by Gerald Klickstein | May 18, 2020 | music careers, Music Higher Education, teaching
To be eligible for full-time, tenure-track faculty positions, performers and composers typically need doctorates. And the degree that most of them earn is the Doctor of Musical Arts, the DMA.* Although universities sometimes hire renowned musicians who lack...
by Gerald Klickstein | Jan 8, 2020 | music performance, music practice, performance anxiety
“It’s not about playing well by being comfortable and wiping out nervous energy. It’s about finding the right channel for all that energy” -Don Greene, sports psychologist The Musician’s Way, p. 184 We’ve all felt that adrenaline-fueled...
by Gerald Klickstein | Nov 17, 2019 | music education, music literature, music performance, music practice, sight-reading, writing
“I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.” –John Coltrane The Musician’s Way, p. 98 In The Musician’s Way, I...
by Gerald Klickstein | Feb 18, 2019 | Entrepreneurship, music careers, music education, Music Higher Education, The Musician's Way
“I recognized a gap between what we musicians typically learn during our schooling and what we actually need to know.” -Gerald Klickstein In September 2018, Yamaha Music Media published a Japanese translation of The Musician’s Way, which rocketed to the top of its...
by Gerald Klickstein | Jan 10, 2019 | injury prevention, The Musician's Way, wellness
“The earlier the symptoms are recognized and treated, the sooner and more completely recovery occurs.” -Richard Norris, M.D. The Musician’s Way, p. 246 At some point in our lives, most of us musicians incur injuries that affect our ability to play or sing....
by Gerald Klickstein | Dec 18, 2018 | music performance, performance anxiety
“Confident performance is not a fluke, but the product of imaginative and consistent synthesis of technical and emotional work.” -Frank R. Wilson The Musician’s Way, p. 146 Musicians who grapple with performance nerves typically hear plenty of clichéd...
by Gerald Klickstein | Jun 6, 2018 | music performance, music practice
“Only after I have become familiar with the style and character of the work can I start shaping an interpretation.” Yo-Yo Ma The Musician’s Way, p. 24 On a primary level, musical interpretation conveys fluctuations in emotional intensity. And one of the best ways to...
by Gerald Klickstein | Apr 17, 2018 | music careers, music performance
“When you don’t transmit irritation from mechanical breakdowns, an audience finds them interesting and even amusing.” –The Musician’s Way, p. 195 Thorough preparation underpins every successful performance. But even when we’re fully geared up...
by Gerald Klickstein | Sep 6, 2017 | music performance, stage presence, The Musician's Way
“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...
