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What do you think about when you think about performing? Take a few minutes before reading further and make a short list. Below, I have listed some frequent responses about performance that I have heard from teachers and students:• I am afraid I will make mistakes.• I will feel embarrassed if my performance does not go perfectly.• I freak out about...
In the summer 2015 issue, Clavier Companion published an article that was dedicated to the Feldenkrais method, and in a little box at the end of the article the Alexander Technique was mentioned. Knowing Feldenkrais (1904-1984) was actually a pupil of Alexander (1869-1955), I thought the Alexander Technique also deserved an article. Frederick Matth...
Stage fright is on my mind for various reasons. I have spent my entire life dealing with it since my first memory slip at age six, and it has continued to arise in my career as a performer and subsequently as a psychotherapist. Stage fright is not a topic that is easily discussed or admitted, because shame is an embarrassing component of this anxie...
Musicians react faster A new study suggests that professional musicians react more quickly than non-musicians when exposed to audio, tactile, and a combination of audio-tactile stimulations. According to researchers at the Université de Montréal, "These results suggest for the first time that long-term musical training reduces simple non-musical au...
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. ---Vaclav Havel I am listening to seventeen-year-old Olivia play her college audition pieces: a Chopin Ballade and a Bach Prelude and Fugue. I am not her teacher; Olivia has an outstanding mentor at a renowned ...
A studio full of hard-working and well-mannered students is every piano teacher's dream. But few teachers actually have the opportunity to live this dream for their entire careers. The truth is that most teachers have at least one student that they do not enjoy teaching. It might be due to a communication problem, a mismatched energy issue, a behav...
I doubt that any musician (and many non-musicians) reading this article would argue that the survival of music and art is critical to our nation's well-being. The final words in the previous sentence are the title of an article I wrote in 2008 and just rediscovered when going through some files in my office.1 In writing an opinion p...
My bookbag struck the floor with a thud as I closed the door to my house. I made my way over to the piano and slumped down on the piano bench. Another exhausting day of tests had drained my energy, yet again. Practicing piano would be strenuously difficult for me, if not impossible. After running through my scales, I sighed and opened up a pie...
Benjamin Grosvenor awarded new Philharmonic prize Benjamin Grosvenor is the first recipient of the Ronnie and Lawrence Ackman Classical Piano Prize, the newest prize awarded by the New York Philharmonic. In October, a confidential panel of musicians selected Grosvenor, 24, as the inaugural recipient. The award includes a ca...
I recently had the pleasure of hosting ten high-school girls from Kenya. This was their first trip to the United States, and the girls have been part of an online music teaching program at The University of Georgia, where I teach. These girls were very excited to see the U.S. and to try many new experiences. The visit was a grand success, and I'm s...
For years, I have written about and counseled many people regarding their performance anxiety. I have lectured on the topics of symptoms and symptom reduction, as well as deeper psychological issues that fuel stage fright. I have heard numerous comments about "wanting to play perfectly," "wanting the audience to like me," and "not letting...
The lights are dimmed and a hush comes over the crowd. The atmosphere is charged as your student takes the stage for her recital. She is well prepared and ready for this moment, but there are no guarantees. More than anything else, what happens next hinges on the thinking habits she has acquired during her practice sessions. The key to pianists' be...
I quit piano twice. During my last year of high school, I left my long-time teacher a handwritten note in an envelope on her desk. In it I detailed the reasons I was "quitting piano." I no longer remember what those reasons were, but I suspect they were related to feeling I had let her down by losing a then-recent contest. I don't remember that she...