Mastering The Art Of Performance

This manual gives musicians and other performers practical insights on every aspect of performance. Through real life examples and pre-performance exercises, Gordon also offers detailed and workable suggestions for solving the issues and problems associated with live performance.

In Mastering the Art of Performance: A Primer for Musicians, Stewart Gordon offers seasoned advice to musicians intent on meeting the challenges of performance. Through real-life examples and pre-performance exercises, this accessible manual gives musicians and other performers practical insights into every aspect of performance. While other books merely identify and describe the problems associated with performance, this book offers detailed suggestions for solving them. First, Gordon tackles the critical planning and preparatory stages, helping performers to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. The book's easy-to-follow exercises address the self-doubt and anxiety many musicians contend with, helping them to analyze why they perform, set goals and assess the level of energy needed to achieve them, and develop a performance philosophy. The book also offers techniques that will help musicians deal with some of the classic pitfalls of performance preparation, including repetition and drill, changing bad habits, and developing memory. For the performance itself, Gordon's insights help musicians with pacing and managing stage fright. For the aftermath, Gordon arms performers with strategies for dealing with criticism and conducting a constructive self-evaluation, equipping them to face the challenges of a lifetime of performances, including career plateaus and burnout. Gordon draws from more than forty years of experience in front of audiences to offer readers invaluable tips and personal reflections. While aimed primarily at musicians, the book will be useful to anyone facing the pressures of performance, such as actors, dancers, and even public speakers.

Although running is becoming one of the most popular sports, learning to run properly can take time, energy and consistency. You need to do it regularly to become good at it and until you have achieved a certain level of competence, it is unlikely that you will enjoy it very much, or for very long. For many runners physical and mental barriers can stop progress. This book’s ultimate aim is to help you enjoy to run – to enjoy the feeling of movement, to overcome inertia, to renew yourself and to boost energy as a result. Master the Art of Running is based on the proven principles of the Alexander Technique that encourage good body use and greater awareness of the way your body functions and moves. The technique teaches you how to release tension from your back and neck and how to run without suffering from injuries. The authors’ perspective on the sport takes them into areas rarely touched on in conventional manuals. Instead of placing importance on speed, targets and goals it emphasises the importance of the way you run so you can transform your training and performance.

Swimming improves your flexibility, tones your body and can help to boost your self-esteem and produce a sense of well being. It is the nation's most popular sporting activity with 11.9 million people swimming regularly. However, most people don't know how to swim properly. This book is based on a 35-year voyage of discovery into the art of swimming. Steven Shaw's method takes the Alexander Technique into the swimming pool – focusing on releasing tension from the head, neck and back. Steven has evolved a unique way of breaking down strokes into a series of therapeutic movements, which can be practised individually or with a partner, in a pool or on dry land. These provide the building blocks, which combine to make it possible for anyone to recraft their own strokes in a way that promote good body use and avoid injuries. Instead of performing physical actions in an automatic way, you begin to learn body awareness. This way of swimming not only feels freer and more open, it is graceful and has a sense of flow, often absent from the way many people swim. Shaw looks at the most popular strokes – front crawl, back stroke, breast stroke and butterfly – focusing on maximum efficiency and minimum strain.

An eight-time national chess champion and world champion martial artist shares the lessons he has learned from two very different competitive arenas, identifying key principles about learning and performance that readers can apply to their life goals. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

Although gym membership is on the increase, the way people actually exercise in the gym is rarely correct and frequently causes injury. Activities that should be pleasurable and fulfilling often end up being frustrating, can cause injury or are simply regarded as boring. Often the desired effects are not achieved due to bad technique. 'Master the Art of Working Out' teaches us how to approach our gym workout in a new and refreshing way. We are encouraged to look at working out as an art rather than just a means to an end. Balk and Shields have developed a way of improving a gym workout using the principles of the Alexander Technique. This simple method promotes coordination, balance, posture, the importance of the relationship between the head neck and back, body awareness and efficient body use. The book teaches that if you focus on what you are doing and all these things are done properly, then the workout will achieve the desired effect. The author look at all aspects of gym exercise including resistance training, using gym machines, fitness classes including aerobics, step, pilates, yoga and Tai chi. The book has illustrations showing the wrong and right technique.

Stop trying to beat everyone else. True success is playing by your own rules, creating work that no one can replicate. Don’t be the best, be the only. You’re on the conventional path, checking off accomplishments. You might be doing okay by normal standards, but you still feel restless, bored, and limited. Srinivas Rao gets it. As a new business school graduate, Srinivas’s dreams were crushed by a soulless job that demanded only conformity. Sick of struggling to keep his head above water, Srinivas quit his job and took to the waves, pursuing his dream of learning to surf. He also found the freedom to chart his own course. Interviewing more than five hundred creative people on his Unmistakable Creative podcast was the ultimate education. He heard how guests including Seth Godin, Elle Luna, Tim Ferriss, Simon Sinek, and Danielle LaPorte blazed their own trails. Srinivas blends his own story with theirs to tell you: You can find that courage too. Don’t be just one among many—be the only. Be unmistakable. Trying to be the best will chain you to others’ definition of success. Unmistakable work, on the other hand, could only have been created by one person, so competition is irrelevant. Like Banksy’s art or Tim Burton’s films, unmistakable work needs no signature and has no precedent. Whether you’re a business owner, an artist, or just someone who wants to leave your mark on the world, Unmistakable will inspire you to create your own path and define your own success.

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