If you want to grow in your independence as a piano player, one of the best skills you can learn is the ability to isolate and identify the things that are bothering you.

For many people, this means resisting mental and emotional habits they’ve surrendered to for years.

Today’s post is for people who are supporting other people in learning piano, rather than learning piano themselves (so parents, teachers, etc.). The question I have for you today is, what kind of energy are you bringing to piano lessons?

Talking about “energy” doesn’t have to be spiritual woo-woo. I think we can talk about energy in an objective way if we think about it as the way that your unique combination of interests, values, goals, and expectations merge to create the attitude you bring to each new endeavour.

The process of learning how to read note names in piano music is really similar to the process of learning how to find your way to a friend’s house.

The first time you visit a friend, you need specific instructions in order to get there, usually in the form of an address.

Once you visit a couple of times, you won’t rely on the address as much because you’ll start to build little mental shortcuts to help you find your way.

If you’re a parent who would like to support their child in learning piano, help them find opportunities to teach other people what they’re learning in their piano lessons.

Have you ever heard the saying, “If you really want to know a subject, teach it?” In my experience, that saying is very true — I constantly learn new aspects about music the longer I teach it — and it applies to kids as much as it applies to adults.

In my experience, the people who struggle the most with performance anxiety are musicians who identify as sensitive people.

Here’s why I think that is.

I’ve already mentioned that my post on performance mindset drew some feedback on how musicians in my social media community struggle with perfectionism. What I didn’t expect (although it makes sense in hindsight) is that people also drew a connection with performance anxiety on social media. One commenter in particular admitted they don’t post their own music on social media because of the stress of being good enough for others.

This concern over sharing one’s music or performances on social media is something I hear from a lot of people I work with. I, too, have had to overcome a fear of showing up on social media in order to build my own musical community.

One idea in particular has helped me the most in overcoming my fear of social media, and I’d like to share it with you today.

My last video on performance mindset got some amazing feedback, probably more than anything else I've posted online. Multiple people told me their perfectionism and fear of performance ruined their ability to play music, even for fun.

I felt I wanted to response to some of these commenters, to give them an extra step in their path to reconnecting with their musical ability. So I sat down and recorded a few videos sharing some of the lessons I’d learned that helped me overcome my perfectionism, in case it could help them. Here’s one of those lessons in case it can help you, too.

Do you stress out when you think about preparing for a musical performance? If so, chances are that you’re worrying about being good enough to play for other people.

There’s a way around performance anxiety that works especially well for sensitive, heart-led people. Building a healthy music performance mindset can start with the small step of considering your own general intention when you practice. When you’re preparing for your performance, do you focus on showing off (for your audience) or showing up (for your music)?

People would be surprised how much time I spend as a piano teacher helping people drop back down into their bodies.

By this I mean putting a pause on their rational brains and help them seek out the emotions that their bodies are trying to surface during the learning experience.