[Noa Kageyama]

Absolutely, yes.

Even a week before, it’s good to get used to doing mock auditions at the time of your audition – and at other possible times as well, assuming you advance and might have to do two in a day. Get used to eating the same things and going through the same morning ritual that you will have on audition day as well, but also be sure to practice auditioning in enough adverse circumstances that no matter what happens on audition day, it won’t throw you too much. Too cold? Too hot? Cold and hot? Have to go to the bathroom? Crazy tired? Shoes too tight?

The whole idea is that you don’t want to be distracted by new and different things. If you’ve gotten comfortable auditioning at 8am, 11pm, and 4am, with a metronome at a different tempo and a fan blowing air at your music, no matter what craziness ensues, it’ll be no big deal and you won’t pay it much mind. You’ll be able to focus on the things that do matter, and prevent yourself from wasting energy getting all worked up and stressing about the unexpectedness or unfairness about a situation you can’t do much to change anyhow.

Incidentally, Power Sleep (James Maas) is a good book to read about the importance of sleep and its relation to peak performance. Make sure you get enough of it in the weeks leading up to your audition so that a bad night of sleep or two won’t affect your energy reserves (and consequently, your ability to focus) too badly. Here’s an article that gets at this a bit: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/12/sleep-your-way-to-the-top-how-sleep-equals-success.html

[Noa Kageyama]

With 2 days to go, there are a couple things I’d recommend.

1. Centering “lite”

The most important parts of centering at this stage of the game are to

be able to hear exactly what you want the opening to sound like in your head (listen as hard as you can to that – pay no mind to other thoughts that might try to pry their way into your thoughts)
take a couple easy belly breaths, feel the tension in your key muscles just relax out with each exhale
recall what it feels like when you are playing effortlessly, completely trusting your body to do what it’s already been programmed to do
and then go for it

Practice going through these steps away from your instrument, then with your instrument. The order isn’t so important, just make sure you can hear what you want, and release tension, and trust yourself. Practice the opening 2-3 lines of each piece 5-7 times with this centering routine with a recording device handy. You can listen back later and see how you did. It may sound great from the get-go, or maybe not, but by the 7th repetition or so, it’ll likely be more consistent and feel different – like you’re more focused somehow.

2. Non-judgmental playing

Practice playing through sections of your repertoire where you are not allowed to analyze, criticize, or micromanage any of the details. What should you think about instead?

Just sing in your head. Hear exactly what you want to hear coming out of your harp, and trust that if you let go, your hands and arms will produce this for you.

This sounds goofy, but has helped for a lot of folks: Imagine you are performing for an audience of deaf psychics. Meaning, they can’t hear a sound coming out of your harp, but can hear everything going on in your head. So if you’re talking to yourself, analyzing things, worrying about an upcoming section, this is what they “hear”. If, on the other hand, you imagine exactly what you want to sound like in your head, and keep that going, this is what they hear instead.

3. Get your sleep

Drink fluids, eat sensibly, get some fresh air, don’t practice too much, and get enough rest. All things we know, but it does make a difference.

Let me know how it goes – good luck!

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi Peter,

Sounds like good progress with the centering! Interesting question about the mistakes. Can you tell me a bit more about the mind going blank part? Did this happen before the mistakes? Do you remember what was going through your mind before mistakes happened? I wonder if these were times during which you “spaced out” or weren’t as focused on what you were doing. Often, we aren’t quite sure what to focus on when we’re playing. We know that thinking about worst case scenarios or micromanaging our technique isn’t helpful, but it’s not so clear what ought to be going through our minds during performances.

I’d practice listening to yourself and your bandmates more intently. For instance, if you were to stop whatever you are doing now, and sit quietly for a few minutes, listening to all that is going on around you, you’ll quickly realize how much there is to hear – and how unaware you were of it until this moment. That level of listening, or focusing on the present moment, is key to ensuring that our brain knows what it’s supposed to do at each moment in time. Much like we are more likely to make a shot in basketball if we see the basket (than if we are shooting blind), our brain is more likely to rise to the occasion for us if we remain focused on our target – i.e. the exact sounds we wish to produce.

Centering will help, but work through the exercises in the focus lesson as well. And when that has become easier for you, it might be good to work through the resilience lesson as well, which will teach you how to get back on track quickly when the inevitable glitch does happen.

[Noa Kageyama]

Hi there! Indeed, the mental, emotional, and physical do tend to be tied together. For instance, once you notice the shaking (or suspect that shaking could start), your thoughts have been hijacked and it becomes difficult to stay focused on the task at hand. And once that happens, it’s easy to start worrying about what’s going to happen next because your body doesn’t feel under control. Which makes you tend to tense up even more, and when you try harder to control the shaking, it increases tension further and makes things worse. So very quickly our thoughts, emotions, and physical reactions all get away from us, and lead to a downward spiral.

Keep in mind too that a big part of gaining more control physically, is becoming more comfortable and capable of performing when you are not calm and relaxed. You’ll learn more about that through Centering and the focus lesson. The idea is to learn how to use the extra energy that comes with being on stage, rather than relying on being calm in order to play your best.

I’d have to look at your PSI to know more, but I’d bet that if you strengthened your ability to control the mental and emotional response even as you are feeling physically uncomfortable, learn to “ride the wave” as it were, and practice this via simulation and adversity training, the physical response will ease up and become less and less of an issue.