Last night we attended a performance by the Seattle Symphony of Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto. If you’ve ever seen the film Shine, you know how daunting this piece is to a concert pianist. It’s a minute that is 40-plus, composed of 30,000 individual notes, every one of that have to be performed-often at lightning speed-in a particular order; with nuance, dynamics, and passion; real time; from memory; in front of a discerning audience of several thousand individuals, and a much more discerning orchestra and conductor.
Is it possible to say “pressure”?
The soloist, Kirill Gerstein, performed brilliantly.
What does it try do that? Just what does it just take to do at your very best when it matters most? Whenever all optical eyes are on you, and expectations are high?
The key, since it ends up, would be to perhaps not take into account 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 4th hand… ” he is already done that work. He’s done it numerous times he can focus on the music that he doesn’t have to think about the individual notes; instead. His hands already know what to do. And, in reality, if he begins thinking about the specific notes, he will probably choke.
I’ll bet you’ve had this experience. Not as a world-class concert pianist; maybe for you personally it’s a putt you have made tens of thousands of times before, or a message that you’ve practiced a huge selection of times. Nevertheless when that moment that is big the amount of money is in the line-you choke. Exactly why is that?
It’s 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 centered on today. And then there is the stuff-the that are long-term you realize therefore you don’t need to think of them. So just how does this apply to you and your big message?
Well, if you have practiced it numerous times that you might practically deliver it in your rest, the person terms (and their purchase) transfer to the long-lasting part of your brain. This actually leaves your short-term area offered to concentrate on your presence, your distribution, the audience to your connection, and whatever else that might appear into the minute.
But if, in a minute of panic, you bring the long-lasting things in to the short-term element of your brain-in other words, if you start emphasizing the notes-you overwhelm the very part of your mind that you need to perform at your very best.
The perfect solution is would be to stop taking into consideration the records, and also to alternatively look at the music. Stop taking into consideration the words that are individual and rather focus on the message you intend to convey.
