Focus – Bulletproof Musician: Recent Episodes
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A 2021 study of pianists highlights some key differences between effective and less-effective practicers.Source
Flutist Carolyn Christie (Montreal Symphony, McGill University) shares her mid-career struggle with "terrifying" performance anxiety, how she overcame this challenge, and the mental skills she now shares with her students.Source
If you’ve ever taken a professional orchestra audition, and perhaps even a seating audition at school or at a summer festival, have you ever wondered what the musicians on the other side of the room or the screen are listening for?Is it our sound? Intonation? Rhythm? Phrasing? Consistency? Expressiveness?Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get into the heads of audition committees and find out what they’re thinking when they hear us play? Well, we may not be able to read their minds, but a 2022 study gets us close.Source
Whether it’s auditioning for orchestra jobs, securing a residency for your string quartet, or building up your teaching studio, have you ever had one of those moments where you begin to question whether things are ever going to work out?Source
When you think of classical music, what instruments come to mind? An orchestral instrument of some kind, like strings, woodwinds, brass, or percussion? Maybe piano? Voice? Or guitar?Would accordion make your list?Source
You know that famous quote attributed to Debussy? The one that goes something like "Music is the space between the notes."?I don't know about you, but I was certainly guilty of compress things and rushing through these spaces on many an occasion...And of course, there's an awful lot of music within each note as well. Which I also tended to rush through and pay too little attention to. (And where was I in such a rush to get to? No idea. Maybe the end of the piece so I could get off stage? 🤣)This might seem like a really abstract concept at first. So it's the sort of thing that can be easy to push to the back burner, because there are always so many notes to learn on your music stand. But paying more attention to the life within each note can make practicing and performing a much more engaging and gratifying experience. And improve your sense of rhythm and phrasing as well.In other words, it's worth keeping on the front burner, even if just at a simmer.Umm...ok, but what does this mean or look like exactly? In today's episode, violist Steven Tenenbom (Orion Quartet, Curtis, Juilliard, Mannes, Bard) explains, and illustrates what this means using concrete musical examples.Source
In this month’s conversation, I’m joined by Jason Shafer, who is principal clarinetist of the Colorado Symphony and on the faculty of the University of Northern Colorado and the International Festival-Institute at Round Top. Jason is also nearing completion of a master’s degree in performance psychology, and so we explore the many ways in which his performance psychology studies have influenced his approach to practicing, performing, and teaching.Source
It’s the day before an audition, and as you take a few minutes to review some tricky sections, suddenly you get a twinge of anxiety and start stressing and freaking out about how awful everything sounds. How unprepared you feel. And how horribly you’re afraid things are going to go. It’s at those exact moments when you know the right thing to do is “think positive.”But these are also the exact moments when it’s hardest to think good thoughts. Like telling a kid to cheer up after they just lost all of their video game privileges for the day, as their little sister munches happily on the last ice cream sandwich in the freezer, giggling while watching her favorite YouTube show (hmm…that's awfully specific...doesn’t that kind of make you wonder what’s happening in the Kageyama household right now?). Most of us have a natural tendency to dwell on negative thoughts. To worry about the future, bemoan past decisions and choices, and focus on what’s bothering us right now in the present. Which from a survival perspective, probably makes good sense. But from a performance perspective, this negativity bias can make it difficult to stay in a good frame of mind before auditions. Or get to sleep the night before a big recital. Which can then make the performance go to crap.So how can we get better at “thinking positive” - at least temporarily - when we need it most? Source
You know those moments when you run into a particularly vexing problem in the practice room and get stuck?Where no matter how many repetitions you put in, or hard you try, you just can't get a note to speak right, or work a passage up to the goal tempo?Whether it’s uncooperative fingers or an embouchure mystery, this can all be pretty frustrating. So as the frustration builds, you might dig your heels in, grit your teeth, and continue to hack away at the problem, hoping that brute force will eventually lead to some sort of breakthrough.Source
“Argh...I really ought to do the laundry. But do I have to? Maybe I could just wear dress socks tomorrow and put it off one more day…”“Hmm…I should probably email IT about my ID card not working in the copy room…”“Are we out of kitty litter?”Source
Naps were a way of life for me in college. Whether it was a 3-hour “nap” between an early morning class and lunch, or nodding off unintentionally while studying in the library, sleep was naturally interspersed into my daily schedule.Source
I don't know if this is a universal phenomenon or not, but I remember my kids both going through a phase where they tried to avoid explaining things by saying "it's complicated."To their credit, some of the things we experience in life really are difficult to articulate in words - despite being clear to us in a non-verbal sort of way.Source
Ever notice how your brain can sometimes be your greatest asset, but at other times, a total liability? Like how it tends to approach performances as if they are life-or-death tests of our worthiness as human beings, even though this is pretty much a guaranteed recipe for misery before, during, and after?That's obviously way more pressure than anyone needs, so searching for a more reassuring, performance-enhancing way to view performances (i.e. “reframing”) is something that many musicians have experimented with at some point.Reframes like:“Remember that the audience is rooting for you to do well; they’re on your side.”Or “Think of your performance as a gift that you are sharing with the audience.”The latter in particular is a way of framing performances that I’ve heard a number of times. But does it really work?Source
It’s been decades since that day I stood in front of a panel of faculty at Curtis for my college audition, but I still remember it as one of the most anxiety-provoking moments of my life.I had never met any of the musicians who sat and looked at me from behind the table. I knew them only by name and reputation - and even then, wasn’t sure who was who (needless to say, this was before Google and Facebook had been invented).I’m sure they were all perfectly congenial and friendly people, and heck, it’s very possible that one or two may even have smiled at me, but in the heat of the moment, all I saw was an intimidating row of stern, somber, serious-looking faces.Needless to say, my nerves shot through the roof.Whether it’s a college audition, juries, competition, or the unscreened round of an orchestral audition, what are we to do when we come face to face with the people who can meaningfully shape the future course of our lives with just a few marks of their pens?Is there anything we can do in that moment to buoy our confidence and keep our nerves from getting the better of us?Source
“One thing at a time!!!” is a common saying around our house as my daughter tries to alternate between watching her brother’s Pokémon show on TV and reading a book. Or as my son tries to play NBA Live on his phone while sneaking an occasional peek as his sister learns how to eat corn-on-the-cob with a power drill on YouTube.We know that letting our attention shift, willy-nilly, from one thing to another - i.e. “task-switching” - is not such a good thing. And that it can have quite a few negative consequences, like increased distractibility, mistakes, and anxiety - despite how common a phenomenon it is in our distraction-filled world today.But on the flip side, is the intense, laser-like focus where we put our blinders on, and beat our heads against the wall, trying to brute force our way to a solution, even though deep down, we know we’re totally stuck and probably ought to move on.So what is the most effective and efficient way to maximize our creative problem-solving abilities?The answer is a little surprising. Because it’s not something most people would think to do - and at first glance, sounds like it’d actually be kind of annoying.Source
When I was going through the music world as a kid in the 80’s and 90’s, nobody really talked about performance anxiety.I mean, I’m pretty sure it was something we all felt, but it was so rare to hear anyone acknowledge it any way, that I still remember the one time another student brought it up before a concert.Source
I was listening to an entertaining This American Life podcast episode this week, and unexpectedly learned something curious about cats (the episode was not about cats).
Subscribe to the weekly podcast via iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher Whether my Mom was watching an Olympic figure skater, a golfer, or a musician, she would often say to me how interesting it was that they all seemed to pause and take a moment to compose themselves before beginning their routine, […]
I was chatting with a musician recently who was housesitting for a friend, and finding it surprisingly difficult to practice in this new environment. Some of it was the heat (no air conditioning), but more than that, they found it surprisingly difficult to focus amongst all of the clutter.
It was my 5th grade year, and the elementary school I attended was having its annual let’s-get-the-kids-outside-and-make-them-compete-at-random-not-real-sporting-events extravaganza. There was tug-of-war, water balloon tosses, running laps while balancing an egg on a spoon, potato sack races, etc.
Whether it’s studio class, juries, a recital, or a big audition, the unpleasant thing about nerves is that they don’t just kick in when we start playing the first note. Often, they creep in hours, or even days in advance. Which makes the waiting game its own special kind of torture. 😰
Of course, sometimes, things turn 180 degrees once we start playing and we have one of those good days where we’re in the zone and everything feels great. But I think we’re all familiar with the other days too, when we wish we could teleport ourselves to pretty much anywhere else...
We’ve all heard stories about musicians who used mental imagery or visualization to prepare for a performance or supplement their regular practice. But there aren’t as many stories about how musicians might use imagery during performance - though I have come across a few.
The late violist Roger Tapping, for instance, once described (~19:29) a section in a particular quartet that used to scare him a bit. But he discovered that as long as he listened intently and imagined that he was playing the cello part at that moment instead, his own part would go just fine.
Pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein has suggested something similar (~41:02) - explaining that one of the keys to better ensemble playing is imagining your musical partners’ parts by being “inside” their playing.
So…is auditory imagery a skill that isn’t limited to just the practice room, but could help us play more effectively on stage too? Especially when it comes to being a better ensemble player?
The great violinist Jascha Heifetz once remarked that we should always be happy when performing. After all, if things are going well, we should be happy that we’re having a good day. And if things are going badly, each note we play gets us closer to the end, so we should be happy about that too.
That said, it’s still no fun to be stuck on stage, feeling like we're laying an egg. Cringing at each botched shift, garbled run, and cracked note. Which of course just leads to a downward spiral of negativity and increasingly uninspired playing, as a tiny part of us curls up into a ball and dies on the inside, wondering why we even bother to try.
Of course, a week or month (or decade) later, we screw up the courage to listen to a recording of the performance, and are pleasantly surprised by how decent we sound. How the horrible things we were initially mortified by, are barely noticeable, and how many nice moments there are that we didn’t even remember.
So what's the deal? Do we sound better in the moment than we think? Or are our recording devices just not sensitive enough to pick up the things we hear?
Whether it’s sight-reading a tricky piece in rehearsal, playing our least comfortable excerpt in a big audition, or doing a run-through for a colleague whose opinion we respect, most of us are more likely to rush than to drag when the going gets tough. And sometimes, we rush before we even play a note. We walk hurriedly onto the stage, tune quickly, and start to play before we’ve taken a moment to get our thoughts in order.
None of which makes logical sense. I mean, why would we make things harder for ourselves at the worst possible time by depriving ourselves of the time we need?
Of course, it’s not just musicians who tend to rush when anxiety kicks in. Athletes and surgeons (for instance) are prone to this as well. Yet somehow, the very best performers never seem rushed, and always seem to find ways to slow things down and perform at a high level.
How exactly do they do this?
I was never a very diligent practicer, so I often went into performances with a pretty reasonable amount of doubt and uncertainty about how things were going to go. I wasn’t happy about this, of course, but recognized that this was probably how I ought to feel, given my level of preparation.
So one year, I decided to get serious about practicing, and doubled my practice time.
Subscribe to the weekly podcast via iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher Ever find yourself taking a work or practice break, discover that the new Batman trailer is up, and excitedly click on it, thinking it’s no big deal? But then the next thing you know, you’ve gotten sucked down the YouTube rabbit […]
Happy New Year! Yep…it’s once again that time of year when we are supposed to think about New Years resolutions and what habits we’d like to change. But with everything we’ve experienced the last couple years, I don’t know if I have the same level of energy as in years past, to make any massive […]
With the Olympics just around the corner, you’re likely to come across an article or two about athletes’ use of mental imagery or visualization in the near future. Because whether it’s to build confidence, enhance performance, or allow for additional practice repetitions without putting excessive wear and tear on their bodies, mental rehearsal has become an essential piece of many athletes’ training regimens.
It’s not just Olympians who engage in visualization, of course.
I have to confess that when I was in school, ear training classes were always a bit of a mystery to me. Something I grudgingly tolerated (or tried to get out of!), rather than embraced.
I mean, sure, I got that the sight-singing, dictation, and rhythm exercises we did were all intended to help develop my musicianship in some way. But I wasn’t really sure what “musicianship” meant exactly. And I didn’t quite see how any of this was going to help me produce a better sound in my Beethoven sonata or take my Paganini Caprice to the next level either.
Whether it's an audition, a math final, or your herculean efforts to prepare a non-dried-out Thanksgiving turkey for once, it's never fun to fail, make mistakes, or fall short of your goals. Which probably explains why there are so many quotes on the internet about the value of learning from our failures, and embracing setbacks. Like...
Sometimes, when our dog (DJ) just sits there and doesn’t seem to understand what we’re asking him to do, we do worry that he’s not quite the genius that we used to think he is. And the cliche that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" definitely comes to mind...
Do you ever find yourself struggling to suppress a negative thought?
Like, maybe you’re making a recording, and things are going well, and you find yourself trying your darnedest to avoid thinking about the really tricky shift coming up?
Or maybe you’re warming up on the morning of an audition, and trying really hard to stop worrying about getting dry mouth?
Or perhaps you’re on a road trip, and desperately trying to avoid thinking about Niagara Falls and Mountain Dew, because you really have to go - but the next rest stop isn't for another 26 miles…
Whatever the situation, you’ve probably heard that trying to suppress a thought only makes it more likely that you’ll have more thoughts about that very thought. Which is often illustrated with the “white bear challenge” - where someone tells you not to think about a white bear, and then you see how long you can go before the white bear pops into your head.
And sure, that certainly sounds reasonable - but is there any truth to this? Like, is there any actual evidence that trying to suppress a particular thought leads to more thoughts about that thought? And if so, what are we supposed to do instead, if we want to minimize negative thoughts or worries, and stay in a more positive mental headspace?
While reading up on Zoom fatigue for last week’s article, I came across a number of articles that provided tips on how to extract oneself from a video call that has gone on longer than you’d like.
Some were more funny than practical - like the “Passive Aggressive” and “Irish Goodbye” in 8 non-awkward ways to leave a Zoom hangout. And likewise, the Zoom Escaper webapp which helps you fake a bad connection, or a baby crying, dog barking, etc. as an excuse to leave Zoom calls.
But the implication was that we are often trapped in conversations, and unsure how to exit them gracefully.
Indeed, whether it’s a stranger next to you on an airplane, an acquaintance at a social gathering, or a friend who appears to be on a practice break, how do you know when is the right time to end the conversation?
Like, does this person actually want to stop talking to me, but is hanging in there to be polite, so I’m being kind of insensitive by keeping them hostage?
Or are they genuinely engaged in the conversation, and by cutting things off rather abruptly I’m inadvertently pushing them away, when I’m really just trying to be respectful of their time?
You’d think we’d be able to tell which way our conversational partner is leaning. But can we really?
It was March 15, 2017, and the San Antonio Spurs were trying to pull out a close win over the Portland Trailblazers. With 2.5 seconds left in the game, a Portland foul put Manu Ginobli at the free throw line. Trailing 105-108, the plan was to make the first free throw, and then deliberately miss the second free throw, so that they would have a chance to rebound the ball and score quickly to tie the game up and go to overtime.
Of course, what ended up happening, is that Ginobli missed the first free throw (which he intended to make). And then he accidentally made the second free throw, which he intended to miss, clinching the win for the Blazers.
Ever notice, whether it’s hitting a big shift, navigating an icy sidewalk, or eating a chili dog while wearing a white shirt, how telling yourself to not screw up often leads to exactly the result you’re trying to avoid?
You’ve probably heard that it’s not such a great thing to tell yourself what not to do. That saying “don’t miss” or “don’t slip” or “don’t get any chili on your shirt” is going to make it more likely that you do.
But is this actually true? Like, does our brain really have that hard of a time processing contractions?
I once read a story about the violinist Isaac Stern, in which he was confronted by a fan backstage after a concert. Gushing at how beautifully he played, she exclaimed “I’d give my life to play like you!” To which Stern curtly replied, “Lady, that I did!”
Studying music - especially in the context of summer festivals and school - can of course be an incredibly positive experience with many meaningful, inspiring, and fun moments. But there can be some pretty challenging moments too.
Like stressful orchestra rehearsals with an intimidating conductor, the fear of disappointing your teacher, worries about being judged by your peers, and the occasional spike of frustration or simmering rage at your passive-aggressive stand partner.
Negative emotions like fear, anxiety, shame, or guilt are certainly not fun, nor are they good for our general well-being.
But what sort of impact do emotions like this have on our learning? Is this something that just comes with the territory and makes us stronger because of it? Or are negative emotions like this detrimental to our growth and development?
When I was growing up, I always thought learning music followed a pretty simple, logical, linear path. Learn the notes. Play the notes in tune. With good sound. Add dynamics, articulation, make sure I’m honoring the Italian words, and start playing more musically.
Or in other words, accuracy first, musicality second.
I was also severely allergic to metronomes. And I rationalized my avoidance by telling myself that subdividing was a sure-fire way to sound more robotic and less musically compelling.
It also seemed to me that if I was having technical issues with a passage, the easiest way to solve that would be to do less – i.e. less vibrato, rubato, dynamic contrast, etc. At least in the short term, until I could resolve whatever technical shortcomings I was running up against.
Of course, as the years went by, I began to learn that the technical and musical aspects of playing are much more intertwined than I realized. To the degree that in some, if not many cases, playing more musically, can actually make it easier to play more accurately. And that thinking of technique and music separately, not only makes practicing less fun, but can slow down the learning process too.
Erik Ralske has played Principal Horn in the Met Opera orchestra since 2010, following 17 years in the NY Philharmonic. He is also on the faculty of The Juilliard School and Aspen Music Festival.
In this 40-min episode, we’ll explore:
-How learning a passage at performance tempo from Day 1, can sometimes be better than working it up with with a metronome from slow to fast.
-What Erik means when he said that sometimes the solution to a technical problem is not technical, but musical.
-How giving himself permission to miss notes in auditions paradoxically helped him play more accurately and consistently.
-I ask Erik how he works on rhythm, and he describes two “attitudes” when it comes to working with a metronome - a passive approach (bad) and an active approach (good).
-Erik explains how these same attitudes can affect ensemble performance too - and how conductors can be an easy target for ensemble issues.
-How subdividing helps Erik to play not just with more trust and courage on days when he isn’t feeling as bold or confident in his playing, but get into "the zone" as well.