I have a great admiration for musicians who keep their careers alive by transitioning from one area of the music world to another. Whether through the necessity of adversity or a conscious decision to move on, these seven musicians are inspiring to me....

No matter your level of fame or musical success, we all have to balance every aspect of our careers and our lives. Managing our calendars and our time use, meeting deadlines, avoiding perfectionism, keeping sight of the big picture, staying connected...

Being a musician comes with many stresses, both physical and psychological. The injury rate for musicians is very high. Performance anxiety is frequently debilitating. Medical intervention, physical therapy, and psychological therapy are potent options...

Taking a breath is the first act of our lives, and our bodies just know how to move to take in air for our survival. But through inaccurate teaching and trauma, we “forget” how to breathe by trying to move from places in our bodies that don’t accomplish...

We are all breathers, but woodwind, brass, and vocal musicians depend on the optimum function of their breathing muscles for their art. Many muscles are involved in breathing, but the one most people have heard of, yet is misunderstood the most, is the...

Performance anxiety is so common among musicians as to be nearly universal. Musicians who perform regularly have developed their own strategies to manage it. I have tried many techniques, but one that I learned a few years ago is so quick, simple, and...

Yesterday, I felt isolated, inadequate, and a little disgruntled while practicing. Today, I decided I’d had enough of that, so I dug into my toolkit and remembered some easy things I could do to enjoy the process a little more. Here are three things you...

Classically-trained musicians as a group are thankfully moving toward reducing barriers between us and our audiences. We connect with our audiences by our presence, with our words, with our movements and facial expressions, our sounds, and with the programming...

The life of a musician is rarely doing just one thing. Some musicians who attend conservatories hope to “get a job” — to win an audition for a symphony orchestra or a military band, or to land a tenure-track position at a university. But most musicians...

Those of us who play single-line instruments—who don’t, that is, play piano or organ, or who aren’t conductors—may spend most of our time looking at and preparing our parts. Many of us do not bother looking at the score unless we discover a pitch or rhythm...