Why do you play better some days than others?
Is it a coincidence?
Why do you sometimes fail to show your full potential and ability on the concert platform?
Why do you experience sweating hands, weak fingers and stiff muscles, inability to control your hands and mind?
How can you develop the ability to be able to control your state of mind and be totally ‘switched on’ when you have to perform?
How can you achieve control over fast, technically difficult passages on the concert platform?
How can you motivate yourself to practise the same piece over and over again?

You can realize and show your true potential whenever you have to, by learning how to control your emotions and inner negative dialogue – this is called mental strength. You can develop it by learning key strategies.

Mental Training is today, the crucial difference between a good performance and a top class performance. The sports world has known for a long time that it is not enough only to be technically sound if nerves let you down at the crucial moment when you have to perform at your best.
Mental Training will make you aware of the vital elements necessary in being able to perform to maximum potential and with freedom of expression on the concert platform.

We have observed that there are many external factors that play a vital role in achieving a top class performance. Many students and professional musicians too, face barriers that prevent the freedom to realize full potential on the concert platform and in examination and competition situations. We have often experienced talented and well-prepared students lose their nerve either prior to, or during a performance – especially in important events.

Mental Training is about being conscious of your negative thought patterns and barriers, understanding the psychological mechanisms behind them and learning how to transform that great energy in to your performance. It is about the connection between how well your body is grounded and your ability to be in control of yourself and centralize your energy. It is about being in contact with yourself, your audience, the music you are performing, the environment and acoustic of the room. In short, being focused and centered.

Learn the techniques that can stop the build up of anxiety and understand how to find your inner strength and self-confidence together with how to feel confident with technically demanding passages. Breathing control, energy exercises, meditation and visualization is also used to improve your performance and to access new resources from your sub-conscious mind.

Many musicians, young and old, suffer from an array of injuries due to a lack of knowledge of how to build up the muscles needed to play their instrument, warming-up (before), cooling-down (after), practising and performing and the vital importance of doing stretching exercises.
No elite sportsperson would jump into action without first ensuring that their muscles were in perfect condition to realize the discipline they were embarking upon. It is exactly the same for an instrumentalist prior to practising or performing a concert. The demands on a muscle are that it
must have endurance without tiring. It must have strength and to achieve that, it must be elastic and flexible. You need a muscle that can react quickly and have the ability to complete many tasks, or equally just one task. The basis for a muscle being able to function quickly is that it can change at speed between contraction and expansion. The better the co-ordination, the less energy you have to put into the muscle.
This class will give a programme for warming-up and cooling-down, self massage (massage helps to stretch the muscles thereby avoiding that they become too short) together with a series of exercises to help develop muscles that can cope with strength, endurance, speed and co-ordination. In other words, you should always be able to rely on your muscles to function at peak performance and know how to avoid future repetitive strain injuries.

We have often seen performers trying to give a performance in an obviously dehydrated, nutritionally run down condition.
“You are what you eat”. The body needs energy and it is not superficial where that energy comes from. Just like a sportsperson, you need to be very aware of what you eat prior to a concert performance. Some foods give a short and instant energy boost. Other foods give sufficiently high energy to sustain a whole concert. There are also foods and drinks that take away your energy. You should be aware of your daily diet and what nutritional value, if any, it contains. Some foods build up muscles and others weaken them. A build up of too much acid in the body can, for example, be one of the factors in developing tennis elbow. By having a knowledge and understanding of nutrition, one has a choice!

Research in connection with our workshops has shown us that very few musicians have either knowledge of, or have even considered the importance and influence of these factors.

Mental Training for Musicians uses a concept especially developed for musicians. It embraces diverse psychology theories, personal research and practical experience and the best mental training techniques used by elite sports people. It also uses body psychology, bioenergetic exercises, meditation and visualisation techniques, autogen training, breathing exercises and grounding techniques

The course will also consist of practise strategies, daily training, how to structure the period leading up to a concert, what to do on the concert day – physically and mentally. In this connection a carefully planned diet also plays a vital role.

A good course structure for music conservatories, especially for 1st year students, is 3 houers workshop five times during the academic year. It is necessary, over a period of time, to work regularly with the mental strategies covered in the course because it is a constant development process to eliminate negative thought patterns, learn how to be focused and grounded, and through meditation and visualisation come in contact with inner energy resources.

Weekend workshop over two whole days.

One day workshop, or over two half-days. This will give the participants knowledge of what to work on to free themselves from stage fright, together with techniques to move focus and thereby be able to stop anxiety developing on the concert platform.

Inger Murray is a graduate in psychology. She has developed a special concept for musicians after having studied for many years the problems performing musicians face in their work. She has travelled extensively with her husband Owen Murray, who is a musician, and that has given her the opportunity to observe professional musicians working in highly stressful situations and the problems they face. This research has also included studying the pressures students face during conservatory education and in examination and competition situations. She has had great success with her method and is in constant demand.
Inger Murray holds workshops for musicians and also gives individual therapy both at her clinic in Copenhagen and when she is abroad. She holds workshops at the Royal Academy of Music in London for Academy students, 5 times a year, and also works with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (NYO). She is Director of the Centre for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Her work embraces the treatment of people who have suffered a traumatic experience, people who suffer from phobias, mental block and psychogenic muscle tension.

Owen Murray is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1994 he was awarded the Academy's highest honour, Hon RAM (Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music). He has an international career and has played with many of the world's leading orchestras.
He is a regular member of juries at international competitions.

Pictures from the Workshop at the Royal Academy of Music.
Click for a larger view.

Inger Murray

Tel. +45 4499 6264
E-mail: murray@mentaltrainingformusicians.com