Coaching links

Acceptance and Committment Therapy (ACT) skills

Acceptance



Willingness



Dropping Anchor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fch45RTDtAc

  1. A – Acknowledge your thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, memories etc.

  2. C – Come back into your body – move your body and take control of those movements

  3. E – Engage in the world around you and in those things that are valuable to you

Values - Find your WHY

The Choice Point

  • Green arrow/towards moves = doing things and acting in a way that is in line with your values/purpose. These actions help you to live out your values as a musician

  • Red arrow/away moves = being “hooked” by thoughts, feelings and sensations that take you away from your values. You are reactive to strong, persistent, or unhelpful thoughts, feelings and sensations.

  • Becoming aware of when you get hooked, as recognising the moments when you can choose the direction you want to go in is the first step in changing your behaviour in stressful circumstances

  • From here you can “defuse” your thoughts, feelings and sensations…

Experiential avoidance

Defusion


Audiation

Effective Practice techniques

Review your repetitions/rehearsals/performances

Fast passages - Chaining

 

Effective Practice Structure – Spacing, Interleaving, and Performance Practice

Spaced repetition

Interleaving

Varied repetition

Mimi Zweig Practising in Rhythms - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYWmgp12Q34

Focus & Attention

Seek and ye shall find!

External focus of attention

  • Waterslosh video

  • Focus your attention on the EFFECT you want to create ie. the sound, character, story or emotion you want to convey in the music. This is called an External Focus of Attention, or a point of attention OUTSIDE your body. This will help you learn and perform at a much higher level, as opposed to focusing on the body movements and mechanics needed to produce that effect. This is called an Internal Focus of Attention, or a point of focus INSIDE your body.

  • Experiment with where your external focus of attention is ie. move it closer to your body (proximal) or further away (distal) eg. closer = a specific part of your instrument or the music stand. Further away = a seat in the audience, the back wall, or fill the whole space with your sound

  • Research shows that when something is more familiar to you then using a distal (further away) focus of attention produces a better result. If you are still learning the music and aren’t confident with it yet, then using a proximal focus of attention is more beneficial. Experiment with this and see what produces the best results for you.

  • Dr Molly Gebrian series - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0dKzQ3bB88  

Performance Cues

  • https://www.performanceup.com.au/blog/performance-cues

  • Explore your performance cues, and test out different ones to see which works the best for performance

  • Write your cue words into the part, and use them to guide your focus throughout the piece of music that you are playing 

Don’t say DON’T! (Ironic Processing Theory)

Goal Setting

Next step instead of the top of the mountain

  • Focus on the next step you can make each day, so you can get 1% better

  • Make your next step as clear and specific as possible, so it makes it much easier for you to complete the step without feeling as overwhelmed or stressed – Hobart ➡️ New Town ➡️ Smith St. ➡️ 14 Smith St.

Prioritisation – Traffic Light System

  • Use this to prioritise your tasks each day and week.

  • Start by putting your most time-critical and important tasks, or the tasks that need the most work into the top section (red)

  • Write out the less time-critical/important tasks, or those things that still need a bit of work in the middle section (amber)

  • Write the least time-critical/important tasks or the things that need the least amount of work in the bottom section (green)

Doing this exercise each week will help to clarify and prioritise the things that you need to do that are the most important, valuable, and meaningful. Instead of thinking that everything is in the “most time-critical and important” zone, you can look at all of your tasks a bit more objectively, and work out which ones carry the most weight, and which ones you can leave for a few days or a week, or even get rid of useless tasks that carry no value for you.

Flash cards and the Leitner System

Levels of Learning

  • BLISS – Unconscious Incompetence – You don’t know what you don’t know

  • AWARENESS – Conscious Incompetence – Your inadequacies are clear and you can’t do what you want to do

  • EFFORT – Conscious Competence – You can do what you want to do, but it requires considerable concentration and effort to achieve

  • FLOW – Unconscious Competence – You no longer have to think about what you want to do, you just do it. Performing well becomes a habit

 

Music Performance Anxiety

The Courage Triangle

Separate the Person from the Persona (the human being from the human doing)

  • One significant factor in Music Performance Anxiety is when your PERSONA (what you DO ie. making music) is tightly fused or intertwined with your PERSON (who you are as a person)

  • Recognise that you are worthy as a person, no matter what outcome you achieve on stage. You don’t have to “prove” anything to anyone, you just have to try and head in the direction of the things that are valuable and important to you.

  • “If you have to do something or achieve something in order to be someone, you’ll never be content, you’ll never be fulfilled, and you certainly won’t have unconditional love” – Ben Crowe

  • Ash Barty's mindset coach Ben Crowe on Wimbledon - and some secrets of her success | The Drum – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NgCDYLT-gg

  • When you notice the “I’m not worthy” story that your mind feeds you, recognise it as just a thought, defuse it, and make moves towards your values.

Mental practice/rehearsal/visualisation

Mindset

Motivation

Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation

Psychological Safety

Seconds Pro Timers

 

Self-recording