The Bulletproof Musician – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Have you ever wondered...how to develop true confidence in yourself and your abilities amidst setbacks? What the right mindset is for auditions? How much of your expressive playing should be planned out, and how much is instinct? How to recover from very direct, critical audition feedback? And how do you stay in the present moment, instead of stressing out about nerves and all the bad things that could happen when you’re on stage?

If you’ve ever struggled with questions like this, I think you’ll find helpful answers in today’s episode with violinist Nathan Cole - who was recently appointed concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Nathan shares insights, details, and lessons learned from his 20-year concertmaster audition journey, and also demonstrates an exercise (using an excerpt from Brahms’s 4th Symphony) that will help you form clearer musical intentions and play more expressively no matter what music you’re working on - especially in passages where you’re not quite sure what to do.

Get a transcript, show notes, and all the other nerdy details at:
Nathan Cole: Lessons From 20 Years of Concertmaster Auditions

====
You can connect with Nathan and get tons more insights, tips, and technical advice at:

• Web: natesviolin.com

Nathan will also be teaching a live, 4-day, guided (and free) practice workshop on the Scheherazade solos from September 19-22, 2024 (at 4pm Eastern). Whether you’re aspiring to take concertmaster auditions yourself, or simply want to learn some of Nathan practice techniques and strategies for better intonation, sound, and expressive clarity that you can apply to other music that you’re working on, this will be a great way to jumpstart your fall practice with some new tools.

• Sign up for Violin Hero: Scheherazade: https://natesviolin.ac-page.com/violin-hero-nc

You can also study with Nathan through his online group learning program - Daily Virtuoso - where each quarter, he leads an in-depth study of a new set of masterworks from the repertoire. You’ll learn how to approach both the technical and musical challenges in each piece through live calls, practice assignments, and video lessons, alongside a supportive community of fellow learners.

• Join Daily Virtuoso: https://natesviolin.com/daily-virtuoso/

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

Whether it's picking a tempo that's too fast, or rushing a shift, it's easy for things to feel sped up on concert days when the adrenaline kicks in, and the butterflies are fluttering about.

Is there any way to be a little more centered on stage, and feel more at ease? Rather than hurried and rushed?

Today's studies provide a few clues about what we can do in advance, to slow things down and be less antsy on performance days, starting from the time we wake up, through our last moments backstage before it's time to play.

Get all the nerdy details here:
An Ironic Strategy to Stay Calmer and Avoid Rushing on Performance Days

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

Do you tend to play with your eyes open? Or do you sometimes close them?

Ever wonder if there might be any performance benefit to performing with eyes closed?

Turns out there might be - in certain circumstances.

Get all the nerdy details here:
Is It Better to Perform With Eyes Open or Closed?

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

Fear of memory slips is a common issue for many musicians. But I don't know that many of us have ever been taught specifically how to memorize either...

Turns out there's a relatively simple strategy we can use to significantly improve how much of the new music we're learning "sticks" in our memory.

 Wish You Could Memorize Better? Why a Little Bit of "Verbalization" Might Be the Missing Ingredient.

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

Eliminating nerves, or staying positive and turning your inner critic into an optimist can be difficult, frustrating, and exhausting.

But what if we didn't have to? What if there were another way, another path to performing optimally where we didn't have to fight our nerves quite so much?

Today's guests share insights into a relatively new approach to managing nerves and performance stress that is gaining increasing interest in both sport and music circles - ACT.

 David Juncos & Elvire de Paiva e Pona: On ACT and a New Approach to Overcoming Performance Anxiety

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

There are quite a few studies that have looked at the practice habits of top performers, but there are few that have looked at the practice habits of the top performers who also improve at the greatest rate.

Today's study does just that and identifies one key practice process that's associated with the most growth and improvement.

 Optimizing Practice: 2 Things That the Best Performers Do & 1 Thing That the Best “Improvers” Do

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

Ever wonder why ear training is such an emphasis in the standard music curriculum? How important is it that we be good at it? What does it actually help us with?

A 2004 study of pianists provides some answers!

 Why Ear Training Might Matter More Than You Think

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

Turns out what we think about right before we start playing can have a significant effect on how well we perform! So if your brain tends to suddenly imagine worst-case scenarios, or blank out, or get distracted, a recent tennis study provides some clues on what would be more helpful to keep our mind focused on instead.

 Two Helpful Things to Think About on Stage, Right Before You Start Playing

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

Could clutter be affecting your ability to focus in the practice room? Research suggests that it could - and potentially affecting your learning as well!

 If You Have Difficulty Staying Focused While Practicing, Could Clutter Be a Factor?

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

Ever find yourself reacting negatively to certain pieces or orchestral excerpts, not because you can't play it, but because there's still some mental or emotional "baggage" lingering in the background from previous negative experiences?

Recent research suggests that it may be possible to "edit" or update these memories so that they don't carry so much weight.

 Memory Reconsolidation: A Way to Dump Your Negative Audition and Performance Baggage?

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