“When I finally saw how I looked, I realized that I was distracting the audience from the music.” -Alfred Brendel, pianist The Musician’s Way, p. 171 Imagine standing backstage prior to your entrance at the start of a concert: as the house lights dim, the...
“Public performance is a potent truth serum.” -William Westney, pianist The Musician’s Way , p. 201 In my post, “The 3 Roots of Performance Anxiety,” I explain how stage nerves arise due to personal, task-related and situational factors. This article...
“When musicians with scant listening experience try to play or sing repertoire from unfamiliar genres, they produce the musical equivalent of a clumsy accent.” -The Musician’s Way, p. 98 Most of us can recall hearing music that left us cold initially but that we...
“There are plenty of fine teachers in the world – and some not-so-fine ones, too.” –The Musician’s Way, p. 293 Effective teachers are leaders. Whether you’re seeking a teacher or want to improve your teaching skills, gaining insight into the nature of...
“Practicing is not forced labor; it is a refined art that partakes of intuition, of inspiration, patience, elegance, clarity, balance, and, above all, the search for ever greater joy in movement and expression.” —Yehudi Menuhin, violinist The Musician’s Way, p....
“Repetition inevitably begets habits.” –The Musician’s Way, p. 52 Over the course of our lives, we musicians do a lot of repeating. There’s standard repertoire that we perform for years, and we revisit exercises to keep our technical abilities strong. On top of...
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