Fall/Winter 2024 enrollment closes on Sunday, September 29th at 11:59pm
Next enrollment period: January 2025
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We start with the best of intentions, but then...
How to reduce friction?
I always struggled to practice consistently (let alone practice effectively 😅). But it was always a different story during the summers, when I was at a summer camp or music festival. There were new coaches and teachers to learn from. Different conductors to get new ideas and inspiration from. And a revolving door of new people to meet, play with, and practice next door to. My Mom never understood why I wanted to surrounded myself with all of these “distractions,” when I had a perfectly quiet and distraction-free place to practice at home. But I think a community like this was exactly the sort of environment I needed, as it provided just enough of a nudge and accountability to help me follow-through more consistently.Finding your community?
We can’t be at summer festival all year round, of course. But nowadays, it’s possible to experience and bring many of the benefits of community-based learning into yourWhat members are saying...
What's in the Learning Lab?
Live Events
There are weekly live events – and you’re welcome to participate in as many or as few as you would like. i.e. Nobody is taking attendance – and everything is recorded. 😁
Guest Experts
Every first Wednesday of the month, at noon Eastern, there will be a live workshop on a new practice or performance-related skill, taught by musicians, researchers, or one of a growing number of folks who straddle both the music and research worlds.
For instance, we’ve had sessions on:
- rapid technique/habit correction
- efficient practice planning
- how to use “desirable difficulties” to boost learning
- how to use deliberate practice in audition preparation
- musical roadmapping for enhanced memory
- as well as yoga for musicians, breathwork, posture, how to move more efficiently, and lots more
Office Hours
On the third Wednesday of each month, we’ll have Office Hours, when I’ll be available to answer questions and you can “crowdsource” an answer to any practice or performance challenges that you may be working through. Kind of like a combination of the “phone a friend” and “ask the audience” lifelines in the popular Who Wants to Be a Millionaire TV show.
Performance Lab
There’s also a bi-weekly (twice a month) performance practice meetup. This is an opportunity to practice performing some new music or to try out a new mental skill in a low-stakes environment.
Members have used this to prepare for recitals and orchestra auditions, as well as lessons and master classes – or even just to test out memory security or practice getting more comfortable with playing for an audience.
It’s open to all levels and experience, whether you’re in your third year of playing an instrument or 30th.
Community Support & Accountability
It turns out that whoever said “If you want to go fast, go alone; If you want to go far, go together” was onto something. And some recent studies do suggest that having an accountability buddy or accountability group can really help with realizing your goals. Especially when it comes to “stretch” goals that feel a long ways away. So this is baked into the program as well.
Minicamps
Every quarter, we pick a specific skill and spend a month working through it as a group, with weekly playing and recording homework. Kind of like the live Performance Psych Essentials class, but a little more narrowly focused on specific micro-skills, with 1-2 short videos to watch, instead of live sessions to attend.
So far this year, we’ve worked on developing pre-performance routines for managing anxiety, getting into the zone more consistently using several different attention control strategies, playing more freely and courageously with different forms of variable practice, and cultivating more “bulletproof” memory.
Book Club
Though I read a lot of research articles every week, I hadn’t read a book in years.
And it turns out I wasn’t the only one who needed a little accountability to maintain a reading habit, so we started a community book club.
Once a quarter, we read a book together, sharing our favorite takeaways and insights gleaned from week to week.
Access to All Bulletproof Musician Courses
If you don’t already have the courses listed below, you’ll have access to these and any “beta” course materials that are being developed for as long as your Learning Lab membership is active.
Performance Psych Essentials
Performance Psych Essentials is a live online cohort-based class that I teach each quarter, where we spend 4 weeks working on a core set of essential skills around effective practice, managing performance anxiety, improving on-stage focus, and performing more confidently.
Each week, we explore a set of research-based strategies and techniques in these areas together, with a tiny bit of weekly homework to make sure we’re putting all of it into practice.
Beyond Practicing
Beyond Practicing is a self-paced course with the complete set of skills that I teach in my in-person semester-long classes, and is the source of many of the skills that we cover in the Psych Essentials class.
The Practice Project
This is an ongoing K-12 initiative, where I’m hoping to help teachers make it easier for students to start experimenting with effective research-based practice strategies earlier in their studies.
You’ll have access to a series of 5-minute videos on different strategies like goal-setting, deliberate practice, and interleaved practice, with accompanying worksheets that you and your students can use to integrate these strategies into their weekly practice.
Bulletproof Memory
This is a “beta” course that is currently in development and testing.
You’ll learn the basics of how memory works, experiment with research-based strategies in each of the three phases of the memorization process, and ultimately learn how to memorize music in a more intentional way that will help you play more expressively and convincingly as well.
Who can join?
The Learning Lab community started out as a continuing education and support community for alumni of the live Psych Essentials class who enjoyed the group format and wanted to continue learning and engaging with one another, but at a more relaxed pace that fit into their regular weekly practice (and work) schedule.
The first group of members joined in early 2023, and in the year and a half since, it’s grown into an exceedingly warm and supportive community of curious and enthusiastic musicians, educators, and learners.
My vision was always to open Learning Lab up more broadly – and I think that time has come. However, I believe that it’s important for everyone to participate in the Psych Essentials class first.
Why is that?
An enhanced learning experience
Well, for one, I’ve found that it really enhances the learning experience when everyone in the community comes in with a shared common understanding of the foundational practice and performance skills that are covered in the Essentials class. It enables us to reference specific concepts in guest workshops without having to go through a full review of the concept. And it enables everyone to use a common vocabulary when we’re having discussions in minicamps, book club, and elsewhere in the community.
Cultivating the right culture
Another reason is related to the community “vibe.” Given the key role of community in this program, I think (and the research also suggests) that it’s important for it to be a place that offers psychological safety and support.
To this point, participants in the Essentials classes have consistently been warm, supportive, thoughtful, and inquisitive, and not at all closed, snarky, competitive, or eager to criticize and start an argument. Well, zero snark may be inaccurate, but there has been just the perfect amount of snark. 
So making sure to introduce everyone to this way of interacting with one another, through the Essentials live sessions and homework assignments seemed like the best way to build the right sort of culture in this community as well.
When are the enrollment periods?
All this to say, the Learning Lab community is open for enrollment only once every quarter – during registration week for that quarter’s Essentials cohort. This will make it possible for you to not only experience the Essentials class, but also jump right into the Learning Lab community when the class ends.
What does this cost?
Eventually, I anticipate offering this program for $149 per quarter (i.e. ~$50 per month), but during the “beta” period, it will be available for $129 per quarter ($43 per month).
And, you’ll be able to keep this discounted rate forever, as long as you’d like to remain part of the program – even when the price goes up.
If you have any questions about whether this is right for you or not, send me an email here.
What members say about Learning Lab...
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All-Access Learning Lab
A research-informed practice and performance practice community-
Includes Performance Psych Essentials
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Access to All Bulletproof Musician Courses
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Guest Workshops
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Performance Practice Classes
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Quarterly Asynchronous Minicamps
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I have access to the materials forever?
You’ll have access to the courses for as long as you are an actively subscribed member of the community. If you end your All-Access membership, you will no longer have access to the courses, replays, and other resources.
Is there a discount if I already own some of the courses?
There are no discounts for Learning Lab if you already own some or all of the included courses. However, you will continue to own any of the courses that you’ve already purchased forever, whether you join the All-Access Learning Lab community or not.
Is there a minimum age to join?
It’s tricky to set a minimum age, as I’ve had students as young as 12 in my pre-college classes, and most have been super engaged, curious, enthusiastic, and independent learners.
So while I’m inclined to recommend that participants be age 18 or above, if you have a younger child or student that would like to join the community, just email me, and we can chat about whether this would be a good fit for them at this time.
I have another question!
No problem. Just email me, and I’ll do my best to answer them!