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Mastering the Art of Performance: A Primer for Musicians (Social Worlds from the Inside Out)

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Master music teacher Stewart Gordon presents Mastering The Art Of Performance: A Primer For Musicians, an in-depth guide for musicians to striving for unparalleled excellence in their performances. Mastering The Art Of Performance does far more than simply identify and describe problems associated with performance; it offers a wealth of practical solutions. From easy-to- follow self-test and warmup exercises, to how to accurately conceptualize and schedule reasonable goals, to tips for managing stage fright, dealing with repetition and drill, and much more, Mastering The Art Of Performance is a personable problem-solving guide drawn directly from the author's years of experience. Enthusiastically recommended for amateur and professional musical performers from all walks of life.

Music is a performance art and what a better way to perfect your performances than by following the advice of a master performer who is ready, able, and intelligent enough to teach you how to operate under most performance conditions. Much of the advice is common sense, some of it is trivial, most of it is profound, and all is accompanied by considerable wit and insight and good humor. Use this book to help youself organize your time, your practice, your sang-froid. Use it to learn how to identify and repair the fracture sites in your performances. Use it to gain psychological support for a truly musical recital as opposed to a mechanical rendition. Gordon is particularly good at overcoming the mind's limiting factors in any performance challenge: risks, memory breaks, lack of technical skill for a passage, fear, avoidance of the reality that you just can't do a certain piece, and so forth. And I know why he knows all this. He has been through the mill himself. He has been there multiple times. He has done that. He has conquered his demons. If he can do it, so can you.

Mastering the Art of Performance breaks down the aspects of performance in a way that gives you confidence that you'll cover all your bases as you prepare for a show. A well organized exploration of performance.

I you are a profesional musician or are in the process of becoming one, this book may be for you. In my case, music and performing is more of a hobby,while some of the information was usefull, it was no enough to justifify my buying the book.