The Bulletproof Musician

Self-doubt is something that plagues us all from time to time. Whether it’s a rough semester in school, a trying week with a difficult conductor, or a string of auditions where it feels like we’ve stopped growing and hit a plateau, it can be easy to question our abilities and wonder if we have what it get any further down the path.Conventional wisdom suggests that we have to find a way to eliminate this self-doubt, but it turns out the relationship between self-doubt and performance may not be what you’d expect.Why a Little Self-Doubt Before Performing Could Be a Good ThingMore from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses

Jennifer Montone is Principal Horn of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and teaches at teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Jennifer is an active chamber musician, hs performed as a guest artist or soloist with numerous orchestras, and the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, also has a Grammy Award for her performance of the Penderecki Horn Concerto with the Warsaw National Philharmonic.Today’s episode is made extra special, in that I’m joined by guest co-host Catherine Cho (violin). A top prize-winner at the Hannover, Queen Elizabeth, and Montreal competitions, Catherine maintains an active performing career, serves on the faculty at The Juilliard School, and has also recently been appointed Artistic Advisor of the biennial Starling-DeLay Symposium.In today’s episode, we’ll explore…4:12 - Why is playing horn such a mental game? And what do horn players worry about anyway? Jennifer illustrates the mind of a horn player by walking us through one of her recent low points - and how she recovered.8:32 - How do you separate how you feel from how you sound? As in, how do you avoid getting sucked into the mental negativity spiral of assuming that if you feel bad you must sound bad?11:29 - What do violinists (and string players) worry about? And whether as a horn player or violinist (or any musician, really), how can one get to a better place mentally?14:05 - Jennifer describes the three ingredients that seem to contribute to an optimal mental balance during performing.17:10 - A funny anecdote which illustrates how different musicians approach nerves differently.18:38 - Are young musicians nowadays more open to talking about nerves than in previous generations? Or is that just because teachers are more open to providing a space to talk about this than in the past?23:46 - How does parenthood affect you as a musician? What are the positive impacts, and what are some of the challenges?28:43 - Jennifer and Catherine describe their teaching journeys and how they’ve worked at the craft of teaching over the years.35:22 - What kinds of notes do Jennifer and Catherine take during (or after) lessons?37:44 - What it says on the refrigerator magnet that Jennifer will look to for support on tough days.35:08 - The thing Catherine did one year with her studio that made a “very, very significant” change in the growth of her students that year.43:06 - What is something that was really difficult for Jennifer and Catherine? And what is something that has come pretty easily?46:02 - The approach Jennifer adopted when recovering from a serious jaw injury that helped her go from feeling like a player with lots of technical shortcomings, to feeling like a much stronger and more confident technical player.====And, if you’ve been feeling stuck on a practice or performance or audition plateau lately, check out the Beyond Practicing mental skills course mentioned in the episode, which is available at More from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses

Most people intuitively assume that the best way to address performance anxiety is to calm down, but research suggests that this may actually result in worse performances (?!).A 2013 paper describes three studies in different performance domains that give us a counterintuitive - and more effective - way to respond to performance anxiety. Why Telling Yourself to “Calm Down” Backstage May Be Counterproductive====More from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses

We are often encouraged to maintain a positive mental attitude. And there are tons of books and blog posts devoted to explaining how important this is as well.But sometimes it can be exhausting to keep it up!So how important is it really, to maintain a positivity 24/7?Or could there be some hidden downsides?A 2018 study provides some counterintuitive findings, related not just to overall mental health and well-being, but performance as well.More from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses

Kim Laskowski has been the associate principal bassoonist of the NY Philharmonic since 2003, winning her position at age 48 - without a prior symphonic background.She shares her story in this episode, as well as tons of insights on practice and preparation, from how to listen, how to do repetitions in your practice without going on autopilot, and more. Kim Laskowski: On Developing a Beautiful Expressive Sound and Teaching Yourself How to LearnMore from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses

You've probably had teachers who encouraged you to listen to recordings, and one of the Suzuki method's core elements is the importance of listening to recordings. But does this actually help learning? Or is it just one of those things that we do because it sounds like the right thing to do, and we've always done it that way?A 2012 study provides some answers - and additional insights on different types of listening: passive listening and distracted listening. How Important is Listening to Recordings, Really?More from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses

Stress and nerves have a tendency to disrupt our memory, but a 2016 study suggests that this isn't inevitable. And that if we integrate a particular kind of practice into the learning and memorization process, we can make our memory more "bulletproof" under pressure. The Practice Strategy That Could “Bulletproof” Your Memory Under PressureMore from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses

Most musicians (and athletes) have heard of mental practice, and have probably been encouraged to do it. But have you ever been taught *how* to do mental practice?Most research centers on whether mental practice works, or what type is best, but today's study looks at a strategy for learning how to do mental practice. And it describes a technique for how to get better at mental practice - and see changes in performance - even if you've never been very good at imagery in the past. A Better Way to Do Mental PracticeMore from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses

As common as it is to create practice goals centered around time or repetition (e.g. practice scales for 10 minutes every day), a 2012 study suggests that there could be a better way to set practice goals, that could lead to significantly greater improvements in the same amount of practice time. The Problem With Time and Repetition-Based Practice Goals (And What to Do Instead)More from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses

We all know how valuable practice performances and mock auditions can be - but I think it's probably human nature to wait until everything is "ready" before we start recording and playing for others.Of course, how far in advance of an audition or performance should we be playing for others? Is it important that we wait until things are pretty close to being performance-ready? Or should we be aiming to play for others much sooner than we might otherwise assume? When is the Optimal Time to Start Doing Performance Practice?More from The Bulletproof Musician Get the free weekly newsletter, for more nerdy details and bonus subscriber-only content. Pressure Proof: A free 7-day performance practice crash course that will help you shrink the gap between the practice room and the stage. Learning Lab: A continuing education community where musicians and learners are putting research into practice. Live and self-paced courses