9 ways for musicians to think like top athletes
Carole Talbot-Honeck earned her Masters degree
from The University of Ottawa studying the psychological prerequisites for
optimal musical performance. Here, she outlines a number of sporting attitudes,
which are of equal value to musicians
Monday,
23 June 2014
1. Love of your
profession
My thesis advisor called it simply ‘joy’. Musicians have to remember that love
of music is what got them started in the first place and they sometimes need to
remind themselves of this. For the most part, elite musicians report that over
many years in a long career, their love of music and the enjoyment they get
from playing have grown along with their skill level and experience. This is as
it should be, but sometimes, physical or mental problems can lead to a loss of
enjoyment. These need to be addressed and rectified in order to restore the
balance.
2. Commitment
Once a person decides to make music their career, they must commit to
developing their full potential and to investing however much time and energy
is required to achieve their goals. This is perfectionism in the most positive
sense of the word: the never-ending story of taking up a concerto for the
umpteenth time and finding new ideas or new inspiration to make it sound
exciting or fresh.
3. Self-esteem
Musicians must believe in the worthiness of their pursuit and in their ability
to achieve this. Self-esteem is the second most misunderstood or misused word
in the dictionary of mental fitness (after positive thinking). I prefer the
German word (Selbstbewusstsein) or self-awareness and maintain that you can
never have too much of it. As David Finckel writes in his article (10 habits of successful musicians),
know thyself… Self-confidence grows from knowing what you can and what you
cannot do and of course, from accepting yourself as the person that you are,
warts and all, without ever wanting to stop learning or improving. Such
self-awareness has nothing to do with being arrogant or selfish; on the
contrary, musicians who are confident in their own ability give readily to
others (ie as teachers and/or mentors). They never feel the need to compare
themselves to others. A healthy sense of self should be broad-based (different
roles, interests, hobbies) and certainly not all tied up in one particular
performance. My magic phrase here is, ‘I am what I am; much more than what I am
doing right now!’
4. Idealistic, non-materialistic goals
Musicians have lofty goals. Their aspirations can be divided in three major
categories: self-actualisation and personal development goals; goals pertaining
to the music itself (do the music and the composer justice); and finally, they
want to communicate with the audience or to express themselves through their
music. Whichever category (or categories) applies, performance goals should be
derived from these expectations if they are to give a lifetime of satisfaction
or fulfillment.
I use three qualities to describe what I consider to be an optimal performance:
creativity, spontaneity and flexibility. Creativity is the process of taking a
piece of music and making it your own, of developing a vision of what this
piece means to you, what you want to express with it. Spontaneity is
‘creativity of the moment’, it is inspiration or intuition and only possible if
you are well prepared and have confidence in yourself and in your preparation.
Finally, flexibility is also being open to whatever comes ‘in the moment’, but
it relates more to external influences (what my colleagues are doing, the hall,
the acoustics, the audience....)
5. Focus
Multi-tasking is out! The human brain is not wired to concentrate on more
than one thing at once (see Clifford Nass). This has implications with regard
to efficient practice and being focused. Ironically, multi-tasking is an
‘ability’ that cannot be trained; the more you do it, the worse you get at it!
Central to the idea of
self-control is the ability to concentrate and to focus attention thereby
avoiding distractions. In a seminar with music school students recently, I was
surprised that inability to concentrate had replaced nervousness as their
number one concern.
Some musicians prefer
self-effacement to self-esteem for fear of seeming arrogant but these two
expressions are not opposites. Selflessness is THE focus goal for a
performance yet only a very strong sense of self enables you to forget yourself
and concentrate on the task at hand!
6. Self-control
Will power is back in fashion! After years of neglect, it is again considered a
very important skill. I avoid calling it a character trait because research
shows that people can be very well organised and/or disciplined in some aspects
of their lives and notoriously complacent in others. Many stressed out
university students preparing for the finals wear dirty socks (see Baumeister
and Tierney). The fact is that they probably have no choice. Think of will
power as a finite quantity: no matter how different or unrelated the demands
you place on yourself (concentration, patience, behavior control, etc), you
only have one jar of will power at your disposal. When the jar is empty,
you’ve run out of it and only replenishment (nutrition, rest) will allow you to
tackle the next challenge.
7. Proper perspective
Defining proper perspective in a few short lines isn’t easy. Proper perspective
means being open; always looking for opportunities to grow. It means keeping
sight of the big picture, not sweating the small stuff or getting caught up in
small details.
And there you have it, THE most misunderstood and misused mental attitude or
skill: thinking positive. Positive thinkers may live up to seven-and-a-half
years longer according to a longitudinal study of thousands of Swedish nurses.
They don’t get sick as often and heal faster when they do. All this has nothing
to do with being unrealistic or kidding oneself. It means approaching problems
and/or setbacks in a solution-seeking frame of mind. It means taking charge,
which brings us to the next aspect of proper perspective: sitting in the
driver’s seat. Successful musicians don’t want to feel like victims nor do they
want to be seen that way by others. Setbacks are there to be analysed and
understood. Solutions can then be incorporated into their preparation plan.
What is beyond one’s control belongs in the ‘oh, what the hell’ category, to be
related and laughed about later.
Finally, keeping things in perspective means having fun. Remember, it’s all
about loving music and making music and being thankful that you can earn a good
living doing what you love!
8. Health and physical fitness
When musicians ask why they should physically train and look after their body,
I answer, ‘Why not? You’re a human being too, aren’t you?’ You can read
everyday about the necessity of doing something for your health. Musicians (as
opposed to most elite athletes) belong to the lucky people who can enjoy many
years of music making as long as their mental and physical health allows
it. Besides, your body IS your instrument. If you take good care of it,
if you train efficiently (see neuro-motor learning) and give it what it needs
to function, it will be there for you. Being able to rely on your instrument is
the single most important factor in dealing with stage fright!
9. Analysis
A famous conductor used to say, ‘If you choose to read and believe the good
critiques, then you must believe the bad ones too!’ Feedback comes in many
forms and musicians have to know how to deal with it. They have to analyse
their own performance (while maintaining a good perspective), make sense of
what other people are saying, incorporate anything useful into their
preparation plan, then put the performance behind them and look forward to the
next one…
Carole Talbot-Honeck's
thesis ‘The Essence of Excellence; Mental Skills of Top Classical Musicians‘
was published in The Journal of Excellence, Vol. 1 Nr. 1, May 1998.
