11 Strategies

11 Strategies for Audition and Performance Success A Workbook for Musicans by Don Greene, Ph.D. © 2012

Table of Table of Contents Energy .......................................................................................................3 Strategy for controlling performa performance nce energy

Preparation I ............................................................................................7 Strategy for developing better practice habits

Preparation II .........................................................................................10 Strategy for improving your learning

Preparation III ........................................................................................17 Strategy for memorizing music

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 Resilience II ............................................................................................45 Strategy for becoming mentally tough

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Energy

Strategy for controlling performance energy

In this Success Program, you'll learn how to Center. Centering is a powerful strategy that helps performers manage their energy. It’s 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 you’d 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 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.

The Game Plan: How to Center Sit with your hands relaxed in your lap. Your back should be relatively straight. Your feet should rest solidly on the floor.

(1) Form Your Clear Intention In the Centering process, there is a "going in" phase and a "coming out." You You go into the process by forming a clear idea of what you intend to do when you come out. What, exactly, do you intend to accomplish? State your goal in precise terms. You might

Per ormance S i s Inventor y

11 Strategies or Au it i tion an Per ormance Success

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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) ______________________________________________________________________________________

(2) Pick Your Focal Point Now direct your focus to a specific location some distance away, where you will direct that high-voltage energy which accompanies stressful performances and adverse circumstances. It could be a music stand or a chair at the rear of the auditorium. It's It 's important, however, that you choose a tangible focal point that 's below your eye level. Lifting your gaze tends to trigger Left-Brain thinking. Looking down is much more conducive to Right-Brain activity. Besides, you want this energy you're sending to flow effortlessly away from you. Baseball pitchers know that it's a lot easier to project a ball at high speed downward into the catcher's mitt; that's why they stand on mounds.

(3) Concentrate on Your Breathing Looking at the focal point, close your eyes. Pay close attention to your breathing. Breathe slowly in through your nose; pause; and then exhale slowly out through your mouth. Do this for seven breaths, or as many as it takes for you to become fully mindful of your breathing. Eventually you will be able to focus on your breathing with your eyes open, looking down, with a "soft focus." For now, however, practice with your eyes closed.

(4) Identify Key Muscles and Release Excess Tension Scan your body for tension. Where do you feel rigidity? Where do you tighten up when all eyes are upon you? Every performer has muscle groups that stress makes particularly tight. Vocalists' throats narrow. Trumpet players feel their shoulders crowding their ears. Ballerinas lock up from their neck to their wrists. Which do you think are your trouble zones? List them here: ___________________________________ _________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _______________________ ____ ___________________________________ _________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _______________________ ____ ___________________________________ _________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _____________________________________ _______________________ ____

Per formance Skills Inventor y

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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.

(5) Find Your Center Two inches below your navel and two inches into your body is your Center. Get in touch with that place. If it helps, put your hand there until you get a feel for it. Here's another way to find your Center. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, hands at your sides, and knees slightly flexed. Close your eyes and make believe there's a Hula Hoop around your waist. Now begin moving your hips. As you imagine the Hula Hoop staying up, imagine it getting smaller and smaller, but keep the rotation going. Move your hips in smaller and smaller circles, down to a tiny one, the size of a quarter. Find the center of that quarter and then drop it down about an inch. There's your Center! Now sit down and again try to find that point. Rotate your hips again if you need to. Then sense the contact of your seat bones to the chair. Rather than pull up and away from the chair, release your lower back muscles to achieve more contact. If this causes you to sink down to the point of feeling compressed, tip forward a bit on your seat bones and imagine energy moving up through your spine. Whether you are sitting or standing, the idea is to feel a solid foundation from your waist down. Your center of gravity under stress goes up, above your waist, making you unsteady. If you watch sopranos who get into trouble with high notes, you'll see them rise on their toes and lose their base and balance. Power comes from stability. Stay stable in your Center for three to seven breaths. Find your quiet, still point. Stay there long enough to memorize how it feels. Once fully at your Center for three or more breaths, you're ready to switch from Left to Right Brain.

(6) Make the Switch Remember your Clear Intention. You want to nail that high D? Hear yourself doing it. You want to make those jumps precise in the scherzo? Feel your fingers sliding down the string. You want to bouret effortlessly? See yourself soar. As soon as you are hearing it, feeling it, or seeing it, you're in your Right Brain. You've made the switch.

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(7) Direct Your Energy From this Centered place, imagine your energy. You may see it as a mass of light. You may sense it spinning at your Center. You may feel it gathering momentum as it moves up and through your torso. As it reaches your head, open your eyes, and fire it out to your focal point. Direct it like a laser. Feel how powerful a beam it is. You are ready to make your Clear Intention a reality. Go for it!

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:


1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10


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Preparation I

Strategy for developing better practice habits

In this Success Program, you’ll 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 enjoyable—and 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.

Create a Comfortable Environment Set up a practice environment that’s pleasant and comfortable to be in. If you have the luxury of your own room in your own apartment or home, then the sky's the limit on how you decorate the space. But if you're consigned to a public practice room, you can still improve the environment: You might put favorite photos around, or choose a room with a view, or have fresh flowers in a vase. Make the space your own: Display awards you've won, or put up posters of the artists who most inspire you. Whether or not you believe in feng shui, making your space feel welcoming, warm, inspiring, and distinctly yours will translate into sessions you feel better about. So: Without going to huge expense, what improvements can you make to your practice room? Do at least three things over the next few days to warm up your space.

The Game Plan: How to Structure Your Sessions (1) Schedule a time At what point in the day are you at your most focused and energized? If you're a morning person, for example, you cannot allow other obligations to push your first session off until the afternoon. Try to wake up at the same time every day, eat or exercise at the same time, and make it to your practice room while your energy is high, your expectations are positive, and your attention is sharp.



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(2) Establish a warm-up routine Physically warm up—tune your instrument, or sing scales, or stretch out your muscles. Whatever you do, let me suggest that your warm-up end with a few deep breaths and a clear intention. What is the core area of improvement you'll be addressing in this session? Tell yourself exactly what it is you intend to accomplish. Imagine yourself doing it.

(3) Keep sessions under an hour Practice sessions should not exceed 45 minutes. They can be as short as 15, but after 45 minutes, the level of your focus, energy, and commitment drops off precipitously. Then practice becomes counter-productive. You make mistakes. You get frustrated. Your muscles don't respond. You feel irritable and angry. And you lose any ground you gained.

(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.

(5) Progress from short to longer, easy to harder, slow to faster Tackling the long, hard, fast piece at the outset will net you nothing but defeat. Achieve small successes before you go after a big one. Give yourself a chance to work up to the challenging stuff.

(6) Check for internal feedback Keep tabs on yourself; your body is talking to you all the time. Listen to it. Pay close attention to how you're breathing, how you're moving, and how you're feeling--in your gut, in your shoulders, in your neck. Do you need to slow down? Relax your jaw? Drop your shoulders?

(7) Create a source of external feedback You'll need a tape recorder or video camera to provide feedback you can't give yourself. A metronome or tuner can be helpful. So can a mirror. External feedback allows you to catch things you'd otherwise miss, and then tackle those things in your next practice session.



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(8) Focus on the process and not the ultimate results Perfectionism afflicts most performers. It's not your goal. Striving for it is pointless. It will torment your mind and it can destroy your spirit. Strive instead to do your best in each session. Focus on how to do things better, not how to do them perfectly. Practice saying, "I did that really well" instead of, "But it's not perfect yet!"

(9) Reward your effort Each piece that you come to master, go out and celebrate. Bring home a trophy for yourself—an item or jewelry or clothing, a poster, a new CD—so that you properly acknowledge what you've accomplished. A final word about perfectionism. Remember as you practice that performing is about expression. It's the expression—whether we sing, dance, or play music--that makes us artists. It's the distinctly human interpretation and individual signature in that expression that makes us attend others' performances. If perfection actually were attainable, then there'd be no point in anyone ever performing again. So practice. Practice efficiently and often, and confidence will be yours. The performances you dream of are within reach.



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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.

The Five Learning Modes Imagine that you are in a master class performing for a great teacher. When you finish, and the last note of music dies away, it's time to get some feedback from that teacher. You want to know what you did well, where you need to focus your attention, and what you can do to perform better. Consider for a moment how you'd want that information delivered, if you could choose. Would you want your teacher to get up and show you how to perform the difficult sections better? Would you get it if he or she positioned you and guided you through the correct motions? Or do you just want to be told what you did wrong so you can figure out how to fix it later, on your own time? In fact there are five ways we take in information. We learn, certainly, by watching someone else demonstrate. That's visual learning. We learn, too, by listening to them perform: That's auditory. We learn by feeling ourselves move, by registering the sensation of specific actions in our muscles: This is called kinesthetic learning. There is cognitive learning, where we learn through explanations of how to do something, by having someone talk us through it. And there is trial-and-experience learning, where we learn by trying something until we get it right. All of us rely on all five methods, but each of us has a dominant mode or two that consistently works best for us, especially when it comes to learning new material or changing technique.



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Prioritizing Learning Modes Now consider, again, that master class. If you could customize the feedback you receive, what would you tell your teacher? I learn best when I... (a) see someone perform it correctly (visual) (b) hear someone perform it correctly (auditory) (c) get a feel for how to do correctly (kinesthetic) (d) have it explained to me (cognitive) (e) try it out on my own, until I'm able to do it correctly (trial and experience) Which two work best for you? These are your dominant modes. Write them here: (1) ______________________________________________________________________________________ (2) ______________________________________________________________________________________ When you’re acquiring new skills, making significant technique changes, or learning new music, these are the modes you want to employ. If you have just a little time to pick up something vital, they will serve you best. Now revisit that list and determine your 3 rd, 4th, and 5th modes—ways of learning that just haven't worked as well for you. (3) ______________________________________________________________________________________ (4) ______________________________________________________________________________________ (5) ______________________________________________________________________________________

Why, you may be wondering, should you bother with the 3 rd , 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.

Using Mental Rehearsal Once you've figured out the end goal of each learning session, begin each session with at least five minutes of mental rehearsal, where you first imagine how you will be proceeding through the session to reach your goal. Imagine your performance first in your most dominant learning mode. If that mode is auditory, "hear" the way you want it to sound, from the first note to the last. If it’s visual, make sure that you can picture yourself performing from opening position to final gesture. If you’re kinesthetic, try to feel the movements you need to make in order to do it correctly. If you’re cognitive, focus on the one or two verbal cues that serve as shorthand for what you want to tell yourself to do: Support, for instance, or Tempo. Give yourself at least two imaginary run-throughs, using both dominant and secondary learning modes. You'll find that when you're very clear in your mind about what you intend to accomplish in each practice session, you will indeed have precisely that experience.



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What Gets in the Way of Your Learning? Are you your own worst enemy? Lots of talented artists never reach their full potential because they don't know how to learn. Perhaps because things have come easily to them, they're not comfortable in situations where native ability doesn't see them through. They won't risk learning something new because they're very attached to their self-image as a "natural," as someone who performs effortlessly. They're vain. They don't want to look the fool trying something new. Or perhaps they're just lazy. Then there are the hard workers, the performers ready and eager to throw themselves into every assignment. They're often deadly serious. Some of them are perfectionists, obsessed with an outcome that's not humanly possible. These students, too, get in the way of themselves. They tend to over-effort every learning opportunity, cranking up the energy they expend on improving instead of submitting to learning a different approach. Being a good learner requires acceptance and surrender. They just won't let go. You may not fall into either of these extreme categories, but you're bound to have your own learning issues. Do you get easily bored? Are you easily frustrated? Do you run out of the patience necessary to break through to the next level? Sometimes the best way to get out of your own way is simply to become aware of your attitude and mindset. Think what teachers have said to you. Think of past classes that just didn't work for you. Make a list of the ways you may have sabotaged past learning opportunities. Consciously decide to address those dysfunctional habits. Consciously adjust your attitude. Before every new learning opportunity, examine the list and vow to change your mindset so that you're not the weak link in your own progress. Revisit the list again at the end of the term or semester. See if you've corrected some of your worst tendencies. Cross those off the list. Keep eyeing and editing the list until you' ve crossed off everything—until you're no longer your own worst enemy.

Learning to Ride Out the Plateaus Remember how it felt early in your career when you progressed in leaps and bounds? It feels a little bittersweet, I bet. You wouldn't want to be that novice again, but at the same time, it sure was wonderful to be someone who learned so much so fast that everyone, including you, was dazzled.



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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 can—you'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

2 Months (Current Plateau)

6 Months (Previous 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 mode—the 4 th 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.

Optimizing Your Learning You're in charge of your learning process. It is up to you to make the most of the resources at your disposal. First among those resources are your instructors. You may not have a choice of whom you work with; if so, try to make the best of it. But if you can choose, choose wisely. Talk to other students. Get recommendations that go beyond, "Yeah, he's really a nice guy." Ask what kind of feedback the teacher gives; you want someone who's inclined to help you the way you learn best. For instance, you may need a teacher who will perform for you. Make sure you get what you need. Find out how approachable this teacher is. He or she should be someone with whom you can have an honest conversation, so that if the learning process does go off track you can talk about it. Clear communication is a must. Ultimately, you want to choose a teacher you can trust. Trust is the most important aspect of the student/teacher relationship. Why you come to trust someone isn't quantifiable—it's a feeling, a chemistry, something your gut tells you. That's why you've got to let your gut have a say by auditioning several teachers. Pay for a lesson with two or three of them. You'll know which one feels right. Some teachers, for one reason or another, may turn out to be not the best choice. You may have outgrown them. Trust may have become an issue. You might be at an impasse where neither one of you feels open to the other. Have a conversation, a real air-clearing, before you decide all is lost. But if you feel it's time to say goodbye, it probably is. Don't continue to plod along because you're afraid to confront the teacher. A discussion about where your needs diverge from their gifts is in order. If that's too much, write a letter. But take action. If you're fortunate enough to have a wonderful teacher—one who is patient, supportive, encouraging and with whom you can speak freely--let them know how much you value them. Be grateful. Show your appreciation. Bring them an apple. Teachers are not the only instructors you'll need to seek out, either. I stress to my students the importance of a mentor, someone who can offer support, perspective, guidance, and insight.



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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 must—structure 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, you’ll 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 repetition—playing 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.

The Game Plan: Memorizing Music Choose a piece of music of moderate length and difficulty. Write down here the name of the piece, the composer, and the duration of the piece.

(1) Analyze the piece First you're going to engage your left brain. Examine the score. Study it for several minutes. This is to give your left brain proper exposure to such elements as the key, meter, tempo, motifs, thematic lines, and structure. Pay attention to the dynamics, scale degrees, movement, and resolution. Look for melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic patterns. Note any repetitions or sequences. When you feel you've got it, put away the score and write down everything you can remember. Try to capture all your technical analyses and insights. Now take out the score and see what you may have missed. Add whatever you missed.

(2) Divide the music into distinct segments Break the music you're trying to memorize into segments that make sense to you in terms of motif or phrasing. These can be four bars long, or half a page; you be the judge. Then take each segment and copy it onto its own separate page. You may use a copier, or a computer, but if you write it out longhand you will imprint it that much better on your memory. Each segment is about to become more than just musical notes on a page. Each is going to take on a life of its own.



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(3) Assign each segment a location Now it's time to use your imagination, which is seated in your right brain. Think of a trip you routinely make that takes you through a number of places in logical sequence. Say you often go visit a friend on the other side of town: Imagine that journey as a sequence of snapshots, beginning with your front door; then the elevator; the park you walk through to the subway; the subway station; the subway car, the florist at the top of the stairs, etc. See clearly where you end up, at the door of your friend's apartment. How many snapshots do you need to come up with? That depends on the number of segments you've created out of the music you're memorizing. Now assign, in sequence, a snapshot from your journey to each segment. The front door of your apartment becomes, for instance, the opening of the piece; the stairs up from the subway become, perhaps, the crescendo of Segment Four. Title each of your segments with a locale, e.g. "The Park," or "The Florist." With the score in front of you, visualize for each segment the location you've assigned it. See yourself there. And while you've got a good visual, hum or sing the opening motif of each segment. When you can move through all the locations, humming or singing the opening motifs back to back, without referring to the score, you're ready to add the rest of the music.

(4) Assign each segment a person Now it's time to associate a face in addition to a place with each segment. That's because we remember places we've been, but we remember even better people we've met or admired. Play each segment and consider its character and style. Who does it remind you of? Does that rhythmic counterpoint conjure up an image of Bach? Does that phrasing make you envision Yo Yo Ma? Use your imagination. You want the artist you choose for each segment to represent the mood and style of the music. Mahler may have written the notes, but maybe you see Jimi Hendrix whenever you hear it. When you've hit upon the individual, write that person's name as a subtitle on each segment. If you want to tape a picture or photo instead to the page, all the better.



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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.

(6) Perform the whole piece without looking at the score You're going to play, in effect, the soundtrack to your journey—say, to the friend's house. Start the trip from your front door and proceed from location to location, measure by measure. Don't worry if there's a portion of any segment that you can't immediately recall. Simply go to the next segment and pick it up there until you reach your friend’s front door. When you’re able to move seamlessly through all the locations, you’re ready to test it out.

(7) Tape yourself for this performance Continue to the end and then rewind the tape. Listen to your tape while following along with the score, so that you can circle the places where your memory slipped. You're going to revisit these locations and the people you assigned to them. In order to commit these measures to long-term memory, you must make them more prominent. You need to exaggerate their character. Dress them up in colorful costumes or have them expressing different emotions. You must give them life! Is this a lot of work? Not compared to rote memorization! Because this strategy uses a lot of your creative abilities, instead of brute force, it's a lot more fun to employ. But most importantly, it's more effective. You're not going to forget what you've memorized, because you've embedded it in long-term memory at many levels. You've not just learned the music. You now embody it. You're going to be able to retrieve this music under any circumstances because you've involved the playful right brain as well as the logical left. You've taken advantage of all your memory systems--both hemispheres of your brain, the full range of your emotions, and your sensory faculties. Congratulations! You own this piece.



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Confidence I Strategy for improving self-talk

In this Success Program, you’ll learn how to develop an effective dialogue with yourself—what 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 teacher—to yourself. You're going to learn how to be your own best coach.

The Game Plan: Develop Positive Self Talk Habits (1) What are you telling yourself? Before you can replace negative commentary with positive directives, you've got to find out just what you're saying to yourself as you perform. Select one piece from your repertoire that you’ll perform and record, on either audio- or videotape. Choose something challenging that you haven't yet mastered. Give it your best shot, and then, with the tape still running, review out loud what ran through your mind as you performed. Don't edit yourself: Every single thought deserves mention, from " Why do I always fumble that eighth note?" to "You idiot!"



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Transcribe those comments here: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________

(2) Identify the negative Look at what you've written and also feel free to add to the list as we continue. Which comments would you never say out loud to a friend or colleague? What worries do you give voice to? What doubts hammer at your confidence? Anything that isn't supportive, that doesn't guide you on how to perform correctly, that doesn't help you with your process, write that out verbatim 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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(3) Rewrite your internal script The things you say to yourself under stress register deeply and cumulatively in your subconscious, which is the source of your self-confidence. Although it is very powerful, the subconscious has some limitations. It is very gullible and believes everything you tell it, even if it’s not true. "I’ll never be able to get this" and “I sound like a beginner” may sound like a joke, but your subconscious doesn’t get it. Your subconscious is not in a position to question or interpret what you're saying: It absorbs everything as a fact. So instead of being abusive, try to say the kind of things you would use to help a fellow performer (“Stay with it," or "You can do it.”). Be optimistic and reassuring ("This is your moment!" and "You've worked hard for this!"). If this sounds corny, or feels out of character, just remember your performances haven't been benefiting from all those snide comments. Because the subconscious takes every suggestion or instruction at face value, as a command, you must say exactly what you want your subconscious to do, not to avoid doing. Below, change “don’t” commands to positive directives: Instead of admonishing yourself with "Don't miss the entrance!" substitute, "Nail that entrance!" Instead of saying, "Don't rush this section," try, "Keep an even tempo." Now look for words in your self talk that argue against you. For instance, when you say a piece is hard or difficult, you're denying your own ability to triumph over it. You're victimizing yourself, because your subconscious hears "difficult" and thinks, "I can't do it." Using the word "challenging," on the other hand, alerts your subconscious to a new and exciting chance to raise the bar. So here, rewrite any language that subtly robs you of your power: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________



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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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Monitoring Your Self Talk When it comes to examining and rewriting your internal dialogue during performances, once is not enough. You've got a lifetime of bad habits and negative self talk to reprogram, after all. For the next two weeks, continue to record your performances on tape two or three times a week. Choose progressively more challenging pieces. Keep a journal of your self talk, negative and positive. Each page of this journal should have two columns: In the left-hand column, write out what you said to yourself during your performance; in the right, across from those negative comments, rewrite them as positives. Keep at it, and you'll find that you've replaced your demons with a supportive team of encouraging coaches and cherished teachers. Wouldn’t that be nice? Do this exercise for the next two weeks and you’ll start to notice meaningful results. I have a new group of Juilliard students do this exercise every semester. In just two weeks, their self talk goes from dysfunctional and truly abusive to amazingly confident and supportive. " Why do you suck so bad?" becomes, " You know you can do it; it 's going to be awesome!" "Don't the miss the freakin' entrance again" becomes "Just count," and "Keep at it; you're here for a reason. Many wonderful reasons!" And "Great, now everyone thinks you look like a fool," becomes "This is going to be great, I'm really going to shine tonight." My personal favorite: "I can do anything I put my mind to." But in the end, it doesn’t matter what I say or believe – the only thing that really matters is what you say and believe. So now it's your turn.



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Confidence II Strategy for mental rehearsal

In this Success Program, you’ll 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.

The Game Plan: Master Mental Rehearsal To learn this technique, you’ll need to arrange for ten uninterrupted minutes alone in a quiet setting. Pick a time when you are alert. If you try this exercise when you’re sleepy, you will probably drift off before you reach the happy ending. Then it will be about as useful in getting you prepared as putting a textbook under your pillow. You can practice Mental Rehearsal either sitting in a chair or lying down. Just make sure that your back is relatively straight and that you feel comfortable. Close your eyes. For at least a minute, focus only on your breathing. Breathe in slowly and fully through your nose, pause and then breathe slowly out through your mouth. Then do a total body scan: Check your head and facial muscles, your jaw, neck, shoulders, arms, wrists, hands, ribcage, back, hips, thighs, calves, ankles and feet. Release any tension that you find.



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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. That’s 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.

(3) Imagine yourself performing Go step by step. Watch yourself making your entrance on stage. See yourself confident and composed, whether seated or standing, as you ready yourself for the start. Cue the music; hear, see, feel yourself respond. Concentrate on the motions that produce the effect you want as you follow the music, phrase by phrase, in your head. If you get through this piece without making any mistakes, great! Pick another piece, a more challenging one, one that you haven't yet mastered: Rehearse it the way you would like to actually perform it, until you make a mistake.

(4) Correct each mistake Mental Rehearsal gives you a marvelous, effective way to correct mistakes before you make them for real. If in imagining your performance you "hear" or "see" yourself make a mistake, immediately hit the stop button on your mental VCR. Rewind to a place before the mistake. Start from that point, moving slowly forward, at a speed you can control. Repeat this process several times, just as you would in real practice, until you’re doing it correctly in tempo. Then move on.

(5) Bring in all of your senses After you’re able to control what you’re seeing and hearing, so that even the most challenging pieces are going well, color the experience with other sensations. For instance, if you're a musician, don't just "hear" the music: feel the wood or brass or ivory of the instrument in your fingertips or see your smooth bowing. If you’re a vocalist, don't just hear yourself hit the high D—feel the support involved. If you’re a dancer, don't just visualize your pirouettes—feel the extension in your legs, the strength in your quads. Strive to make your Mental Rehearsal as vivid and as lifelike as possible.



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(6) Layer your segments Break up longer material into ten-minute sections. The first ten-minute rehearsal session might have you warming up in the green room, then going on stage and starting out well. The next session might pick it up from there and carry you through the middle of the piece. The last would see you through to the finale and thunderous applause.

(7) Be creative and have fun Try out a new repertoire. Play around with different approaches. Envision concert halls and famous venues you'd like to perform in. Keep the sessions interesting, energized, and always see, hear, and feel yourself performing well. The more beautiful the sounds, the more real the sensations, and the more vivid the visuals of your mental rehearsal, the more likely your actual performance will turn out as you desired.

Test Yourself Perform one of your current repertoire pieces on audio or videotape. When you’re 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. Here’s what my students noted about their first few sessions: Lots of mistakes. I don’t feel comfortable doing this. It’s 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: It’s starting to really gel in my mind. It’s easier when I’ve actually played earlier in the day. Easier material is easier to imagine. I’m starting to think that I can really do this. My mind wandered less. Made a couple of mistakes, but I fixed them right away. I’m 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 picture’s getting clearer. I can really imagine the entire performance going well. Awesome!



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Courage

Strategy for building courage

In this Success Program, you’ll 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 I’ve trained many performing artists to take the warrior’s 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.

The Game Plan: Become a More Courageous Performer You are already a risk taker. You have to be. You could not have come this far in your career if you hadn’t already competed or auditioned successfully at a high level a number of times. You've not only survived failure; you've clearly beaten it, many times. It doesn’t make sense to believe, at this point in your life, that you’re going to be presented with something that you won’t be able to conquer.

Exercise #1: Create a "Top Ten List" of Your Courage History Look back over your career thus far. Consider the countless performance situations you've got under your belt. Pick out ten of them where you felt afraid but soldiered on anyway. Consider those events where you elected to go for it, when you might easily have just taken a pass. Think of situations when you willfully put yourself in danger of losing something— a competition, an award, a position, or even just your pride. Maybe you volunteered to play the opening solo at the summer festival, or to perform in a master class. Now get yourself a notebook that you're going to devote to courage-building. Write down these events and your fears going into them. It 's absolutely critical that you write them down, and not just recall them. Write down as well the rewards you reaped.



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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!

Overcoming Your Fear of Failure Most performers fear failure. No one wants to embarrass themselves in front of colleagues, teachers, or total strangers. They worry about the effects of fear: memory slips, finger fumbles, clenched muscles, mistakes. As a result, performers tend to hold back. They develop a "play it safe" reflex that makes them hesitate—especially on opening phrases or movements. But that reflex doesn't serve them well, if you think about it for even a semi-quaver. For one thing, hesitating on an opening note means that note won't "speak." It can even mean no sound comes out—a disaster! For a fact, playing it safe absolutely guarantees you will not perform at your best, whereas taking a risk results in a range of outcomes, one of which might well be your peak performance. If you refuse to run the slightest risk of failure, you will not have the slightest chance of success. And you won’t feel very good about it. So let’s get you to change that reflex, and improve your outcomes.

Exercise #2: Creating Your Performance Log To create this log, you're first going to set up a series of performance situations. You'll start the series with an easy piece that you'll perform without witnesses and you'll end it by performing, before a live audience, a piece that right now scares you to death. (1) First, choose a piece from your repertoire that's low on difficulty but high on energy, at least at the beginning. Give yourself five minutes to warm up. Then set up a tape recorder or video camera, turn it on, and leave the room.



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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 progress—and 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 you’re pleased with how you’re doing—when you're pleased with how you're feeling—invite 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 situations—of 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.

Exercise #3: Create Your Courage Journal In your Courage notebook, keep track of all courageous acts. Think of it as a kind of bankbook, where you can watch your investments grow. Every time in the course of a day that you are presented with a situation in which you could flex your courage, and you take that step, write down what you did. It can be anything, from taking a piece you've always played safe and playing it with abandon; to having an honest conversation with a colleague or your teacher; to volunteering to play the principal role. It can be outside the music world: Perhaps you sign up for a new course, or learn a foreign language, or pick up a sport you've wanted to try but never had the guts. You’re looking for risks to take that are just beyond what you're confident you can handle. Every time you step over that line between comfort and fear, and take meaningful action, you're building courage. Here are some examples from my students: Event/Situation: Insurance company denies me reimbursement for damaged bow Fear: They won't reimburse me, ever Action Taken: Called them repeatedly Results: Got them to pay for a new bow Event/Situation: Speaking up in class Fear: I'd sound stupid because of my accent Action Taken: Raised my hand, said what I thought Results: No one laughed. People liked what I said.



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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 didn’t get to the bank. Tomorrow’s 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 music—activities 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.

Energy and Concentration First things first: Are you well rested? Have you been eating regularly? Are you getting enough exercise every day? It seems rather trite to point this out, but if you're exhausted, or fidgety with caffeine, or your blood sugar is spiking and dipping, you're in no shape to concentrate. Concentration requires a lot of energy. You can't expect to maintain your focus if your battery isn't fully charged. My Juilliard students often resent hearing this, but I'm going to repeat it anyway: You've got to train, not just mentally, but physically as well, in order to concentrate. Concert masters and principals I've come to know usually get at least eight hours of sleep every night. They eat balanced meals at regular intervals.



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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.

Understand Your Energy Cycle What's your daily energy cycle? Are you most energized in the morning? Do you feel at your lowest ebb at four in the afternoon? Pay attention to when you're pumped up and when you're dragging. Note what affects your energy—a heavy meal, a brisk walk, a nap, etc. Notice how your best concentration coincides with those periods when you're feeling stoked. It will surely come as no surprise that you can't concentrate when you're dragging: even Zen Masters can't sustain their focus when they're exhausted. But here's the good news: Energy is something you can regulate. You can definitely build it, conserve it, and apply it. It 's your key to unlocking the door to the Zone. So let's make the most of your Energy Cycle. Find those periods in the day when you consistently experience high energy. Whatever they are, schedule your practice sessions to coincide with them. Don't squander your precious high-energy phase doing laundry or running errands—save this sort of low-attention work for transitional energy phases, when you're coming off an intense period of concentration and need to taper off. Likewise, make full use of your low-energy troughs. Use them to recharge your battery. Take a nap. Visit with friends. Read a book. Do NOT try and practice during low-energy periods, because you simply won't be able to concentrate. Once you've rested a bit, then it's time to prepare for the next high-energy opportunity. Do something energizing: Splash cold water on your face, take a brisk walk around the block, maybe eat a protein snack. The whole idea is to work with your available energy instead of against it or without it.

Manipulating Your Energy Ultimately you want to bring your highest energy to your performances, not just your practices. But since performances are not within your scheduling control, it 's inevitable that you'll have to manipulate your energy pattern, building and conserving energy in order to have what you need on tap, no matter where the performance falls in your daily cycle. Here's how it might work. First, see where the performance falls in your natural cycle. If it 's at a low point, or at a transitional point, then you'll need to reprogram your day. Let' s say the performance is at 8 pm. Looking at your Energy Cycle log, you see that you're normally transitioning down at this point in the day. Eating a big dinner makes you especially resistant to revving up. You want to relax, not focus.



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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.

Making the Switch Concentration does not and cannot occur when the left hemisphere of your brain is active and dominant. The left brain is way too noisy a place, being the seat of analysis, instruction, and self criticism. Brainwaves in the left hemisphere race at 14 cycles per second in a highamplitude, choppy pattern we call beta activity. As you might imagine, this isn't the ideal neural environment for concentration. In contrast, right hemisphere brainwaves move at only 7 cycles per second. The pattern of these waves is long and sinuous. This neural activity is labeled alpha, and it takes over whenever you allow yourself to feel instead of think. Passion, pleasure, and impulse comprise the language of the right brain, which is why people who are in love so often can't explain why they act the way they act. "I just wasn't thinking," they'll say, as a way of summing up that glorious letting go. Indeed, passion is a very reliable gateway to the Zone. In the absence of passion, however, you can still access the Zone. You can use feeling and the recollection of feeling ("sensory recall") to trigger the left/right switch. The following exercises will get you reacquainted with your sensory faculties, so that you can consciously imprint your memory with how singing or dancing or making music feels, kinesthetically and emotionally, while you're performing. It's a different way of experiencing your art, but by drawing on that sensory experience you can induce at will the alpha state we call concentration. The following exercises offer a variety of ways both to access the Zone and strengthen and build your powers of concentration once you're there.



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The Game Plan: Developing Concentration Skills Exercise #1: Kinesthesia (1) Close your eyes. Get physically still. Relax your extremities. (2) Recall an important movement you make when performing. Is it pursing your lips to get a proper embouchere? Is it pointing your toes? Is it holding a bow? (3) Feel the motion without making it. While remaining physically inert, with your eyes closed, try to feel this important movement in your body. (4) Open your eyes. (5) Make the motion for real, paying close attention to how it really feels. What do you notice? Is it the same as you remembered? Repeat Steps 1 through 5 until you're certain that your sensory recall of the motion matches the feel of the actual motion. Try this exercise with other parts of your body, making other movements that are important to your performances. With practice, your sensory recall will be so accurate that you will, in effect, consciously recreate the experience of playing/singing/dancing in which you enter into the Zone.

Exercise #2: Synesthesia (1) Close your eyes. (2) Hear a piece of music playing in your head. (3) Play the piece, for real--but listen to it with your body, not your mind. What does it feel like? (4) Replay it in your mind. How has it changed? (5) Play the piece again, until you've succeeded in imprinting your mind with the way it feels. As in the previous exercise, you are looking to improve your sensory recall until it is so accurate you can recreate, internally, the experience of hearing the music you intend to make. Being able to recreate that experience in your mind becomes so totally absorbing that you catalyze the state of mind you normally achieve through actual practice. You're totally present. You're concentrating. You're in the Zone.



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Exercise #3: Intensifying Concentration It's one thing to attain a state of total absorbedness; it's another to sustain it for long periods of time. You need not just energy, but endurance. Acquiring the stamina to, say, carry you through Wagner's Ring cycle is a matter of endurance training. In this exercise, which has endured in Eastern philosophy for about 4,000 years, you build stamina by focusing on a process that has many steps, each step encapsulating a considerable stretch of time—upwards of several years. You won't, of course, be sustaining your focus for years, but you will practice the discipline necessary to stay with one process through all of its intricate phases and stages and transformations. The idea is to try it every day, allowing your imagination to fill in the details more fully with each attempt so that you're spending not mere seconds on each step, but whole minutes. When you can spend 10 minutes or more working your way through the steps, don't open your eyes on the last step: just imagine the fruit on the table and cycle through the process again. Ultimately if you can spend 30 minutes to an hour on this exercise, you'll have acquired the stamina to stick with your own process—playing your instrument, or singing, or dancing—for hours at a stretch. 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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Exercise #4: Being There Like the preceding exercise, this one allows you to build your stamina so that you can stay in the Zone long enough to achieve an optimal performance. The first time you do it, you'll spend a minute or two before tiring. With practice, you'll find you can stay with it for upwards of half an hour. !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

Strategy for focusing past distractions

In this Success Program, you’ll learn how to keep your focus on your performance even when external distractions threaten to steal your attention. Distractions—doors 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 floor—are 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.

The Game Plan: Become Impervious to Distractions Exercise: Observe and Record Your Reaction List some of the distractions that have taken your attention off of your performance: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ How did you react, specifically? _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________



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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:

Strategy #1: Create a boundary Using your imagination, form a barrier between you and your surroundings. This can be an invisible force field, or a "Cone of Silence," or a ring of fire you put around yourself before every performance. An opera singer student of mine used to zip herself into a translucent plastic egg before she took the stage. Whatever boundary you choose to create, make sure it's one that makes you feel protected from external distractions while keeping your attention contained inside.

Strategy #2: Use any potential distraction as a wake-up call Your attention is a lot like a toddler. Every little thing makes it wander off, which is why you must watch it closely to make sure it's within arm's length at all times. Draw an imaginary circle around your performance space at about arm's length. You and your attention must strive to stay within the circle throughout the performance. Whenever you notice your attention wandering outside the circle, just gently coax it back in, without throwing a fit. The distraction itself is your warning system, the alert that your toddler is wandering off. As soon as you hear or see it, guide your toddler back into the circle.

Strategy #3: Act "as if" Long before an actual performance, plant images in your mind of musicians you admire because nothing distracts them. They're unflappable. The next time an audience member with a cough drop starts unwrapping it at the beginning of your solo, envision these masters maintaining their focus. Don't just see them, act like them.



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Strategy #4: Accept and surrender You can't control the distraction, but you can choose to accept it. Accept that it is out of your control. Surrender, immediately, to the fact that it is. To illustrate this for you more graphically, let me share a story about a man who wants to catch a monkey. The man finds a heavy clear glass jug, and he drops into it a whole walnut. Along comes a monkey who, seeing the walnut, reaches into the jug to grasp it. He grasps it easily, but he can't withdraw his hand while holding it. The man who set this trap moves in to grab the monkey. The monkey, seeing the man, wants to pull his hand free to escape, but he can't bear to let go of the walnut. And so the man catches the monkey, who not only fails to get the walnut, but also loses his freedom. Surrender is easier if you understand that by fighting what you cannot change, you only manage to change things for the worse. If you let go, however, you free yourself from the trap.

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 you’ve 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

Strategy for recovering from mistakes

In this Success Program, you’ll learn how to rebound from mistakes so competently that you stop being afraid of making them—which 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 what—no 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.

The Game Plan: Rebound Faster From Mistakes Performers suffer two unhelpful reflexes when they screw up. One is quite physical: They cringe. Key muscles tighten. Blood flow gets constricted. Adrenaline rips through them, making them shake or lose muscle control. This physiological response sets them up, of course, to falter even more. The other reflex is mental: They shift suddenly from thinking only about what they're doing—process thinking—to how they're screwing up—negative outcome thinking. The left brain seizes control from the right and goes on a rant: That was terrible! You suck. You don't have it, you'll never have it, why don't you just give it up right now. They're laughing at you. How could you? After all that practice! There's no point in trying to save it. It's over. In many ways this mental reflex is more paralyzing than the physical: It puts you in Victim Mode, and victims by definition are helpless. You don't even want to recover. The Recovery strategy below will help you reprogram your habitual response to a mistake. But first you've got to find out what, exactly, is your reflexive response.



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How Do You React to a Mistake? Select a challenging piece from your repertoire. Set up an audio or videotape to record your performance. Warm up a bit, turn on the tape, and then give it a shot. If you get through the piece without making a mistake, either do it again or choose something more challenging that will trip you up. When you make a mistake, don’t stop. Keep going for at least a minute more. Then describe on tape what happened, exactly, immediately after you erred. What was your response to that mistake? ______________________________________________________________________________________ Where did you feel yourself tightening up? ______________________________________________________________________________________ What thoughts ran through your head? ______________________________________________________________________________________ What did your attention go? ______________________________________________________________________________________ What happened to your mood? ______________________________________________________________________________________ What happened to your energy? ______________________________________________________________________________________ How long did it take you to get back on track? ______________________________________________________________________________________



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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 can’t 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.

(1) Accept the Mistake So you took a hit. Get over it. What doesn't kill you strengthens you. Resist the temptation to examine your wounds. This is not the time.

(2) Relax Your Key Muscles Mistakes frequently cause performers to cringe, making their key muscles tighten. Use this otherwise involuntary response as a prompt for you to release tension instead.

(3) Be Armed with a Recovery Cue Instead of responding to a mistake with, " That was awful!", program yourself ahead of time to respond with, "Stay with it," or "Keep it going."

(4) Get Back into the Present Focus on your process: what you need to do, right now, to be performing correctly in this moment.

(5) Perform at a Reasonable Level Do not attempt to compensate for a mistake by bringing out the fireworks. Do pretty well before you try doing really well. Get yourself on solid ground first.

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

Strategy for becoming mentally tough

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 circumstance—in this case, the annoying behavior of an audience member—the 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. S o 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.

The Game Plan: Get Mentally Tough (1) Observe Your Punisher What brings out the Punisher in you? List those circumstances here: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Think of some performance situations you found to be particularly challenging. Cite specific things, whatever they were, that made you feel as though you just couldn't deliver your best: _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________



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(2) Train for Adversity Now give this list to some friends and ask that they set up a hostile environment where you'll perform under the duress they impose. By exposing you to adversity, they're going to help you reconsider and recondition your response. They should subject you to the sort of thing that you've found difficult, or infuriating, or defeating during actual performances. If, for instance, someone's cell phone went off a second before your last entrance, they might hide cell phones in your practice room and ring them randomly during your training. Whatever they do, it should come as a surprise. You'll know something's coming, but you won't know what, and you won't know when. At first—even though they're your friends, and you asked them to do this--you'll probably respond with the usual anger, or fury, or self-pity. That has been your reflex, after all. But the more you do this adversity training, the more certainly you'll reprogram that response. You'll care less and less about what they do to you, until you don't care at all. You'll become so used to bizarre things happening suddenly that you won't even flinch. (Ask your friends to drop a metal tray such as they use in restaurants: See how many times it takes for you to not flinch or even look up.) Through sheer exposure, you'll acquire the mental toughness that says, "I can do my job under any circumstances, no matter what." There's no shortcut to that mindset: You have to prove to yourself you can survive anything they throw at you by having them throw it at you. You have to experience doing your job under fire to know, with certainty, that no matter what the battlefield is like, you'll manage to perform your best. As you become mentally tougher, try and ratchet up the adversity. Encourage your friends to get creative: Maybe they put chewing gum on your chair, or leave a nastysmelling cheese on the window sill, or turn out the lights on you. No matter what they do, as you prepare for the worst, expect your best. Before you enter that Little Shop of Horrors to perform, imagine several different scenarios, all ending with your performing well.



11 Strategies

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