If you found your way to this page, you may be all too familiar with the experience of practicing diligently, only to get on stage and have your shaky bow, trembling lip, or some other bugaboo lead to a decidedly sub-par performance.

Why is it so tough to play up to our full abilities on stage?

For many creative and gifted artists, the stress and pressure of performances and auditions can wipe away months of preparation in an instant.

It’s easy to conclude that there’s either something wrong with us (don’t worry, there isn’t), or that we must simply practice more (don’t worry, that’s not it either).

The truth is that inspired performances and winning auditions aren’t simply a matter of practicing more, but practicing differently. Of mastering a specific set of skills that most musicians spend little (if any) time working on in the practice room.

The most important thing I learned at Juilliard

Hi. My name is Dr. Noa Kageyama.

I’m on the faculty of The Juilliard School and am a performance psychology coach for the New World Symphony. I was once a musician myself, and like you perhaps, was plagued by inconsistent performances and nagging questions about why I could sound great in the warm-up room, and 5 minutes later sound like a completely different person on stage. I had the best teachers anyone could ever ask for, so I knew it wasn’t their fault. And sure, I could have practiced more, but that didn’t seem to be the answer either.

Then I went to Juilliard and took a class taught by Olympic sport psychologist Dr. Don Greene. In one semester, I learned more about what it took to perform well than I had figured out in the previous 20 years combined.

My approach to performances and competitions changed. How I felt about performing changed. Heck, I even began practicing differently. For the first time, I felt in control. Whether I sounded great or not was no longer just a roll of the dice, and I began hearing myself play the way I always knew I could. And not just once in a while, but consistently. In high-stakes playing-well-could-change-my-life type of performances as well as low-key ones.

It made me wonder how different things might have been, had I only learned these skills and concepts earlier. What if I hadn’t played so tentatively and “scared” at the 17/GM competition? What if I had played up to my abilities in the Klein competition? What if my Curtis audition hadn’t been so infuriatingly sub-par?

When I graduated from Juilliard, I knew I had to explore this path a bit further. It wasn’t long before my search for answers led me to Indiana University and a Ph.D. in psychology. What I found was pretty intriguing.

Introducing Beyond Practicing 101…

Seeing that books only took people so far, and realizing that individual coaching was not logistically or financially feasible for many, Dr. Greene and I pooled our combined 60+ years (yikes!) of music and performance psychology expertise to create an online course that will help you learn the concrete, practical skills behind performing with control and freedom under pressure that I and many other musicians like yourself have found to be so valuable.

Could you figure all of this out on your own? Well sure, it’s certainly possible, but I invite you to take advantage of the legwork that we’ve already done on your behalf. We can help you reach your destination a heck of a lot faster and less painfully than you might on your own. You won’t have to take out any loans, wade through stacks of dense, wordy books and research papers, or get a Ph.D. You’ll have everything you need, all in one place.

Here’s a tiny preview of what you’ll learn in Beyond Practicing 101.

What’s in Beyond Practicing 101?

The Performance Skills Inventory: Beyond Practicing 101 is built around the Performance Skills Inventory (PSI), an 84-question assessment that will identify the precise reasons why you don’t always play your best. The resulting one-page profile will paint a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses. Think of this as your roadmap to performances that get you noticed (somewhat like the difference between driving in an unfamiliar city with GPS or without).

If you are under a bit of a time crunch, the PSI is even more valuable, as it will tell you exactly which skills are going to give you the most noticeable results in the time you have available.

A Quick Start Guide: Great books will often motivate or inspire us to make dramatic changes and try new things, but then, somehow it all fizzles out and nothing really changes. The 10-minute Quick Start Guide outlines 6 key strategies to prevent this from happening.

Action-ready lesson guides: Books can be a bit like old cats. You know, the ones that just sit there looking all smug, expecting you to do all the work before they’ll play (at least, that’s how mine was). The expectation is that we figure out which ideas are important and how to apply them to our situation on our own. If you’ve already got a lot going on, this can be overwhelming and lead to procrastination. We think things should be easier than that. So that’s why the lesson guides consist of…

Checklists, exercises, and worksheets: Every lesson includes step-by-step checklists and bite-sized skill-building exercises that are designed to help you learn each skill quickly and effectively without getting overwhelmed. We even provide worksheets to supplement many of the exercises so you don’t have to waste any extra time and energy creating your own.

Filler-free explanations: We’ve also done our best to take out all the “filler” and get our ideas across as succinctly/directly as possible. If you are a “details” kind of person, we provide links to additional articles and videos. So if you want more info it’s there; but if you are short on time, it won’t slow you down. Many lessons also include a “Turn It Up To 11″ section with book recommendations for those who wish to take that skill another step further.

MP3 versions of each lesson: It’s tough to read while driving on the highway or running on the treadmill, so we’ve created audio versions of each lesson for your favorite iDevice recorded in an easy conversational tone.

Mobile-friendly versions of each lesson: You know how annoying it is to have to squint or keep zooming in and out to read a PDF on your Kindle, iPhone, Blackberry, iPod or other mobile device? All the lesson guides come in EPUB (iBooks) and MOBI (Kindle) formats too, so you’re covered no matter what you use.

Email coaching: And if you need some help understanding how to learn a skill, apply a concept, or make sense of it for your specific situation, we’re here to help. Just send us your question right from the course home page, and we’ll get back to you ASAP. Yes, we will actually read your question and respond with a thoughtful answer – not just some generic copy/paste deal.

A couple last things to note…

On your terms: Since the entire course is online, Beyond Practicing 101 is convenient for musicians with hectic schedules. You won’t have to disrupt your routine or rearrange your entire calendar around daytime workshops or coachings. You can learn at your own pace, on your own terms. Whether you access the course via laptop, iPad, or smartphone, all the course materials are available to you anytime, anywhere in the world.

Left your lesson guide on the bus? Computer died and lost all your files? No worries – just hop online and download another copy.

20-30 minutes a day: Though this course is not an overnight quick-fix or a magic pill, neither will you have to slog through long exhaustive exercises to see results. If you devote 20-30 minutes a day to completing the exercises in each lesson, you will begin seeing changes before you know it.

But since life is fond of throwing us the occasional curveball or two, you’ll have unlimited access to everything for 12 whole months, just in case. And if something unexpected should completely derail your plans (life happens), just email us. We want to make sure you’ve learned everything you can from this course before you bid us farewell and go on your way.

What are people saying?

This is where the marketing folks would say we ought to put the obligatory glowing reviews and inspiring stories of performers who swear that Beyond Practicing 101 is the best thing since sliced bread. But we have no marketing folks, and besides, the Beyond Practicing course is brand-spanking new.

Still, it’s nice to have some idea of what one can hope for. So here’s an email I received recently referencing one of the skills you’ll learn in the course.

In the late spring I read “How many hours should I practice?”. It immediately rang true for me. Why had all these years passed, with thousands of hours of practice, and I was still, more than I like to admit, hit or miss in performance.

I immediately started deliberate practice. Full and total concentration on everything I was doing during my practice. The results were almost instant. I performed the first violin part for Shostakovitch piano quintet a week later. Many of my colleagues approached me afterwards and said I sounded like a completely different performer. What was I doing they asked. I sent them to your blog!

A month later I played a recital. Some of the violin guys I had been at Juilliard with who seem to be able to play everything, anytime, really well, and a world renowned violinist were there. They were all back stage before the performance to say hi. This used to be enough to reduce me to jelly, and my performance would suffer because of it.

But with my new way of practicing, I walked on completely confidant, did not feel an ounce of fear, and performed the best I have ever performed in my life. I knew EXACTLY what I was doing, what I wanted, and it all happened the way I planned. I walked off stage for the first time in my life absolutely satisfied with what I had done, and made no excuses. Again, many of the persons I had been close friends with, but always slightly envious of their comfort and ease on the violin, came to me after the performance and asked me what I was doing differently, adding that they had never heard me perform so well.

Thanks Dr. Kageyama, I wish you guys had been at Juilliard when I was there!

Gratefully, Julian Hallmark

Is this course for me?

That depends. This course is not something we just threw together in a weekend or two. We’ve considered every detail, field-tested and tweaked the exercises with real musicians and clients, and spent hundreds of hours working to make this a course that is not just effective, but one we hope you will enjoy using too.

If you are satisfied with the status quo and performing better isn’t a high priority right now, this course is probably not for you. On the other hand, if you’re tired of stage fright, performance anxiety, and sub-par performances (or whatever other phrases you use to describe it), and playing up to your potential matters greatly to you, we feel strongly about the potential for this course to maximize your abilities and see all the sweat and tears finally pay off in big auditions or performances.

It’s more interactive and results-oriented than a book, more thorough and effective than a weekend crash course or seminar, and more relevant to musicians than a general sport psychology course. And at far less than the cost of individual coachings (at $150-$300 per hour) we believe that the skills you learn in Beyond Practicing 101 will provide benefits both immediately and over the course of your career that are much more valuable than a few lattes per month.

But we also know that human nature causes us to hesitate anytime we’re confronted with something new and different – even if you are an “early adopter”, or the kind of person who enjoys being on the forward edge, and takes pride in trying things before most of your friends have even heard of it.

So if you are intrigued by the course, but aren’t 100% certain, here is our guarantee.

The “Happy Happy Joy Joy” Guarantee

We would love to guarantee that you’ll win a job with the NY Phil, become a world-famous recording artist, make millions, and have your own sneaker endorsement contract. Of course, we can’t make any absolute guarantees of results (since no one can). However, we can guarantee a full refund within 30 days if you don’t believe Beyond Practicing 101 was right for you.

We intend for this to be the best investment you’ve ever made in your performing career, so if you’re not completely thrilled and raring to sing the Happy Happy Joy Joy Song (does anyone else remember Ren & Stimpy?), we want you to have your money back. All we ask is that you help us make this program better by giving us a bit of feedback about your experience with it.

Simple. No hassles. No hard feelings.

Access Beyond Practicing 101 Now!

You don’t spend all those hours in the practice room just for kicks. Click the Add To Cart button below and start learning how to perform like you know you can. We look forward to working with you!

If you have any questions, email us at support@promindcoaching.com.