Visualise success!

Don’t you hate it when you get an ear worm stuck in your head!? Drives you nuts, and you often don’t even like the song that keeps playing over and over! "Ba-by shark do doo do doot doo doot" 🦈🎵

Now how about TRYING to get a piece stuck in your head by just visualising it? A fair bit tougher, but if we can manage it then imagine how much we can rehearse it through before dinner-time!

Visualisation is a powerful tool that we can use both outside and inside the practice room, and is especially useful before concerts and auditions. It creates and strengthens neural connections in the brain, just as if you were physically playing your instrument. It helps to develop a stronger mental model of what you want to achieve, making it more likely that you will actually accomplish what you set out to do. It can improve your technique and musicality without you even touching your instrument. And it can give you a greater sense of control and confidence when you perform.

When visualising your performance, try to be as clear, vivid, and realistic as possible, in real-time and in slow-motion. What does your perfect performance sound like in your head? What does it feel like – your instrument in your hands, or the feeling of your body getting ready to play? What does it look like when you're on stage, either through your own eyes from a first person perspective, or from a third person perspective sitting in the audience or hovering above you when you play?

Visualising works so well in so many different ways, and can have a dramatic effect. So what are you waiting for? Get visualising!