How To Produce Under Some Pressure Like A Concert Pianist

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. …