
Why Telling Yourself to “Calm Down” Backstage May Be Counterproductive
11/27/22 • 11 min
Previous Episode

Why Trying to "Think Positive" All the Time Could Make You Feel Worse
We are often encouraged to maintain a positive mental attitude. And there are tons of books and blog posts devoted to explaining how important this is as well. But sometimes it can be exhausting to keep it up! So how important is it really, to maintain a positivity 24/7? Or could there be some hidden downsides? A 2018 study provides some counterintuitive findings, related not just to overall mental health and well-being, but performance as well. Why Trying to "Think Positive" All the Time Could Make You Feel Worse
Next Episode

Jennifer Montone: On the Unspoken Mental and Emotional Aspects of Being a Musician
Jennifer Montone is Principal Horn of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and teaches at teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Jennifer is an active chamber musician, hs performed as a guest artist or soloist with numerous orchestras, and the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, also has a Grammy Award for her performance of the Penderecki Horn Concerto with the Warsaw National Philharmonic. Today’s episode is made extra special, in that I’m joined by guest co-host Catherine Cho (violin). A top prize-winner at the Hannover, Queen Elizabeth, and Montreal competitions, Catherine maintains an active performing career, serves on the faculty at The Juilliard School, and has also recently been appointed Artistic Advisor of the biennial Starling-DeLay Symposium. In today’s episode, we’ll explore... 4:12 - Why is playing horn such a mental game? And what do horn players worry about anyway? Jennifer illustrates the mind of a horn player by walking us through one of her recent low points - and how she recovered. 8:32 - How do you separate how you feel from how you sound? As in, how do you avoid getting sucked into the mental negativity spiral of assuming that if you feel bad you must sound bad? 11:29 - What do violinists (and string players) worry about? And whether as a horn player or violinist (or any musician, really), how can one get to a better place mentally? 14:05 - Jennifer describes the three ingredients that seem to contribute to an optimal mental balance during performing. 17:10 - A funny anecdote which illustrates how different musicians approach nerves differently. 18:38 - Are young musicians nowadays more open to talking about nerves than in previous generations? Or is that just because teachers are more open to providing a space to talk about this than in the past? 23:46 - How does parenthood affect you as a musician? What are the positive impacts, and what are some of the challenges? 28:43 - Jennifer and Catherine describe their teaching journeys and how they’ve worked at the craft of teaching over the years. 35:22 - What kinds of notes do Jennifer and Catherine take during (or after) lessons? 37:44 - What it says on the refrigerator magnet that Jennifer will look to for support on tough days. 35:08 - The thing Catherine did one year with her studio that made a “very, very significant” change in the growth of her students that year. 43:06 - What is something that was really difficult for Jennifer and Catherine? And what is something that has come pretty easily? 46:02 - The approach Jennifer adopted when recovering from a serious jaw injury that helped her go from feeling like a player with lots of technical shortcomings, to feeling like a much stronger and more confident technical player. ==== And, if you’ve been feeling stuck on a practice or performance or audition plateau lately, you can check out the Beyond Practicing course mentioned in the episode at bulletproofmusician.com/beyondpracticing.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/the-bulletproof-musician-208461/why-telling-yourself-to-calm-down-backstage-may-be-counterproductive-25703471"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to why telling yourself to “calm down” backstage may be counterproductive on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy