The Bulletproof Musician

Creativity sounds like a good thing - but does creativity on stage actually lead to more success in auditions and competitions? Or is it just about execution, plain and simple?

Creativity Sounds Important…but at the Elite Level, How Valuable Is It Really?

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

Listen in as Indiana University music education researcher and professor Peter Miksza and I chat about some of the research on improvisation, and talk about the overlooked role it may play in musical training and development.

 Peter Miksza: On the Overlooked Value of Improvisation in Musical Training

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

Listen in as 3-time US Olympic diving coach Jeff Huber shares some tips on how to make the most of your practice time, and prepare more effectively for competition.

 Jeff Huber: On Preparing Mentally for Competition

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

The wait backstage can be torturous, as you feel the anxiety build, and wish you could just go out and play already. What are we supposed to do with all that time anyway? Listen to music? Visualize? Turns out there's an old childhood pastime that could help us stay calm and keep us busy (in a good way).

 A Childhood Pastime That Could Help You Reduce Stress and Manage Audition-Day Nerves

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

When faced with a tough decision, people often advise us to "sleep on it" or "go with your gut." But what does the research say? Is there any evidence that we can actually trust our intuition in moments like this?

 Can We Really Trust Our Intuition When Making Difficult Decisions?

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

Most people think nerves are bad. But some people say nerves and pressure can be good. So...which is it?

 Two Different Kinds of Nerves? How One Type Helps and the Other Type…Not so Much

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

Many of the brain-training apps and games out there don't seem to be as effective as one might hope. But there's one type of mental training that does seem to improve performance under pressure...

 Could This Working Memory Exercise Help Offset the Effect of Nerves on Performance?

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

Have you ever performed poorly at something because you put too much pressure on yourself to prove that you are totally awesome at that thing? A phenomenon known as "stereotype threat" is one reason why that may have happened.

 Stereotype Threat: The Paradox of Becoming Exactly What You’re Trying to Prove That You’re Not. (Huh?!)

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

It's easy to start losing confidence and start doubting yourself in the week leading up to a big performance or audition. But research suggests that the "best possible self" exercise could help us stay a bit more optimistic as the day approaches.

 Need a Little Shot of Optimism? Try the "Best Possible Self" Exercise

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

"Just think positive" never seems to work - but only focusing on doom and gloom sure doesn't help either. Research suggests that the key may lie in not making up positive things, but training ourselves to actually see the positive signs around us, which can help us be less nervous under pressure.

 Can We Train Ourselves to Be Less Anxious?

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

Nowadays, we all seem to be going through each day, rushing from one thing to the next. And sometimes, this just becomes a habit, where we feel the pressure of time no matter what we are doing. But research suggests that simply feeling time pressure sabotages performance. So how can we slow down our inner clock?

 Just Thinking You Don't Have Enough Time (Even If That's Not True) Negatively Affects Performance

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

Can a little backstage yoga or power posing help us manage our anxiety and walk out on stage a little more calm and composed? What does the research say?

Power Posing vs. Yoga. Yay or Nay?

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

The motivational climate that leads to more anxious, stressed-out learners. And the motivational climate that leads to more resilient learners.

 How to Keep Your Cool in Stressful Lessons, Rehearsals, and More

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 have a hard time accepting and internalizing compliments from others? Here's a 3-step technique for taking it in - without turning into an overconfident, self-congratulating #$&@.

 Why Do We Have Such a Hard Time Accepting Compliments?

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

Why taking a practice break too soon, and for too long, could slow down the learning process.

 The Problem with Taking Excessively Long Practice Breaks

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

Research suggests that my teacher may have been onto something when he said "if practicing feels easy, you’re probably not doing it right.”

 Why It’s Probably Not a Good Sign If Practicing Starts to Feel Easy

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