About this podcast
Ever wonder why you can practice for hours, sound great in the practice room, and still be frustratingly hit or miss on stage? Join performance psychologist and Juilliard alumnus/faculty Noa Kageyama, and explore research-based “practice hacks” for beating anxiety, practicing more effectively, and playing up to your full abilities when it matters most.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 417 episodes
- 2026.8 | Lorna McGhee · 54 min · Episode 417Do elite performers actually feel as confident as they look? In this conversation with Boston Symphony principal flutist Lorna McGhee, we explore what's really happening beneath…
- Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse: The Science of Sleep for Musicians · 43 min · Episode 416What if one of the most overlooked factors affecting memory consolidation, emotional regulation, practice efficiency, and performance consistency wasn’t a new practice strategy…
- Paul Baxter: Why Bad Habits Keep Coming Back (And a Faster Way to Change Them) · 35 min · Episode 415Have you ever had the experience of fixing something in the practice room…only to have it come back in performance? Maybe it’s a passage where tension creeps back in. Or a…
- Micah Killion: The One Thing Artist-Level Musicians Do Differently in the Practice Room · 1 h 1 min · Episode 414How should musicians actually practice to improve faster? In this conversation with researcher and trumpet professor Micah Killion, we explore what expert musicians do…
- How to Start a Performance with More Accuracy (Without the Onstage Warm-Up) · 8 min · Episode 413One of my teachers often used to say that no matter what you’re playing, when you’re on stage, the beginning of a piece is always the hardest part. Not because the opening is…
- When You Can’t Get Yourself to Start Practicing, Try This · 8 min · Episode 412In some years it feels easier to begin the new year with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Other years, it can be difficult to get going and build up those new habits that we’d…
- The Central Strategy Expert Musicians Use to Practice Difficult Passages · 9 min · Episode 411We all get stuck on problem passages from time to time. And it can be very natural to simply throw more repetitions at it, in hopes that this will eventually unlock something…
- How a Small Change in Self-Talk Could Improve Performance Under Pressure · 8 min · Episode 410The voice in our head can be an asset at times - but also kind of a jerk at the worst possible moments. And like that one person in the “quiet car” of the train that doesn’t seem…
- A Learning Method That Outperformed Traditional Practice · 10 min · Episode 409A few months ago, when a sportswriter published an article in The New York Times about an unusual and “revolutionary” practice method that NBA star Victor Wembanyama and other…
- How Much Perfectionism Do You Really Need to Succeed? · 8 min · Episode 408A friend recently asked if it's true that becoming a virtuoso performer requires being a perfectionist. Well, spoiler alert, it's not a simple yes or no answer. And there are a…
- Pallavi Mahidhara: On Practicing for Flexibility, Not Perfection · 48 min · Episode 407Playing for other people, whether it’s an audience of one, a dozen, or several hundred, can be a stressful thing! So it’s easy to focus on the negative aspects of performance…
- What Happened When Musicians Slept 90 Minutes More · 6 min · Episode 406Sleep and recovery is an aspect of preparation that athletes prioritize, with teams hiring sleep consultants, and many athletes going to great lengths to ensure they’re getting…
- Why Being Too Quick to Offer Feedback Could Inhibit Learning · 8 min · Episode 405I remember a lesson many years ago, when my teacher told me that her job was to teach me how to teach myself. So that I would one day no longer need a teacher. I couldn’t have…
- Fewer Repetitions….But More Rapid Progress? · 8 min · Episode 404Whether we’re baking a cake, driving to a new restaurant, or putting together a puzzle, we can usually get to the goal more efficiently and effectively if we have a clear idea…
- Ida Kavafian: Habits That Separate Good Musicians from Great Ones · 58 min · Episode 403This episode with violinist Ida Kavafian is packed with key points about effective practice, plus fascinating nerdy details about bowing and fingering principles, references to…
- Can Memorizing Music Make You a More Expressive Performer? · 10 min · Episode 402One of the arguments often made for why we should memorize music, is that performing from memory facilitates more expressive performances. But is that really true? There's not a…
- Two Approaches to Memorization (Beware: One Could Leave You Stranded!) · 10 min · Episode 401Memory can often feel like a mysterious, unknowable phenomenon. Something that happens magically by itself at times, with great effort at others, and sometimes deceives us by…
- A Hidden Reason You Forget Music on Stage · 9 min · Episode 400Mistakes on stage are never fun, but missing a note here or there, or playing out of tune is over and done with pretty quick. Having a memory slip on stage is a whole other level…
- Jane Ginsborg: On Building Stronger and More Reliable Musical Memory · 56 min · Episode 399Talk to anyone who has ever performed from memory, and you’ll probably get a story of a time when their memory failed them. For instance, I remember a time, perhaps in elementary…
- How to Use Focus Cues to Play More Freely on Stage · 5 min · Episode 398A pianist once told me the last thing their teacher said at their final lesson after years of study: “Now forget everything I ever told you.” Not exactly the parting wisdom you’d…
