Final night we attended a performance by the Seattle Symphony of Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto. If you have ever seen the film Shine, you understand how daunting this piece is to a concert pianist. It’s a 40-plus minute workout, consisting of 30,000 specific records, most of which may have to be performed-often at lightning speed-in a particular purchase; with nuance, dynamics, and passion; real time; from memory; right in front of a discerning audience of thousands of individuals, and an even more discerning orchestra and conductor.
Are you able to state “pressure”?
The soloist, Kirill Gerstein, performed brilliantly.
Exactly what does it decide to try do that? What does it simply take to execute at your best when it matters many? Whenever all eyes are on you, and objectives are high?
One of the keys, as it works out, would be to perhaps not think about the records.
A musician of Mr. Gerstein’s caliber is not thinking, “My first note is a D, which I play with the first finger of my right hand by the time he hits the big stage. Then comes an F, used the finger that is fourth ” He’s currently done that work. He’s done it plenty times he can focus on the music that he doesn’t have to think about the individual notes; instead. Their fingers already know what to do. And, in reality, if he starts taking into consideration the individual records, he will probably choke.
I’ll bet you’ve had this experience. Maybe not as a world-class concert pianist; maybe for you it is a putt you’ve made a huge number of times before, or a speech that you’ve practiced hundreds of times. But when that moment that is big the money is in the line-you choke. Why is that?
It is because you seriously considered the records.
Without getting too technical, your head basically recalls things in 2 ways that are different. There is the short-term stuff-the things you need to be focused on right now. Then there’s the stuff-the that are long-term you know so well you don’t have to consider them. How performs this connect with you and your big speech?
Well, if you have practiced it many 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 renders your short-term area offered to consider your existence, your delivery, your connection with the viewers, and whatever else which may appear in the moment.
However if, in an instant of panic, you bring the long-term things into the short-term section of your brain-in other words, that you need to perform at your best if you start focusing on the notes-you overwhelm the very part of your brain.
The clear answer is stop thinking about the records, and to alternatively take into account the music. Stop taking into consideration the specific terms, and alternatively focus on the message you want to convey.