Harnessing Your Highest Potential In Performance

When I’m conducting an orchestra that’s hurtling at breakneck speed, I can’t make a mistake or there will be a train wreck.

Tania Miller
Better Humans
Published in
26 min readDec 14, 2020

--

Performers play the cello at a concert.
Image source: Lindrik.

Orchestras are powerful, spontaneous, glittering sound machines. They produce extraordinary performance with relatively little preparation. In fact, many top professional orchestras rehearse on average for four rehearsals before a concert, in some situations as little as one rehearsal, and often they find themselves reading music on sight and producing excellence in the moment.

I conduct these orchestras, and time is big money for those who hire us. Every moment counts. A film orchestra records music at top form and top efficiency to make it within budget. For this reason, some of the orchestras who record a lot, such as the London Symphony Orchestra, are some of the best sight-readers in the world.

There’s an expectation in an orchestra that you won’t make a mistake. Yes, mistakes happen, but professionalism dictates that it will be rare. No fluffs, no squeaks, no surprises. Enter at the right time in the right place — always. Everything is played in flow, there’s no time to look back or think about anything other than the present moment of performance and, if anything, to anticipate what’s coming just ahead of it.

Performance in sport is similar. Mentally, athletes need to be tough, resilient, focussed, driven. Like musicians, once inside the moment of the game or the race, there’s no going back. Those that can get into the mental zone of focus and confidence will have a greater chance of reaching their potential. Those that are distracted or worried don’t have a chance.

So, if performance is so unrelenting, and there is this degree of focus on perfection and high quality in the moment, then how is it that performers can get there and trust their skills in order to be able to perform with the expected degree of quality?

There is great potential within each of us to perform, beyond where we imagine we can go, but how can we harness that potential every time? Much of our work comes down to mindset, preparation, and understanding the potential that we have in the moment of performance.

--

--

Exploring the potential of our mind and how perception, awareness and the arts impact human experience. Orchestra conductor, performer, writer. taniamiller.com