Here's my thoughts on the nerve thing....
Conscious and Subconscious.....
You must TRY to enable the subconscious mind to be receptive to positive suggestions. This allows your problems to be addressed and resolved as your body and your conscious and subsconcious mind work in unison to improve playing/performance negatives. This can be achieved through constant repitition of good habits in a relaxed playing manner. It helps you to resolve inner blockages, and arrive at the process of change and recovery.
Traditional methods such as hypnotherapy and psychology may work, but the difference is the brief amount of time that it takes to accomplish changes in habits, behaviours and achievement through the use of relaxed repetition. It is a wholly self-centered and an "inner self process", in which our individual needs and goals must be addressed.
Hopefully as you become more relaxed as a player, the conscious mind is less active and the subconscious is freer to deliver the preprogrammed automatic pilot psychological success of former habitual good practice. This allows you "build upon success" time and time again until you can allow the subconscious mind to become stronger and more effective.
The positive changes hopefully will begin immediately through the increased strength and focus of your subconscious mind. You will be in control, and aware of the positive aspects that your changes in repetitive good habitual practice have resulted in. The programming used during your practices should be based on your individual, specific needs and goals.
M e n t a l T r a i n i n g T i p s
Tap New Abilities.
Musicians perform best and learn new techniques fastest, training 50% mental / 50% physical.
The desire to excel and improve is in all of us!
Limits are only perceived, never proven until tested.
Technical ability is a learned behavior.
How you perform right now is not all that's possible.
Most of us use only 5-7% of our mental abilities. Tap the other 90%+ and immediately give yourself an overwhelming advantage in MUSIC.
Find Your True Purpose
The more you put in, the more you take out.
Winning as a motivator has its limitations.
Great MUSICIANS find a purpose in their playing that moves them beyond the desire to win or gain recognition.
Change limiting beliefs into unlimited desire to improve.
Find your highest purpose for playing.
The shift in attitude alone will increase your ability to perform.
Make your commitment to practice a goal in itself...
Perform through Practice.
Practice the way you play. Play the way you practice.
Look at practice as a way to find out about yourself and your limitations/abilities.
Mental Modeling is key - e.g. observe differences between expected pitch movement and actual, observe errors in your CHOP reaction, then get the next pitch.
Set performance goals and find ways to measure your practice improvement.
Develop a Belief System.
Positive Self-Talk is a technique that can backfire. Those affirmations
("I am a good player") or quick auditory commands only work if you believe.
Visualization
Closing your eyes, and picturing yourself PLAYING the DHC only works if it combines knowledge, imagination, belief.
True belief comes from confidence - from the experience of success.
Until you prove yourself, it's okay to adopt the beliefs of successful players - possibilities, challenges, performance boundaries.
Model these beliefs systematically until you internalize them as your own.
Every Day is CONCERT Day.
The ability to perform on CONCERT day is the product of weeks and months of mentally draining practice.
Include CONCERT-day intensity as a mental practice.
Good mental habits in practice include concentration, composure, confidence, and decision making.
Block the Pressure
The only pressure of competition is self-imposed fear.
Remain in the here-and-now. Ignore the emotional baggage of CLAMS, pitch counts.
Focus your breathing, vision, muscle memory.
Don't change from what has worked so well in practice.
Execute your mechanics the same way as always.
Block out the crowd, the trash talk, your own internal dialogue, and even your own bandmates if they talk too much.
Do it right and you've moved into the........
.....Sound of Silence.
In the Silence......
The mind goes quiet, everything is in slow motion.
No self-talk, no reviewing mechanics, no performance instructions, no chatter.
The mind becomes still and silent.
You want your senses in a heightened state of awareness - don't break this state with internal dialogue.
Read and react - without conscious thought.
It's the instant of peak performance.
Y O U ' R E I N T H E Z O N E ! ! ! 8)