Picture this: You’re onstage at your next performance. You’re calm and relaxed, your music is well prepared, and the crowd waits expectantly. Then, you start to play. The adrenaline sweeps through your body. You experience the thrill of the moment, the rush of creative energy, and the excitement of being able to express yourself in the same way your heroes do.
The performance goes beautifully, as you expected it would. You play your best and the audience is appreciative and responsive. The show moves from song to song, getting better and better, each tune working off the success of the last. You end with a bang and the crowd loves it.
You’ve just practiced one of the most valuable skills in “performance” history: Visualization. Visualization is the process of imagining, over and over, a desired outcome. It is mentally rehearsing success. You’ll notice that the word performance is in quotation marks. This is to show that the term is being used loosely. People in many fields routinely visualize a successful outcome for themselves. Musicians, actors, athletes, even doctors, lawyers, speech-makers, and many other specialists take a few minutes each day to sit down, close their eyes and visualize a successful outcome to their next “performance,” whether that be a jazz gig, a basketball game, or open-heart surgery.
Why is this such a widespread practice? Because it works. It works wonders. When you imagine, over and over, that your next performance is going to go splendidly (to the best of your current level of ability) you’re preparing your mind, drilling it, to become accustomed to success. Then, when you’re actually in that performance, the mind helps you to perform your music in the way it has become most familiar: Brilliantly.
This is the exact opposite of what many musicians do. Days before an upcoming performance they start to get nervous. Then the negative talk comes. “What if something goes wrong? What if I lose my place? What if people don’t like me or my music? Oh, gosh, I’m not ready for this! It’s going to be a flop like last time!”
And then their fears become a self-fulfilling prophesy. They’ve mentally and emotionally prepared themselves for failure and it is this mode of thinking that the brain operates in when they perform. They don’t want to fail, of course. And they may even try very hard not to. But it’s likely too late. Failure is what they’ve programmed themselves, albeit subconsciously, to do. So failure is what they are very likely to get.
Visualization is a process. Just by saying “I’m going to play well tonight” is not enough. As with any acquired skill, great results can only be expected when visualization is done every day. Better yet, two or three times a day, for five minutes each. And don’t just imagine yourself giving a decent performance — imagine a great one!
Imagine it with as many vivid details as you can. What does the place look like? How do you sound? How does the crowd react? Involve your senses: see yourself and the crowd, hear your music and their applause, feel the adrenaline pumping through your body, smell the food and drink, taste it. Make the image as real as you can. Do this every day.
Your mind, body, and spirit will take it from there.
“Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blue print, and begin to build."
Robert Collier
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