the Mysteries of the Musical Mind 

Treasures for Teachers, Performers & Advanced Students

Do you wonder why some people seem to be able to play music so easily? Are you curious to learn what makes some musicians so successful? Have you ever felt frustrated or tired of struggling with yourself or your students? Perhaps you’re experiencing a stale plateau in your progress as a performer or teacher. Like many people involved in music, you may experience bouts of self-doubt and disappointment despite your sincerity, dedication and effort.

Fortunately, we are much more than we give ourselves credit for, and generally don’t have the knowledge or training to utilise the whole extent of our human mental capacity. Our true potential and brilliance is unleased once aware of its source - the unconscious mind. In recent decades a boon of research has been focused on the unconscious mind to improve performance in many human endeavours - most notably in sport - yielding extraordinary results.

To explore similar successes, I offer you my expertise in Hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic-Programming (NLP), melding the unconscious mind into the music studio. Music making - composing, improvising, practising, performing, listening - is a naturally occurring form of hypnosis. We will unpack some of the principles which will step-up the impact you can have as a teacher or performer. It seems like magic - and in many ways it is!

OVERVIEW - example areas of learning:

Understanding the Unconscious mind

  • The Two Minds: Discover roles the conscious and unconscious minds play in processing information, establishing technique, embedding skills, memorising, sourcing creativity, developing intuition and performing.

  • Getting in the Zone: learn peripheral focus techniques which enable the mind’s capacity to open and be receptive to new information This state filters out anxiety and negative emotions.

  • The language of the senses: Learn how to communicate with the unconscious mind using images and feelings and why mere words often fail to register. Utilising the unconscious mind correctly and deliberately you can learn faster, retain information and play with authentic expression.

  • Explore Symbolism and Metaphor: How formulating strong internal representations, mental associations and synesthesias will reinforce musical understanding, memory and enrich the powers of interpretation.

Communication areas - in Teaching and Performance

  • Non-Verbal Communication: For the most part music is a non-verbal expression (even vocal forms). Discover how your body language, subtle cues, and vocal delivery affect not only learning, but your stage presence - influencing how you play or sing, and therefore how effectively your teaching, or performance connects with listeners.

  • Rapport with students: learn all the aspects of building rapport creating the basis on which effective teaching depends. This is about developing sensory acuity and accessing the appropriate internal representational systems of your student.

  • Meeting challenges: Learn how to reframe mental responses to performance anxiety before the physical responses kick in, overtaking the body reactively with stage fright, loss of control, dissociation, hesitation, stumbling etc.

Becoming a More Efficient Learner

  • Learning Strategies: Observing the representational systems your student uses in learning new material you can learn to detect any scrambling or unhelpful looping in their processing. Old patterns can be interrupted by installing new strategies, thus creating new neural pathways to make the learning process more time efficient, productive and rewarding.

  • Clarify Intentions: Understand the law of ‘Cause & Effect’ - how our outcomes are faithfully generated by every action we take -even our tiniest habits. Learn about the ‘Plateau of latent potential' and the ‘Valley of disappointment’ - and how to ride this interesting dynamic.

  • Cooperate with your Neurology: Respect the power your actions of input have. The musical information decoded from the page (or aural source) and transferred to your nervous system is reproduced as it was given to the unconscious mind, so you’ll get back what you put in - exactly. This demonstrates the vital role of forming solid internal representations during the initial of the learning process.

  • Motivation and Goals: Learn about setting smart goals in collaboration with the student. Help them implement strategies which build step-wise on small sure successes to have them feeling confident, inspired and focused. Emotion will always win the battle over reason and logic - even in adults.

Conquering Anxiety, Self-sabotage, Self-Doubt

At some stage in the journey, most musicians have experienced stage fright, self-doubt or feelings of inadequacy. These negative states are linked to an unresourceful self-concept which can be realistically transformed with specialised NLP techniques by a practitioner. However, here are two areas which can be approached easily in the studio.

  • Transforming Performance Anxiety: learn how to manage those unconscious fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses which might kick-in under stress. Understand this psychophysical function so you can override it and create change on the spot to play confidently, both at home and under circumstances of pressure.

  • Mental Rehearsal Techniques: Learn why associated state and dissociated state rehearsal techniques are so successful in preparation for upcoming performances. These distinctive mental rehearsal techniques ensure your internal intentions are in alignment with your deepest values. You will become crystal clear, in a relaxed and ready state to perform.

In summary

The principles I outline in the introductory presentation touch on many ready-to-go practical tools in the form of conscious language choices and mindset. These can be implemented very easily by teachers and adult students immediately. The small changes I suggest will crate a surprising transformation, along with a big boost to motivation, and therefore reap happy rewards. The work will always be effective when carried out with good rapport, consistency and kindness.

The overarching objective is to create the conditions in which learning is captivating, creating sheer pleasure. Ultimately performing becomes an easy gift, given with open hands and heart.

Just as in real life, some musical journeys get off to a rocky start, and will encounter road blocks and issues which need to be overcome. The principles of hypnotherapy and NLP provide the tools to enable people to break free from troubling past experiences and memories which resurface on cue. Similarly, the work can eradicate constructed fantasies of failure arising from fearful thought habits which produce anxiety. Depending on the individual case, some will require specific intervention techniques which can be administered by a qualified NLP practitioner. I am pleased to offer in-depth training to teachers who are interested in becoming practitioners of NLP and Hypnotherapy.

For the present, I trust you will have many insights to take away, ponder and implement in your studio teaching and your life making music.