your task the right way, right now. These might sound like, "Keep the air flowing," or "Smooth bowing" or "Full extension."
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Confidence II
Strategy for mental rehearsal
In this Success Program, youll learn how to prepare yourself to do your very best by rehearsing the performance ahead of time in your mind. When practiced correctly, this process can boost your confidence and produce the outcome you've worked so hard to achieve. Mental rehearsal is what disciplines your imagination at precisely the moment it's likely to go astray and betray you. Mental rehearsal puts your imagination in your control, so that it delivers the outcome you most desire. I probably don't need to tell you how powerful your imagination is. Under pressure, it can run wild on you, filling your head with disaster movies in which you fall off the stage or snap a string mid-solo. These horror flicks can seem so real because not only do you see disaster, you also hear and feel it. My students at Juilliard have experienced, in their minds, the sensation of their throat tightening, their shoulders rising to their ears, their palms sweating. They actually feel nauseous. And because they feel that way, they perform that way. In fact, the experience that plays out in your mind tends to dictate the actual outcome because your subconscious perceives these imaginings as directives, and acts on them. You must make sure you program your subconscious altogether differently so that it delivers an optimal performance.
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(1) Select a visual reference point from memory and focus your mind's eye on it
It could be the door of the green room, a stage prop, or your instrument. See it in your head. At first, it may not have much detail, or you have trouble bringing it into focus. Thats normal; your mental acuity will improve with a little practice.
(2) Warm up
Imagine yourself playing scales or stretching and warming up. Can you hear yourself? Just the way it sounds? Can you feel it? Can you feel your fingers limbering up, your calf muscles extending, your chest opening up? When you can, mentally select a piece from your repertoire that you will perform. Make it a relatively easy one for the purposes of this training session.
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Test Yourself
Perform one of your current repertoire pieces on audio or videotape. When youre done, review it carefully and give yourself an overall rating from 1 to 100. Put the tape away and run through seven Mental Rehearsals of that same piece. Write down your observations and insights. Don't worry if the initial sessions don't go perfectly. Heres what my students noted about their first few sessions: Lots of mistakes. I dont feel comfortable doing this. Its hard to feel my fingers move like that. I need more coffee. Same mistake, same place. I keep thinking about the football game instead of this second movement. I only get it right when I really slow it down. Then perform the piece again on tape. Review the tape, and rate your performance again on a scale from 1 to 100. What do you notice? Make notes about your experience. Here's what my students noticed after seven sessions: Its starting to really gel in my mind. Its easier when Ive actually played earlier in the day. Easier material is easier to imagine. Im starting to think that I can really do this. My mind wandered less. Made a couple of mistakes, but I fixed them right away. Im starting to enjoy this. Time and practice will give you the control over your imagination that you've been missing. Having that control is critical to confidence, and your ability to perform well under pressure. Just look at what my students had to say about their experience after 21 sessions of mental rehearsal: This is a fun way to practice. I could really feel it the way I do it when I nail it. The pictures getting clearer. I can really imagine the entire performance going well. Awesome!
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Courage
In this Success Program, youll learn how to get past your performance fears by strengthening and increasing your courage. Fear is a fact of life for performing artists; every single person who has ever mounted a stage and faced an audience has felt, at some point, that heartstopping stab of pure terror. But successful performers overcome fear's paralyzing grip, not because they no longer feel it, but because they have learned to be brave. Bravery is not the absence of fear: It is the doing of the thing you fear, so you can move beyond it. You can train yourself to be brave. I know, because Ive trained many performing artists to take the warriors path. The key is to confront your performance fears first in a safe environment and then subject them to ever increasing pressure. You begin with small steps just outside your comfort zone, progressively taking on more risk as your courage increases.
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Here's what my Juilliard students wrote, for instance: Occasion: Orange Bowl Parade Your Fear: Scrutiny. TV people wanted us to move quicker. Courageous Action: I held the marching band together, even though the TV people were pissed. Result: We did great! Occasion: Sub with a band in the city Fear: I'll never get to sub again. Courageous Action: Went for it, blended well with the section. Result: Exciting performance. Got invited back many times. Occasion: Juilliard audition Fear: Failure, rejection, grief Courageous Action: Applied Result: Here I am!
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(2) Get your heart pumping so that it simulates how you feel when you're about to perform for real. Climb a flight of stairs. Do jumping jacks or whatever it takes for you to feel the way you do right before you go on stage. If you feel somewhat out of breath, don't worry about it; you're only going to be performing for less than 30 seconds. Before you go back in the room to perform, take a few deep breaths, scan for tension in your upper body, and consciously drop it or shake it out. (3) Just before you begin, tell yourself "I am going to go for it. I am going to let it fly." And then, let 'er rip. Perform with abandon. Focus on the feeling of letting go, of not caring about consequences. (4) When you're done, turn the tape recorder off and take inventory. How did it go? Did anybody die? Is the building still standing? (5) Give it another try. And then another. No matter what the result, keep telling yourself this: Way to go! Bravo! I really went for it! And not only was no one hurt but you didn't make some of the mistakes you probably dreaded making! In fact, there were probably a few absolutely dazzling moments. Imagine that! (6) Keep a log of these performances in your Courage notebook. If you don't, you won't see and feel your progressand I assure you, you will make stunning progress. Comments my students made in their Logs start out as: Feels weird. Out of control. Out of breath. Cautious. I can do better. Fingers shaky. Couldn't let it go. Splatty and ugly, but less tentative. After several attempts, the comments became: Feel like it's coming around. It does sound better. I'm getting the hang of it. This piece is killing me. Feels more in control. I feel good. I focused better and sounded better. Went for it. Almost there. Before too long, this is what they were writing: Love this! Starting to fly! Great stuff! Control is kicking in. Great accuracy. Awesome! (7) When youre pleased with how youre doingwhen you're pleased with how you're feelinginvite a friend to attend one of your tapings. Better yet, invite your teacher. Watch or listen to the tape together. That's the drill. You're going to repeat it in its entirety two more times: Select two new works from your repertoire, one that worries you and another that outright frightens you, and repeat Steps 1 through 6. You may need upwards of seven tapings for each piece before you're ready to go live with them; record every performance, both on tape and in your Performance Log. Each and every time, commit to an all-out, no-holdsbarred, screw-the-mistakes effort.
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You never really finish this exercise, because I want you to keep adding to your Performance Log. Every entry, whether it's you alone in a practice room, or you performing courageously before an audience of thousands, bolsters you for even greater conquests.
Building Courage
Courage is a lot like a muscle: You strengthen it by using it. If you don't use it, you lose it. So you need to flex it constantly by seeking out fear-inducing situationsof any sort--and forcing yourself to confront them with a warrior's mentality. In time, this will become a reflex, so that at the first twinge of anxiety you respond pro-actively. You take action without deliberation. By acting brave, pretty soon you will be brave.
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Event/Situation: Show my new apartment to my dad Fear: He wouldn't like it Action Taken: Showed him anyway Results: He hated it In jotting down your own courageous acts, don't write down any opportunities that you may have passed up--anymore than you would write in your bankbook that you meant to make a deposit that day, but just didnt get to the bank. Tomorrows another day. In a few weeks, you'll notice that, as with money, every deposit of courage collects a bit of interest. Your investment compounds. There's a cumulative effect, so that just seeing all the entries mount up, you'll be inspired to make bigger deposits, and more often. There won't be enough opportunities in a day to satisfy you. Bring it on, you'll be saying to yourself. Let me have at it!
Rewards
For every seven courageous entries in your Courage Journal, go out and treat yourself to something nice that will forever remind you of the bravery you exhibited. It's absolutely critical that you do this: You are creating powerful icons for yourself, constant reminders that you have mastered fear many times before and are certainly capable of conquering it again. Every time you lay eyes on these rewards, you will be reminded of your many courageous actions in the face of fear.
Test Yourself
As you prepare for your next important performance, pore over your Courage notebook. Review your Courage History, Performance Log, and Courage Journal. Review the highlights from all the tapes you created. Surround yourself with those icons you awarded yourself. Remember how many times you have looked fear in the eye and charged ahead. Commit to go for it. And whatever happens, focus on the fact that not only did you put yourself on the line, but you held nothing back and really went for it. Bravo!
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Concentration
Strategy for concentrating on demand
In this Success Program, you will learn how to enter on command the state of concentration from which all great performances flow. Concentration as you've known it is not a skill so much as a state of mind; it's not something you do so much as something that magically occurs when you engage in certain activities. If you're a performing artist, concentration happens most often when you sing, or dance, or make musicactivities you're drawn to precisely because in doing them you can utterly lose yourself. So absorbed are you by the practice of your art, the world and its concerns melt away. There is only the present moment, and only the object of your passion filling it. In order to be one with your passion, you surrender your self completely. No wonder you keep practicing and performing. Being in that zone of total absorption is like falling in love. But knowing what concentration feels like isn't the same, alas, as knowing how to make it happen. How do you initiate this powerful state? How do you position yourself so that access to the Zone moves from a possibility to a probability? How do you train yourself to not only get there but stay there until you've gotten the job done? Pay close attention.
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They observe some sort of exercise program every day, even if it's only walking for 30 minutes, to elevate their heart rate and clear their head. They understand how important energy is to concentration. They owe their careers to their ability to concentrate on command.
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The first thing to adjust is probably dinner: Eat lightly, if at all. Avoid sleep-inducing carbs. You want your blood flow available to all your muscles, not just your stomach. Then apply your revving-up ritual to the two-hour period before the concert. Look at your Energy Log for inspiration. If exercise reliably primes your fuel pump, then get moving though not so strenuously that you run out of gas. You may have to manipulate your day starting even earlier. At 3 or 4 pm, for instance, take a nap in anticipation of your high-energy-demand evening. At 1 or 2pm, eat a high-carb lunch that will make it easy to take a late afternoon nap. You may spend the entire morning in the practice room, but skip the afternoon session altogether in favor of taking that nap. You cannot guarantee you'll enter the Zone during your performance just by making energy available, but by making sure you've got the energy, you do guarantee access.
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! Set an orange, or a piece of fruit on a table. ! Behold the fruit. Study its details, registering as many as you can. ! Close your eyes. Breathe deeply for at least three breaths. ! See, in your mind's eye, the seed within. ! Imagine the seed germinating. Smell the moisture released in the soil, softening the
husk. Feel the heat of the sun in the soil. ! See the seedling grow. ! Visualize the seedling becoming a tree. ! Visualize the tree producing fruit. ! See someone picking the fruit. ! Open your eyes and behold the fruit.
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!Set a candle on a table in front of you and a mirror behind the candle. !With the tip of the flame at eye level, focus on the moving tip. !Think, "Blue." Watch the tip until you see blue. !Think, "Red." Watch the tip until you see red. !Think, "Orange." Watch the tip until you see orange.
Is the color of the flame really changing? When you're concentrating, you are the creator of the reality you experience. You and the object of your focus, your desire, are one and the same. See the color, be the color. Consider yourself a Zen Master of concentration.
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Focus
In this Success Program, youll learn how to keep your focus on your performance even when external distractions threaten to steal your attention. Distractionsdoors to the concert hall opening and closing, people walking in and out, cell phones ringing, candy wrappers crackling, people clearing their throats, music stands crashing to the floorare an inevitability. Preventing them is a pipe dream: they're simply not in your control. They're going to occur, and often at the worst possible times. But how you choose to respond to them is entirely within your control. You can allow them to further distract you, or you can learn to focus past them. You can block them out. You can accept them, and move on. You can learn to bring your attention back to your task so fast it's as though you never noticed the distraction at all.
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What happened to your performance? _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________
This is behavior you can't afford. Here are several strategies to help you focus past potential distractions:
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Test Yourself
Prepare three pieces of your repertoire. Then assemble of cadre of fellow performers who are willing to subject you to a number of distractions. As you perform, they're going to do their best to steal your attention. Encourage them to be creative. For instance, when I test my students at the New World Symphony, the staff and I ring cell phones, staple papers, even drop cello boards on the stage floor while the Fellows are performing. At Juilliard, while the students are playing their final exam, I have other musicians offstage playing slightly off pitch or out of tempo. Once the stage is set, make an entrance, and start your performance. Do not stop until youve played all three pieces, no matter what your tormentors do to try to throw you off. No matter what happens, you must fight to keep on going and do your best. At the end, rate yourself. What got to you? How did you respond? If you managed to focus past distractions, what strategy worked for you? Repeat your performance with your cast of tormentors until you consistently manage either to block out any distraction, or accept it and let it go immediately. Either you'll retain your focus, or, if it wanders for an instant, you'll guide it right back to your performance. And that will see you through your most challenging performances.
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Resilience I
In this Success Program, youll learn how to rebound from mistakes so competently that you stop being afraid of making themwhich in turn means you'll make fewer of them. This is not a strategy to make you mistake-proof, however; quite the contrary. Mistakes are part of performing live, and if you put all your energy into avoiding them you won't have enough energy left over to thrill your audience. This is, rather, a strategy to teach you recovery. Seasoned performers do not count on things going off without a hitch. They count only on their ability to continue no matter whatno matter if they just fell on their face, or hit a high note off key, or dropped 18 bars of the second movement, or had the curtain close on them mid-coda. You, too, are going to learn to keep going No Matter What.
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Whatever your response, I can guarantee it took up precious milliseconds--or even seconds--of your concentration. This is what makes mistakes so deadly: They make you dwell on the past, robbing you of your ability to be present until you've lost the ability to continue. The left brain just seizes the microphone with self-criticism, irrelevant commentary, anger, even blame. Many of my students at Juilliard go into a useless pattern of denial. I cant believe I came in wrong; I haven't missed that opening since high school!" Sound familiar? This is your inner victim whining. You're not going to indulge that victim any more: A fighter is about to take the stage. Below is a 5-step strategy for recovering faster.
Test Yourself
Try out the Recovery Strategy in your practice room first. You want to apply the five steps under easy circumstances before you put it to use in high-stakes situations. When you make a mistake, don't start over: See how quickly you can get back on track. Remember, you have a choice in how you respond to a mistake. The faster you accept it, the quicker you'll put yourself back in the present moment, where you can still excel.
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Resilience II
In this strategy you'll learn how to change your response to adversity. You'll learn how to develop a warrior's mindset. Adversity comes in all shapes and sizes, and always at the worst possible time. So many different things can undo you even before you get on stage: You can't get a cab, or your shirt is missing a button, or the conductor gives you a weird look going in. Or you discover one of your keypads feels sticky, or the music is out of order, or there's a wobble in your chair. Even if you get off to a great start, that's no guarantee this performance will be a cakewalk. Your stand partner makes a mistake. You make a mistake. You lose your place in the music. Finally, when you're back on track and about to start your solo, you hear something in the audience. You can't prevent adversity. But you can change how you react to it.
The Punisher
One of my private clients, a flute player, described how a woman in the second row of the audience kept humming in accompaniment to his solo. He found it not only distracting; it was downright infuriating. His response was to stare her down with a laser-like beam of contempt. "Did this make her stop?" I asked. He shot me an incredulous look. "No," he shot back. "Of course not." "So how'd the solo go?" I pressed. His gaze dropped. "Not very well," he admitted. This is what I call the Punisher Syndrome. Whatever the difficult circumstancein this case, the annoying behavior of an audience memberthe Punisher responds not by toughing it out but rather by getting emotionally overwrought. Part of the emotional response is victimhood: Why me? Why is it always me?
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The other part is anger: I am going to fix this person, they are going to be so sorry! It doesn't have to be a person, of course; the Punisher wants just as badly to punish things, too. So the Punisher mashes the piece of music onto the stand to make it stay, or glares at the offending audience member to make her stop, or otherwise gathers a great ball of negative energy and hurls it at whatever trying circumstance is making the performance so needlessly difficult. If you've ever responded this way to adversity, I'm sure I don't need to tell you how your performance suffered. Whenever you respond to circumstances beyond your control with anger, self pity, or both, you're taking precious energy from your performance and squandering it where it can do absolutely no good. Being mentally tough means being strong enough to resist the urge to "lose it" over something you can't control. It means taking responsibility for what you can control: Your mindset, your attitude, your response. Respond like a victim, and you will be victimized; respond like a warrior, and you will triumph.
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Make a firm commitment that you are going to hang tough No Matter What, until you're done. You're not responsible for what goes wrong around you, but by soldiering on in spite of it, you take full responsibility for your performance. You're in charge. You determine the outcome of your performance, no matter what happens during it.
8 9 10 (Bulletproof)
When you're satisfied with both your mental toughness and performance scores, go out and treat your friends (if you're still speaking to any of them) to some reward for their efforts. Treat yourself, as well, with a reward that will serve as a permanent reminder of your accomplishment. I send my Juilliard students to the Army Navy Store where they buy themselves a military ribbon to attach to their instrument case so that each time they open the case they're reminded of just how tough they've become.