Latest / That's Not Spit, It's Condensation! / #208: How To Consistently Play Your Best In Orchestral Auditions

Transcript

#208: How To Consistently Play Your Best In Orchestral Auditions · That's Not Spit, It's Condensation!

0:09
SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to this illustration.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: To be able to win an orchestral audition, the reality of the situation is that there is a level that you need to be able to play at based on the ensemble you're auditioning for and the committee that's listening to you.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: And if you're able to do that, to play at whatever that level is under pressure, you know, in the moment when it counts, then you'll be able to make sure that every audition will give you the best possible chance to advance, to make the finals and to even win, to build belief that success is possible and to ultimately just get that result that you're looking for.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: But the problem is a lot of musicians, they already have this skill, but they can't access it.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: They can play at the level, but actually doing it in the moment under pressure is difficult where they get in there and they feel good, but one mistake kind of maybe derails them or thinking about the committee derails them, and it can almost like undo months of preparation in a single moment in the actual audition.
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to That's Not Spit.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: It's condensation.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm Ryan Beach.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm Kathleen Costello.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: And for the past year, both of us have been uh coaches to classical musicians of all instruments, and we're helping them improve their outcomes in orchestral auditions.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're teaching a method that both of us created that has helped me be able to make finals and auditions in Atlanta and in Philadelphia.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: And we've used it already to help our clients see results of transforming their audition, just their relationship with the process, but also to make semmies make finals and even win their own auditions.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: And um, we're gonna talk about today how to actually play well under pressure, what actually is going on, how do you do it, what are some misconceptions, and really want to explain this thoroughly so that after listening to this episode, you will understand why you might be struggling with playing well under pressure and what to do about it.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: Kathleen, why don't you take us through?
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Actually, before we get into that, I want to say very, very quickly: if taking orchestral auditions is something you're doing and you want to understand better what it takes to win, we've created a workbook that walks you through step by step how to understand what it takes to win in an orchestral audition and also some exercises that will help you begin taking some steps forward.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: If that's something you're interested in, you can download that for free in the description below.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: So check that out if you're interested.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: Now, Kathleen, you want to walk us through what we're gonna talk about today?
2:56
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: So when you're taking an audition, the thing you really need to do on stage is to play at the level that will get the committee to trust that you can do the job.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: So everything in your preparation should really be aimed towards this end goal.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: And we don't believe that it's about perfection.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, we don't even really believe that they're necessarily testing to see who the best player is on that day.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: And also it's important to remember that they don't know who you are.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: Like you could have, you know, decades of experience or you could be just coming out of school when you're behind that screen, they don't, they don't know who you are.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: They don't know how you played last week.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: So really that committee is listening for who is going to be easy to play with, who's gonna make my life easier?
3:40
SPEAKER_00: And like I can relate to this, and so can you, because we've been on committees and you know, you're really thinking, yeah, if somebody flags intonation issues or rhythm or pacing issues, somewhere in your brain you're thinking, well, this person's maybe not going to be easy to play with or will make my life more difficult.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: So that's one thing there.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: And then another is this they're listening for will this person's voice be something that we would value in this ensemble?
4:08
SPEAKER_00: Would it fit in?
4:09
SPEAKER_00: And would it, you know, add something?
4:11
SPEAKER_00: Would it bring?
4:12
SPEAKER_00: So they're really looking for the best fit.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, they can really only respond to what they are hearing on that day in that moment.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: Right.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've gone to auditions where I didn't play as well as I knew I could, right?
4:26
SPEAKER_01: And I walk off stage thinking, ah, like I know I can do better.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: You're almost wanting them to give you a chance based on what you know you can do, other, but like they can't do that, right?
4:38
SPEAKER_01: The committee can only respond to what they hear.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when I'm working with clients and uh really trying to help them wrap their head around this to because if we can wrap our head around this, it should change how we think about preparing and what the end goal of preparing is.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: I'll just ask them imagine you're sitting on a committee.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: You're the person hiring somebody that's going to play with you potentially for the rest of your career.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: Now that person absolutely has the skill, absolutely has the ability to do the job, but this person missed some notes and that caused them, they threw them off of their game.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: And so you could kind of hear maybe that it got worse as they went along, or you know, just that they didn't present themselves in the way that they could up to their potential.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna vote for that person to advance?
5:26
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is, you know, generally, no.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe there's a situation and whatever, right?
5:33
SPEAKER_01: But like generally, most people understand that no, I'm probably not gonna ad vote to advance somebody who doesn't show me that I can trust them.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not, it's like very important.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: It's not that the person isn't good enough, right?
5:46
SPEAKER_01: It's not that they're not good, it's that they didn't demonstrate in that moment what the committee needed to hear.
5:52
SPEAKER_01: And they didn't, in that pressure moment, they didn't demonstrate what the committee needed to hear to be able to say, hey, I think this person could do this job.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: It's not about good enough, it's about what you presented.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think this is the thing like most clients that we see are probably like the biggest thing that kind of feedback that we get, that it's that ability to perform consistently and under pressure, like performing your best.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Like that's like sort of the key, you know, element that I think everybody wants to feel like they can have when they walk into that setting.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And like these players, they they've done the right things, you know, they have the right kind of work ethic.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: They've put in so many hours of practicing, they've tried to figure out the best way to be organized, they've, you know, read up on all the best practice techniques and, you know, tried all of those.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: They've tried visualization, they've like worked with some mental skills, they've read the books.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: So this is not, we're not even, we're not talking about people who haven't tried, you know, really tried to do that like right kind of work.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: And that's so disappointing when you've done all that and you walk off stage and still maybe feel like you could have done better, or you didn't represent yourself the way that you wanted to.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I'm thinking of a couple of conversations I had recently that kind of exemplify this.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: There's a player that I was speaking with who was um just asking questions about the program.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: And when I was saying, well, hey, like what is it that you feel like you struggle with or you're trying to improve?
7:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh, this player was saying that uh nerves will get to him, and that it's not like he walks off stage feeling like he couldn't play or that he didn't even necessarily play well.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: He just knows that there's another level that he's capable of that he didn't have access to.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: Because the nerves are distracting, the nerves hold him back in in some sort of way.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: So he was looking to say, like, how do I move past that?
7:50
SPEAKER_01: How do I move so that the nerves aren't something that stops me?
7:54
SPEAKER_01: And his goal was sure, I would love to win.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: Of course, everybody wants it, but he's like, even more than that, I want to walk off stage knowing I really played the way I know that I can.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: There's another player I spoke with who was saying, you know, he's gone two auditions and played really, really well, and then sometimes doesn't it, or a lot of times doesn't advance even after playing well, and it's this confusing experience.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: And he was likening it to again, I would love to win, but more than that, it would be great if I could go to an audition and feel the way I feel at a rehearsal or feel the way I feel at a concert.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: That kind of freedom that comes with it.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's it's actually like the in many ways, it's like the optimal goal because if we could play with that freedom, downstream of that is more freedom in our music making and things like that.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: Other people I've spoken with, you know, it it's things that maybe everybody's experienced at some point, feeling like you're freezing on stage.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I feel like I know what to do, but the second the pressure hits, uh it's like, what do I like?
8:56
SPEAKER_01: I almost can't think anymore.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: These are excerpts I've played a million times, but it's like I'm staring at them and I've never played them before.
9:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, it could just be, yeah, my brain is scrambled.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to gather my thoughts and things like that.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: So we're sort of we're we're we're presenting this picture that it's not so much a problem with um the skill part of it.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: It's like a problem with the experience that you're having at the audition and the various conditions that might be stopping you from accessing that skill.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that word freedom is such a great word.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: And we'll we're we'll come back to that.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: That word will pop up again later.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: But I I feel like these examples that you're giving, they're not even, these aren't like crash and burn examples.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: These are just like what I did wasn't, you know, maybe wasn't my best, or you felt like you've left something on the table.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: And when it's as competitive as it is, we all know how insanely competitive this is.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Like you want every single edge that you can get when you walk out there.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: So, really, what we're talking about is we want to access our best playing so that we can maximize every single audition opportunity that we have.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: And we know that, you know, these auditions are a huge investment.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Time, money, emotional, mental, physical energy.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: So when we're when we're investing that much, this this starts to be a very important piece of the puzzle to um try and get right.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, basically Kathleen was under the weather.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: It's awesome she's back with us.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, like basically what we're saying is we what we want to help you understand in this episode is how to access your best skill, right?
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Because we nobody can guarantee a win.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: There are things that there are many things that audition that aren't in your control.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: And the biggest one at the top of the list is although we can make guesses as to what we think the committee may or may not want, ultimately the committee is made up of a group of individual musicians who sometimes they don't even see things eye to eye about what they want.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: And so it's not there's no objective, there are objective things that all committee members will care about, but when it comes down to the selection of what do we prefer, it's like it could be anything, anything could happen.
11:17
SPEAKER_01: So there are things that aren't in our control, but it's our contention that every single candidate who applies for an audition and goes through the audition process and then goes to the actual audition, they have a responsibility to uh put forward the very best presentation they can and to because they want to give the committee an accurate view of who they would be hiring, and this is where this is this is everything, really.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: If you really think about it, this is everything.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: If what they hear is what they what they perceive that they're hiring, and so we don't focus on trying to please the committee, we focus on I it's like I got my notes here.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry I'm looking down, but we focus on knowing who we are and learning how to present that consistently to different audition committees until the you know the everything lines up and the fit is right.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: The fit is part of the thing.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: And so before we talk about what we need to focus on to have that consistency, um, I just kind of want Kathleen to take us through what a very common answer or a common uh rationale or thought process for why people aren't getting their results.
12:30
SPEAKER_01: I want to I want her to talk about this real quick so we can understand why this isn't, even though it's common, why this isn't the answer.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think in all the conversations we've had, and I can really relate to this myself as well, we think that the biggest one, the conclusion that people jump to is like, well, I just don't have enough skill, that maybe there's something about our fundamentals that we need to improve.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: And that if we could just do that, if we could just get a little bit better, it's like falling back on that.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, I'm I must not be good enough.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: That's what we hear a lot is that sort of like looking inward, I need to be better.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: And this like makes a lot of sense.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, when we prepare, we're we're constantly aiming our efforts towards the standard set, you know, by what we think the committee will be listening for.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: When we fall short, we naturally jump to the conclusion we must need to improve these objective standards in order to be successful.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: So I think the idea we're getting at here is that if we're not able to play well enough to win the job, we think that we must need to raise the ceiling of what we're capable of so that when we fall short under pressure, it's still enough to kind of pass through the rounds.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: So, and so it's like, okay, if we can get up to here, even if I don't reach that, maybe that will still be good enough.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: So this is that's one way to see it.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And maybe there's some truth and some merit there, but it's not the only way.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: And when we were talking about this and putting this episode together, this obvious like thing people would say came up, which is well, some people do need to get better, right?
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Some people's fundamental level of skill does need to improve.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: We are certainly not arguing that like everybody in their current state is at the level that it needs to be to be able to win an audition.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: We're not arguing that.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: Like I had to improve my fundamental level of skill.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: Like we'll talk about this in a second.
14:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, for me to get to access to, you know, a job like Atlanta or Philadelphia or to even be in the conversation, there's levels of improvement I had to make after I won my job in Alabama.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: But what we are saying is that in a vacuum, right?
14:34
SPEAKER_01: In a vacuum of I'm sitting on stage playing, there are players who have enough skill to win a job.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: But they don't play like it.
14:43
SPEAKER_01: They don't show it.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: They're not giving the committee that because they think, well, I have this skill, but I because I need to get better, gosh, I hope I can explain.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: It's like this isn't even in the notes.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: It just feels like it's right.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: There's this gap between this is what I'm capable of doing, and if I could just get here, I would be able to feel like I could be confident.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: But the problem is, is if you don't define where here is, what happens is this, right?
15:13
SPEAKER_01: As your skill improves, you just find new things that you need to be able you want to improve upon before you would feel quote good enough.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: And so if you don't really define things, you're basically just moving the goalposts, and you'll never, if you keep moving the goalposts, when are you ever going to feel like you can step on stage and feel confident?
15:33
SPEAKER_01: If you're waiting for some future situation, and because the goalposts move, you'll never reach it.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: And so it's important to understand at some point we have to just like say, hey, this is what I've got.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put it out there and I'm gonna play like I believe it could be enough because we shouldn't make the decision for the committee.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: We should let the committee decide based on what they hear, and then we just need to be concerned with what are we showing them?
16:01
SPEAKER_01: Are we showing them something that this is I'm so off base right now?
16:06
SPEAKER_01: What are we showing them?
16:08
SPEAKER_01: And are we showing them something that would make them go, I think this person would be easy to play with?
16:12
SPEAKER_01: Wow, they have a voice.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: I want to hear that.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: Are we capable of showing them that, but we don't?
16:16
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're talking about here.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: What we're talking about is can you access the skill in the moment it matters to show the committee what you're actually capable of?
16:27
SPEAKER_01: That's that's really what this is all about.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: It's not about how much skill you have, it's about access.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: And so that's like another way to say that is like, are you are you playing to your full potential that you have available to you in that moment?
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And I think this links really well to talking about um younger players, like younger, talented younger players, you know, maybe those of you out there listening are can relate to that with themselves.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: They can think, you know, you can think back to when you were younger and, you know, maybe played with a lot more freedom.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: So we've we've all seen that.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Like you you can hear a younger player that still needs to improve skill, right?
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Like maybe their their tone still needs some development, their articulation maybe is not as clear or precise, and the technique might be a little sloppy, but you you're hearing them play with such freedom and just you know, almost like a lack of self-consciousness and you know, expression, all those things, even though the skill and the technique is maybe not perfect.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: So like we we've we like we understand this, right?
17:33
SPEAKER_00: We understand that you can, you know, these two ideas are are separate, like how much skill you have, and then your ability to access your greatest potential for that moment.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the reality, like the actual reality is I hope you can hear what I'm saying.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Depending on what the orchestra is and all that kind of stuff, like there is something that they're looking for.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: And there that you could call that a standard, right?
17:59
SPEAKER_01: And there is like, we don't know, it's like the standard is an objective in the sense that, well, if you just do this, this, this, this, this, you'll get it, right?
18:06
SPEAKER_01: That's not what we mean by objective.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: But you it's possible to have the amount of skill to win a job and to still believe you have improvement left.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: And every single, literally every single professional who has a job, I guarantee will tell you after I won my job, I improved.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: And if that's possible, then we recognize that they weren't completed works of art, they weren't completed in terms of their technique when they won their job.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: So feeling like you've got whatever, again, there is a certain level that you have to be able to reach.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: But at a certain point, it's like, do you like what is that level?
18:46
SPEAKER_01: And do you believe that you can and so we don't even know in some ways?
18:50
SPEAKER_01: That's why we keep coming back to you, just got to play like it's possible.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: You gotta play like you believe it's possible at every single audition because you just don't know what the committee's looking for.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: You don't know.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: And so if you walk in there and you've made the decision for them, I'm not ready, I don't think I have enough skill, then you're shooting yourself in the foot before you ever start.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: And I just I can speak for myself.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: I won my job in Indianapolis, and then I didn't get tenure, and then I won the job in Alabama.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: And I went and played for a former teacher of mine, and I was told, great, this is awesome.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: You won Alabama if you want to win, quote, a better job, let's say Philadelphia, Chicago, like whatever.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: She's like, there's still improvement.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, I just gave it away, I guess.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: There's still improvement that you can make.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: And I was I was sort of upset by this at first.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: I was like, no, I think I'm pretty good.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm doing pretty good.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: I want a job.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: That's really hard.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: But to go through what I've gone through since I was told that, the amount of improvement I've made in my systems, in my mindset, and literally in my playing, Kathleen can attest, she has listened to me how since 2018, 17, and my articulation is more refined, I can play, I'm more centered, I'm more accurate, I play, I'm more musical, like I have a deeper understanding of that.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: And and like this is contributed.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: So if I feel like I've gotten that much better and I had won a job, we have to reframe our understanding of like what is required of us.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: And it is not absolute mastery.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: It is, can you do what is asked of you consistently on the excerpts that are asked of you at the audition in a way where the committee thinks, hey, we could hire this person.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't require you to be able to do the craziest.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: There's another, sorry, this is another tangent.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: I heard um, I don't know.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is through the grapevine, but a very well-known principal trumpet would go to auditions, and this story was relayed to me that he would hear all these people playing through the wall, and he they would be playing crazy stuff.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: Crazy stuff.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: And he would go, Wow, I can't do that.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: And he would go, Good thing that's not on the list, you know.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Like this idea that you are being, you know, tested or evaluated on a certain set, and if you can demonstrate you have the requisite amount of skill and you play like you believe it's possible, all of that extra crazy stuff doesn't matter.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: I just am that's okay.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: I think I think this is a great place to shift towards like the meat of the episode.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, this is really it's not about improving skill this episode, that but something equally important, and that is to learn to train your attention.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: So, learning to train your attention to be where you want it, to give you access to playing with freedom, help you stay in the moment, allow you to express the music and communicate with an audience.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: So, this we really believe is what will help you play closer to your ceiling and be a representation of the player you are right now, which is like like as we said earlier, what we really think everybody's.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Looking for.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: And keeping your attention in the present moment is also a key quality and condition for flow state, which is that state where you have access to your skill, performance can feel effortless.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: You might even like walk off thinking that you enjoyed your performance, or maybe you would not remember even everything that happened because you were so in the moment.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: So this present moment, keeping your attention there is a key factor for this.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: And like we really think that flow state is the thing.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: That's a thing everybody's looking for.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: And um, today's episode is about helping find your way into that through your attention.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: You know this to be true.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: This is what's so cool about this is once we realized that flow state was the thing everybody was looking for, uh, we actually put a thing out on Instagram uh that we just asked, like when you had your best performances, describe it.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, what were you feeling?
23:02
SPEAKER_01: And it was things like, I was focusing on the music rather than the small technical details.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: It feels automatic, not controlling, but observing it happening.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Somebody said, electric, unshakeable, I can't stop smiling.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Another person, a sense of freedom with the music, somebody else, extremely calm and focused, only thinking about the music.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: Somebody else, it felt as though I was on autopilot.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: And I'll ask you to do the same thing.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: Just think about a performance you think is great or memorable, and then think about where was my head, where was my attention, what was I focused on?
23:33
SPEAKER_01: I would bet a lot of money that in that great performance, you weren't thinking about the audience and what they thought of you.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: You weren't focused on your mistakes, you weren't self-depth, you didn't, you weren't focusing on doubt or even your nerves.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you felt those things, but you probably were focused on the music.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: You were in the music.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: You might have even felt like you were one with the music, right?
23:56
SPEAKER_01: Like you're just sort of there doing it in the present moment.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: Like we know this is the case.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: And so when you know that flow state is the thing you're after, it's easy to understand why training your attention in your practice is crucial to performing your best because being in the present moment is how we access flow state.
24:17
SPEAKER_01: Flow state is where you have the least amount of interference towards accessing your best skill.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is really where we've seen like the biggest shift with our clients is with this attention piece.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: We really think that it's indiscriminate.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: It applies to everybody.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, it doesn't matter if it's your first audition, your 40th audition, if you've have 25 years of professional experience and you play concerts, you know, practically every weekend.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: It could be that talented young player I was talking about earlier.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Like this, this is indiscriminate to all ages.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if you can't imagine manage your attention in the moment, you really you will struggle to access your but your best playing.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's so many, like I've got a thing that I could say here, but there's so many things you could say.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: So before I say this thing here, which is going to describe what we mean by attention training, um if you think about it, why do we take why are beta blockers so prevalent in auditions, especially, or any pressure moment?
25:18
SPEAKER_01: Beta blockers are prevalent because they remove the physical symptoms of nerves.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, why do we care about that?
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Part of it is oh so okay, when my heart is racing or I'm short of breath, that's going to affect the way I play.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: But in many ways, when you don't experience those physical sensations, they aren't a distraction for your attention anymore.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Why do we try to convince ourselves that we don't care about winning when we do?
25:47
SPEAKER_01: It's because we don't want to interact with the thought of I want to win, I care about this, because then that puts pressure on us.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: We feel pressure and that distracts us from what we need to focus on while playing to actually achieve the thing.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: So we do all like, why do we want to have the best playing day possible?
26:07
SPEAKER_01: Is it possible to succeed when your body isn't responding?
26:11
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: Why do we care about it like setting everything up beautifully and having the best chop day or the perfect read, or you know, having our body nice and warmed up so we can move?
26:22
SPEAKER_01: It's because when we don't play as well as we it when we don't have access to that, it's a distraction from where we need to be to get the result we want.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: And so when we're talking about attention training, it's you've heard this before.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, think about the music or think about your sound.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: Like the it's related to this, but what where we think about it is different is it's about systematizing your practice to bias this as the purpose.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: So it's not about getting better, it's not about skill.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: Your practice is about training your attention to be where you want and learning to see practice as an experimentation of cause and effect.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: When I focus on this thing, what happens with my playing?
27:05
SPEAKER_01: Is that the result I want?
27:06
SPEAKER_01: If yes, great.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: I now know what to focus on to get the result that I want.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: One of the pillars of our coaching is uh is understand what causes your best playing.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: Not so like the goal of practice isn't to sound good.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: The goal of practice is to understand what causes you to sound good.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: If you understand the cause, you can uh you can lean on the cause, right?
27:27
SPEAKER_01: So we're talking about not just, hey, practice however you want to practice and then go to the pressure moment and try to focus on the music.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about systematically training your attention to be where you want it to be so it's reliable and it's something you know how to access in the pressure moment.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: So the pressure moment isn't something different, the pressure moment is just another day of doing the thing you've been doing for the last six to eight weeks.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: So you're treating attention as a skill to train and that it's the main goal of your practice.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: We do skill development through that.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: We're not saying you're not concerned with skill development.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: We're saying that if you haven't trained your attention, it's going to be difficult for you to access the kind of playing you know you're capable of in the moment.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: So you might be wondering at this point, how do I train my attention?
28:17
SPEAKER_00: This, you know, like, do are there ways that we can do this?
28:21
SPEAKER_00: So we'll sort of back up and we'll introduce you to the person that um really kind of pointed us in this direction.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, his name's John Baker.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: He's actually the brother of a colleague and friend of ours, um, successful classical musician.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, so John Baker was a major league baseball player.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: He's a background in, you know, being a mental skills coach after that, you know, part of his, you know, his professional um baseball career.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: He, you know, worked with major league teams, I think.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: He worked with the Cubs.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh with the players of the Cubs and then kind of the whole organization with the Pirates and did like mental toughness training.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: So mindfulness and meditation, visualization, values, clarification, like lots of things that help strengthen your mindset towards per peak performance.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the ways that um he works on attention training is through meditation.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: So um I think he calls it mindfulness-based attention training.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: And so the the easiest way to explain this, and this is something anybody could try.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, maybe you've tried meditation, many, many people have, um, is just a breath anchor meditation.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And this, the difference with this, maybe based on things you might have tried before, is that the purpose of this breath anchor meditation is to solely focus on the breath.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: And when your attention wanders, you bring your attention back to the breath and you do that for whatever, you know, predetermined amount of time you've decided on.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, we do this for 15 minutes.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: If that seems too long in the beginning, you can start, you know, with with smaller amounts of time.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's really it.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: You can you can focus on the feeling of the air coming into your nose if you're breathing through the nose.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: You can focus on your lungs or your breath expanding as you breathe in and your maybe your your rib cage, you know, or your body relaxing as you exhale.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: And and that's and that's it.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: It's really just bringing your your mind back, your attention back, I'm sorry, to that breath as it wanders.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's challenging.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: I think everybody, you know, especially like high-achieving, you know, success-oriented people, you want to be, you know, we have this urge to be good at it, you know, even the first time that we do it.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: And um, it can be sort of frustrating to feel like, wow, like why is this is really challenging to keep my attention on my breath.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: And um just, you know, sort of releasing some of that judgmental nature is an important skill embedded in this attention training.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: It's again, there's just so many different directions.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: So, one thing that's worth saying here is that if so we were thinking this is so helpful, right?
31:14
SPEAKER_01: Because it helps us with a judgmental nature with our attention.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: The less you judge it, the easier it is for you just to bring it back.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: You're just like, my attention wandered.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: That's what it does.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna bring it back.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: Also, knowing that your breath is what you're anchoring to means you know what you're trying to come back to.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't identified, hey, I want I want to anchor my attention on my breath, when your attention wanders, you don't have a way to get back to being in the present moment with your body in that practice.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: So we started thinking, well, how could this apply to practice, like music practice, right?
31:47
SPEAKER_01: Because if I painted a picture, you're on stage, you start playing in the audition, it's great.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden you miss a note and your attention notices that note, and then you go, I don't uh I missed that note, I don't like that.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: And then you get a little bit tighter because you're trying harder to make sure you don't miss something.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: And that causes you to play a little bit, a little bit not as free, right?
32:15
SPEAKER_01: You start controlling everything, and then you start thinking, Oh, I'm not playing as well as I want.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: I wonder what the committee thinks of this.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: It's like if you don't understand how to keep your attention to the present moment, you're just once it goes, it goes.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: Right?
32:29
SPEAKER_01: Once it goes, it goes.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: And then if you if you layer on top of that, when you're practicing, if your practice is I play until I notice something that's not great, and then I take note of that, and then I work to fix that, like noticing it is not the problem, judging it as something that's bad is the problem.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: Because then you're essentially training your attention to notice something and then to be like, I don't like that, this isn't good, and then I have to react and I have to try to fix it.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: And then if you're if that's your practice, and then you go into the audition, you're like, now I want to focus on the music.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: It's like this isn't gonna happen.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: Your attention is going to do what you trained it to do, and you spend a lot more time training it to focus on what you don't like about your playing than being on the music, even if it's something as simple as that.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: So, what we do is we simply just have our clients identify before they play something, where do you want your attention?
33:27
SPEAKER_01: And this changes everything because a repetition is no longer a way to test if you're good enough.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: The repetition is testing a where do I want my attention?
33:38
SPEAKER_01: And then you get immediate feedback on what did I keep my attention there?
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Was I successful at keeping my attention where I wanted?
33:46
SPEAKER_01: Or did my uh uh attention wander?
33:49
SPEAKER_01: Was I able to practice bringing it back?
33:53
SPEAKER_01: If you didn't play it as well, can you say, you know what, that's partially because I just wasn't as locked in as I could have been.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Well then your fix for that is your attention, like driving it to the present moment and not necessarily just you know repetition ad nauseum to try to like hammer in the fix, right?
34:14
SPEAKER_01: So you decide ahead of time, where do I want my attention?
34:17
SPEAKER_01: And then afterwards you say, Did I successfully put my attention where I wanted it to be?
34:23
SPEAKER_01: If the answer is yes, then you ask, did I get the result I wanted?
34:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, you have to listen to a recording because your attention wasn't on, did I get the result I wanted?
34:32
SPEAKER_01: Your attention was on where did I want my attention?
34:35
SPEAKER_01: Right?
34:36
SPEAKER_01: And so then you listen to your recording, okay, did I get the result I wanted?
34:39
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Great.
34:41
SPEAKER_01: Now I know how to do it.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: Now I understand the conditions for if I focus on this, I get the result I want.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: If you didn't get the result you wanted, there's questions you can ask.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: It turns your practice into this big, huge experiment that is basically I am practicing the exact headspace I want on stage, and I'm figuring out how to link whatever I need to think about to the result that I want.
35:04
SPEAKER_01: And like Kathleen said, this has become transformational for us and for our clients because they just walk on stage and they're like, yeah, I know what to do.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: I know what to think.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: Does it mean they advance at every single audition?
35:16
SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: And that could be because skill, some skills actually need to improve.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: It just could be because the committee wasn't buying what they were selling.
35:25
SPEAKER_01: But they are able to walk into a pressure moment and say, I know exactly what to do because I've trained myself on what to do.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: So let's circle back and say, like, what is the actual skill here?
35:38
SPEAKER_00: No, it's fine.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: It's just funny.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm just like rant.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: I just it's like I've got this very small amount of text, and then I just like I just go.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: No, I think all that was great, actually.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: I think it was like it was a lot.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, I just I think it's important.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: It's it's important to say here that what we're looking for is not perfect attention.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: I think this idea of perfectionism can kind of sneak into everything, right?
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, my attention has to be perfect.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: It always has to be on the music.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: And the skill is not 100% keeping your attention where you want it all the time, but it's the skill is bringing it back.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: So again, that's like having a plan.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to bring your attention back to?
36:21
SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, that is the skill, bringing the attention back.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: The mind wanders.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: This is what the mind does.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: If, you know, if you're out there thinking, well, I promise you, my mind wanders way more than everybody else's.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the natural state of the mind.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: And we could talk about the state of everyone's attention in this day and age, but I think we probably don't want to go too far down that road at this point.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: But our attention is compromised by, you know, the current state of, you know, everything, social media, the news, all those things.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: So it's an additional challenge for those of us who are alive in 2026 and moving forward from there, I'm sure.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, but again, the mind is is designed to wander.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: And the idea of this is to learn to bring your attention back.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: It's it's such a different way of thinking about it because it takes it away from am I good at attention trading?
37:20
SPEAKER_01: Can I hold it the whole time?
37:22
SPEAKER_01: It's not, it's not about that.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: I want to impress this is not in the thing, so I'm gonna let Kathleen take the next written section.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: I just want to say understanding how to do this means you do not have to fear really anything.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: What I mean by this is if you are at an audition and you hear somebody sound amazing through the wall and you start to doubt yourself, you start to wonder, am I, do I sound that good?
37:53
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to fear that.
37:54
SPEAKER_01: You can actually engage with those thoughts and say, I don't know, I don't maybe, maybe this, maybe that, whatever, right?
38:01
SPEAKER_01: That's a whole value statement for a different conversation.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: But you know, no matter what you're feeling, when you walk out on stage, you have trained yourself to be in a certain headspace.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: And like it's I've likened it to severance if you've seen that show.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: It's like when you walk out on stage and you begin your sort of process of getting into the present moment, it's like you've gone down the elevator.
38:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like you are a different version of yourself.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: That's what you're training yourself to be.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: So the version of yourself that maybe had a bad warm-up or heard somebody else or is thinking about the committee, that version is just like, you know, waiting at the top of the elevator, right?
38:37
SPEAKER_01: Like you don't have to fear things.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to fear wanting the job.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to fear wondering what the committee thinks, or you don't have to fear wondering if it's good enough.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: All you have to do is say, I don't know about those things.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm not in control of those things.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: What I am in control of is where is my head?
38:53
SPEAKER_01: Am I in the present moment?
38:55
SPEAKER_01: Am I playing with freedom?
38:56
SPEAKER_01: What am I focused on?
38:57
SPEAKER_01: Have I trained what I want to focus on?
39:00
SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's like so important that we understand that this is how we can literally experience our emotions in a pressure situation and perform anyway.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's huge.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to kind of go on what continues?
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think I think the key part here is that you're you're training your you want to be training your headspace the whole time.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: So what where do you want your headspace in that in that moment?
39:27
SPEAKER_00: And when you're training your attention in this way, you know, ideally you are like, you know, moving away from the need for everything to be perfect.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: You're moving away from judging yourself for whatever thing just happened that you didn't like.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're moving yourself towards practicing in this headspace that is ideal for what you want on that day in that moment.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: I think, I think that's really like the the heart of it right here.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, you and again, you want you want to have access to your highest level of skill, you know, in an audition or a huge big performance, whatever you're you're preparing for.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: You want to be able to show it when it counts.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I we don't need to beat a dead horse, but being in the present moment, the the chain of events here is I have trained myself to be in the present moment, so it's a reliable thing I know how to access because I've seen myself do it.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: It's based on evidence, it's not based on well wishes.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: You get to the pressure moment, you eat, you feel all sorts of nerves, you feel all sorts of things, but you say to yourself, My job is to focus on what I know I need to focus on.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: And when you do that, when you sort of even like in a sense fight to keep your attention in the present moment, you're giving yourself the chance to enter flow state, right?
40:50
SPEAKER_01: Because you have to be uh uh concentrated on the task at hand in the present moment to enter flow state.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: And the higher the stakes, the higher the risk, the higher the fate, the sort of the pressure of what you're feeling.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes those are actually those are the better conditions for that larger um experience of flow state where you know you don't think about yourself, you're not worried about this or that, right?
41:12
SPEAKER_01: And like that's it.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Flow state is it.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: We just can't guarantee flow state.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: So what we do is focus on the conditions that will get you there, training your attention to be in the present moment is it.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: So that's how it's gonna transform, you know, it's gonna transform your practice because your practice is now about attention training.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: It's not about skill.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: Skill is downstream of that.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: It comes to you when you understand what to focus on.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that you don't get in there and you don't like, you know, experiment and you know you don't like dissect and figure things out and then pull back in the big picture and test something out.
41:47
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that you're everything is easy, it doesn't mean it comes to you easily.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: It just means that when you understand what to think about, consistent results is much easier.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: And then on stage, it's gonna give you confidence and trust.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be able to trust it because you understand what is causing the result you want.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: So instead of hoping that you're gonna be able to be in the right headspace, instead of hoping that you're gonna have a good playing day, you're like, I don't need anything.
42:12
SPEAKER_01: I don't need to be my best.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: I just need to be in the present moment and to let it take care of it.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: So that's pretty much it.
42:19
SPEAKER_01: You have any sort of final ideas?
42:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, next week we're going to hear from somebody who, a client who noticed a huge change um in her playing once she started um working on this attention training piece.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh, so tune in for that.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: That should be a great episode.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: We appreciate you being here, and um we'll just see you next week for that episode.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: We'll see you later.