How To Produce Under Some Pressure Like A Concert Pianist

Last evening we attended a performance by the Seattle Symphony of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto. If you have ever seen the film Shine, you know how daunting this piece is a concert pianist. It is a 40-plus moment workout, composed of 30,000 specific records, every one of that have become performed-often at lightning speed-in a particular order; with nuance, dynamics, and passion; live; from memory; in front of a discerning audience of thousands of individuals, and a much more discerning orchestra and conductor.

Can you say “pressure”?

The soloist, Kirill Gerstein, performed brilliantly.

Just what does it take to repeat this? Just what does it take to execute at your best whenever it matters many? Whenever all eyes are on you, and objectives are high?

The key, since it turns out, is to perhaps not look at the notes.

By the time he strikes the top phase, a musician of Mr. Gerstein’s caliber isn’t thinking, “My very first note is a D, that I perform with the very first hand of my right hand. Then comes an F, played with the finger that is fourth ” he is currently done that work. He is done it numerous times he can focus on the music that he doesn’t have to think about the individual notes; instead. Their fingers already know what direction to go. And, in reality, if he starts taking into consideration the specific notes, he will likely choke.

We’ll bet you have had this experience. Perhaps not as a world-class concert pianist; possibly for you it’s a putt you have made a large number of times before, or a message that you’ve practiced hundreds of times. However when that moment that is big the cash is regarding the line-you choke. Why is that?

It is because you considered the notes.

Without getting too technical, the human brain fundamentally remembers things in two ways that are different. There’s the stuff-the that are short-term you should be focused on now. And then there’s the stuff-the that are long-term you realize so you don’t need to think of them. So just how performs this connect with both you and your big message?

Well, if you’ve practiced it plenty times in your sleep, the individual words (and their order) move into the long-term area of your brain that you could practically deliver it. This actually leaves your short-term area offered to concentrate on your existence, your distribution, your reference to the viewers, and anything else that might appear into the moment.

But if, in an instant of panic, you bring the long-lasting things to the short-term section of your brain-in other terms, that you need to perform at your best if you start focusing on the notes-you overwhelm the very part of your brain.

The solution would be to stop thinking about the notes, and to alternatively look at the music. Stop thinking about the words that are individual and instead concentrate on the message you need to convey.

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