Performance enhancement
14 essays on performance enhancement.
- September 30, 2026Playing From the Heart
Trying harder to sound expressive puts a kink in the hose: the effort you add is what flattens the phrase. Why your sound is a recording of your attention, how the Inner Audience Member frees both the music and your body, and a two-number experiment for tension and aliveness.
- September 23, 2026The Try-Harder Trap
Tension is a “when problem,” not a “where problem”: it fires in the instant before the hard passage, as you brace to meet it. Why trying harder backfires, how the head-and-neck habit spreads into your hands, and the Magic Pause — a two-second experiment you can rate zero to ten.
- September 16, 2026Why Your Bow Shakes When You’re Nervous (and What Actually Helps)
A shaking bow has two sources — one from trying too hard, one from adrenaline — and what fixes one does nothing for the other. How to tell them apart, and the one in-the-moment move (a pause, placed before the hard thing) that keeps stage nerves from becoming a train wreck.
- September 9, 2026Beta Blockers for Performance Anxiety: What They Fix, and What They Don’t
Beta blockers work — the tremor never arrives. But they only mask the symptom, never the meaning that set off the alarm. What they fix, what they don’t, and a two-minute polarity meditation that clears the fear at its root.
- September 2, 2026Why Trying to Relax Makes You More Tense on Stage
A fiddle player who plays at fifty percent on stage taught me why commanding yourself to relax backfires: you aim the same tight, narrow attention at your tension. The way out isn't more focus — it's spacious awareness. Try the needle experiment.
- August 19, 2026Bow-Arm Pain? The Cause Isn’t Where You Think
If your bow arm aches, you've almost certainly been looking in the wrong place. Your body is a web, not a stack of parts — tension shows up far from its cause. Here's why the spot that hurts is the last place to look, and what to do instead.
- August 19, 2026End Every Practice Session More Relaxed Than You Started
Most of us end practice more tense than we started and call it the price of the work. It isn't — it's a habit. Here's the Magic Pause: a simple method for practicing the ease you actually want to perform with.
- August 12, 2026Why Your Violin Shoulder Rest Was Never the Problem
A student laid five shoulder rests on the table and was still in pain. A rest can only fit you in one of two states — tense or relaxed — and most players fit theirs while hunching. Here's the test that shows you which one you've been buying for.
- July 25, 2026Why Your High Notes Feel Hard (They Aren’t “Up There”)
Singers brace before a high note ever arrives — the neck cranes, the throat closes, and the note feels hard. Here’s what a two-second pause, and a little bit of nothing, can do about it.
- July 15, 2026The Tension That Starts Before You Play
The trigger for a musician’s tension often fires before you play a single note — sometimes it’s just a thought. Here’s how to find your “critical moment” and interrupt the pattern at its source.
- July 6, 2026Stop Holding Your Breath When You Play
If you play an instrument, there’s a good chance you hold your breath at the hard parts — and the usual fix (take a deep breath) doesn’t work. Here’s what actually does.
- January 10, 2022A List of 20+ Surprising Benefits of Releasing Excess Muscle Tension for Musicians
Muscle tension affects everything we care about as musicians. Do you want effortless technique? Let go of tension. Do you want a resonant, haunting sound? Let go of tension. Do you want…
- May 13, 2021Develop Your Musical Intuition for More Powerful Performances & Life
The Soul Force Music Deep Dive conversations are about how to give inspiring & powerful performances (musical performances that have "Soul Force"), how that connects to the role of musicianship in an…
- August 1, 2019My Story in the Alexander Technique
The Six Pillars of Soulforce Performance Arts Hello all! I'm starting to write a book on Alexander Technique for strings players. The working title is "Your Body Is Your Instrument: Sound Better,…