Jawaher's Music History Blog - ISC Project

“Permission to fail leads to success!”

jawahermusichistory — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:39:04 +0000

When you give yourself permission to do the mistake and hear it the wrong way, you will suddenly find yourself playing the right thing! Try it… When you give yourself permission to fail, you don’t try too hard on correcting your mistake from the first time so you succeed. YOU STOP TRYING to play correctly and start realising what went wrong in there. When you are giving yourself permission to fail you know that there is a second chance for you, and that reduces your concentration on the exercise, keeping you calm and relaxed to play it the correct way without self-interference because you are meant to be playing the mistake!… As an exercise, after allowing yourself to fail and you succeed, keep on repeating the process until you fail again! Because giving yourself permission to fail will lead you to success…

Concentrate… but don’t!

jawahermusichistory — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:19:38 +0000

Asking yourself to concentrate and not concentrate on the same time might sound funny, but it actually works that way. Why is it that you play best when you are fresh in the morning, tired and sleepy at night? And why do you play your piece perfectly at home, when you are CONCENTRATING on how it sounds, but not really cncentrating on what people might think about it because there is actually no one around you… ?

When you practice at home (with 0 interference) but not succeed in a performance, then you must be trying too hard. You should increase your awareness but balance a ‘relaxed’ state of mind.

Characteristics of Self 2

jawahermusichistory — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:02:33 +0000

Self 2 discusses experiences that you have encountered, trying to avoid some failing techniques and concentrating on better ones. Including all past information, memories, notes and advices. When watching a famous musician playing, we automatically take notes in our mind, that’s what self 2 helps in during the performance. These notes that are stored help us develop our techniques while playing in public. Whether it was a positive or negative reaction that you have taken from a musician, you will make sure you follow the same passage to the best way for you, or to the most successive way. Self 2 performs its best in an ‘unthinking’ state of mind. When we are not thinking of how it sounds or what people will think of it. That will reduce self interference and worry to bring up more of experience, research and knowledge into the performance.

Characteristics of Self 1

jawahermusichistory — Sun, 03 May 2009 21:55:57 +0000

Self 1 always interferes telling you what is right and what is wrong. What you should or shouldn’t be doing. Self 1 has a big role in your performance. You will actually be talking to yourself while playing your instrument. “Up, high, low, yes this was great! Oh my god, the hard part is coming! You think I will stop? Or get confused? Come on the song is nearly over… Look how that person is starring at me. Oh no, this could have been better. Up, up, up, yes! Perfect…etc”. If you have ever tried to play your instrument in public, you will know that all these things happen while you are performing. It is true. You cannot avoid or ignore your thoughts completely, but you can reduce their interference by PRACTICING. You cannot put total focus on the music you are playing with all these thoughts interfering in the performance. You have to expect 60%-70% of what you can play alone on your instrument to appear in front of the audience! That’s why practice makes perfect. If you are 100% perfectly ready, 60%-70% of that will be great and will astonish the audience. If you appear with 60% potential, that will make a mess. Your potential will be too weak to hold the performance and fight the interference at the same time.

Self Interference

jawahermusichistory — Sun, 03 May 2009 21:49:35 +0000

Identifying self-interference:

Signs of self-interference resulting fear of performing:

Doubting your own ability
Afraid that you would loose control
Feeling that you hadn’t practiced enough
Doubting that the audience would like your performance

Physical effects of interference include:

Loss of breath
Dry mouth
Increased heartbeat
Shaking fingers, arms and knees
Feeling sick
Sweaty hands

Mental effects include:

Forgetting the music
Inner voice blaming or praising during the performance
Feeling distracted
Losing the sense of timing

The Performance Equation

jawahermusichistory — Sun, 03 May 2009 21:39:03 +0000

The

The Performance equation:

Our performances in Music or in any other field, depends on our self-interference. That is between self one, self two, potential and interference. The performance equation states that the Performance is equal to the potential minus interference. P=p-i.

Where P stands for performance, p for potential and i for interference. Potential is your ability of doing something, what you are capable of.

The best way to gain a better performance is usually to increase the potential by practicing and studying the piece. That will help reduce self interference.

Jawaher's Music History Blog - ISC Project

“Permission to fail leads to success!”

Concentrate… but don’t!

When you practice at home (with 0 interference) but not succeed in a performance, then you must be trying too hard. You should increase your awareness but balance a ‘relaxed’ state of mind.

Characteristics of Self 2

Characteristics of Self 1

Self Interference

Identifying self-interference:

Signs of self-interference resulting fear of performing:

Doubting your own ability

Afraid that you would loose control

Feeling that you hadn’t practiced enough

Doubting that the audience would like your performance

Physical effects of interference include:

Loss of breath

Dry mouth

Increased heartbeat

Shaking fingers, arms and knees

Feeling sick

Sweaty hands

Mental effects include:

Forgetting the music

Inner voice blaming or praising during the performance

Feeling distracted

Losing the sense of timing

The Performance Equation

The Performance equation:

Our performances in Music or in any other field, depends on our self-interference. That is between self one, self two, potential and interference. The performance equation states that the Performance is equal to the potential minus interference. P=p-i.

Where P stands for performance, p for potential and i for interference. Potential is your ability of doing something, what you are capable of.

The best way to gain a better performance is usually to increase the potential by practicing and studying the piece. That will help reduce self interference.