Performance Preparation Strategies

Mapping Mastery is a self-paced video course designed as a complete learning cycle — from orientation and goal setting to performance and reflection. It brings clarity, structure and energy to your musical growth, supporting you in becoming your own self-trainer. The content explores ways of practicing and preparing performances, enhancing focus, reflecting on the process, and developing self-awareness as a foundation for confident, sustainable artistic development.

This guided visualisation helps you to develop sensory awareness – a great way to warm up and to reach a state of deep engagement.

Here’s a visualisation exercise to help you connect with yourself – body, mind, and emotion – to help you be in a centred state for practice, performance and for formulating goals.

A very practical mental training tool for preparing your performances is to do a Performance Preparation Visualisation. Positive visualization exercises have the best effects when you do them directly before going to sleep. Try this one for a few nights before an important performance to release fear and stress and to program positive expectations and a convincing performance.

Which strategies can help you to be able to say ‘I am well prepared’? Here is a look at the weeks before a performance and how you can best use them.

How do you know if you are ready to perform something? Performing is a skill that needs to be developed and practiced. Once you know you can play a piece convincingly, you need to practice trust. Performance preparation involves practicing musical focus, building concentration, confidence and the ability to stay on track after a mistake. Having control over your thoughts and having something to say.

In this episode, we dive into the power of mindset and the deep-seated beliefs we hold about ourselves. How do these beliefs shape our practice and performances, our confidence, and the opportunities we allow into our lives? And more importantly - how can we shift them to unlock our true potential?

In this episode, we dive into the different forms of motivation—intrinsic and extrinsic—and explore how they shape our actions. Why do some things excite us naturally, while others require external rewards? Understanding what truly drives us can help us stay inspired and achieve our goals more effectively.

Creating healthy habits is an important part for being a musician. Changing habits sometimes seems hard, so we have to be aware of our subconscious mechanisms that hold us back from change. 

There is a lot of injury, stress and burnout in the music profession. It’s important to take care of your own health and wellbeing to be a great learner and performer. That means the right amount and quality of sleep, diet and exercise. It also means taking care that you have breaks from highly cognitive work and that you have fun and positive connections with others. Take care of your physical, cognitive and psychological health so that you are balanced and happy!