Reddit reviews The Inner Game of Music

I found developing a stronger connection with what I was playing helped and using that connection to really put everything you have into what you are playing.

That way in those situations you can concentrate more on connecting with that music rather than having your attention diverted.

I think there are some mind games that can help as well.

The two books I would recommend reading are:

• The art of Practicing
  
• Inner game of music
  
  The art of practicing is more of an all round book about approach to practicing, approach to live, connecting with the instrument and some of the physiological things that go on.
  
  The inner game is based off of pioneering sprots psychology and takes those mental aspects alot further.
  
  One part simply put is this equation:
  
  Performance = Potential - Interference
  
  So here you have the potential side / your skill, when you play with other people your interferance in your mind is low, so you achieve good performance representative of how good your potential performance could be.
  
  However, when you play with people there, there your mental interference goes way up which subtracts greatly from your potential and leaves you with a poor performance.
  
  Most sports people and musicians / anybody doing something with skill has this issue. The usual thing when trying to learn something / get better is always to concentrate on learning how to play more / beter, i.e. learn this technique, this scale etc.
  
  Doing that is all about increasing potential, however, you can get equal benefit by reducing interference. I.e, you can perform better sorting your mind out. And its what alot of professional sports players (musicians etc) have done / concentrated on since the 70's
  
  So that inner game is all about trying to define + understand these things and then some exercises and things to try and help reduce interferance.
  
  Also, I'd always recommed Victor Wootens book The music lesson. Its all about connecting to music in general.

I completely understand where your coming from.

A tip that I found really useful is to play at 90%. You know the music inside out, by trying REALLY hard you will actually make things harder for yourself, not easier, both in stamina and by from tensing up.

This mindset helps me relax into performances, which leads to the process of enjoying and being swept up in the music - hereby taking the edge off playing to an audience.

Another thing my old man always says to me before any exam, competition or recital is to take a good deep breath, exhale slowly. Taking that short time focusing on your breath really can work wonders.

A book I would highly recommend (for long term) to help with nerves but also helps in productivity of practise is The Inner Game of Music by Barry Green. Its not heavy reading and doesn't have to be done all in one go.

He discusses the mental 'battle' that occurs during performances or high intensity situations. Identifying not only common problems that occur but finding ways to deal with them, part of which is during the practising process. There are a few exercises inside as well but they are not desperately to improve technical ability but rather aid in a way of thinking.

Hope this was helpful.