Performance Success: Performing Your Best Under Pressure

by Don Greene

Performance Success teaches a set of skills so that a musician can be ready to go out and sing or play at his or her highest level, working with energies that might otherwise be wasted in unproductive ways. This is a book of skills and exercises, prepared by a master teacher.

Dr. Don Greene, a peak performance psychologist, has taught his comprehensive approach to peak performance mastery at The Juilliard School, Colburn School, New World Symphony, Los Angeles Opera Young Artists Program, Vail Ski School, Perlman Music Program, and US Olympic Training Center. During his thirty-two year career, he has coached more than 1,000 performers to win professional auditions and has guided countless solo performers to successful careers. Some of the performing artists with whom Dr. Greene has worked have won jobs with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Opera, Montreal Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, National Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the Dance Theatre of Harlem, to name just a few. Of the Olympic track and field athletes he worked with up until and through the 2016 Games in Rio, 14 won medals, including 5 gold.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Psychology, Self Help, Personal Development

168 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2001

Reviews

[Dan Graser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again Don Greene is a highly regarded sports and artistic psychologist with a wonderful grasp on the issues that performers face on a daily basis and in extreme scenarios. This companion piece to his other famous, "Audition Success," lays out in very formal structure the process that is described somewhat anecdotally in the aforementioned work. I don't want you to think that having only just read this that I feel qualified to make a review, I have worked with his method for quite some time, some of it is present in my teaching, and my first experiences with actually going through his profile and method date back to 2004 when I first heard of this.

In this book itself you can fill out all of the attributes, in numerical fashion, which he uses on a regular basis and get applicable numbers to many areas of your artistic profile. I did this online back when the forms where there more simply, having just now checked the website it seems to have been wrapped up in a course that you have to enroll in, different than when I did this back in 2004...

Anyway, his discussions of Centering, Performance Simulation Practice, and the specificity of your own artistic profile make this a very focused and useful work. In fact he finishes the work with a three-week plan for preparing for a major performance/audition/event. To those performer friends of mine who have issues when it comes to performing I strongly urge you to give this a try. If you decide to, go all in and be as specific and honest as you can as you fill out your profile, if you do then you will likely leave not only with a set of exercises and methods to aid your performance but also many new ways of thinking about your relationship with nerves/anxiety and your personal motivations. Highly recommended

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting book! He made a subject which may terrify some people very motivating and inspirational. I am looking forward to trying some of his tips as a musician myself. He had some amazing success stories which he used and wrote about very well in order to motivate his readers.

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breaks down all elements of mental and physical stress that affect performance. Gives good strategies to combine for each performer's particular manifestation(s) of stress. If you are a performing artist or terrified public speaker, this offers very practical help to minimize the discomforts that can "total" an otherwise well-prepared performance.

There's a bit of an infomercial-like "..so call now!" quality in the writing at the beginning but the book is organized so that the reader may focus on the parts that are relevant to their particular weaknesses after taking the self-evaluation. Definitely worth a look.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful guidance from a performance psychologist whose work is behind at least 28 olympic medals, 41 world championship medals, and hundreds of auditions won at some of the most prestigious musical groups in the world. It's more of a participatory program/seminar/workbook than merely a book to sit and read. Definitely worth my time even though I'm an amateur.

For a book that looks to have a broader scope, his Fight Your Fear and Win might be a good place to start. He also has a five-minute TED Animation video: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-to-pra...

[John Gillies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book. The intended audience is early professional classical musicians (instrumentalists and singers) who need help in preparing for professional auditions. Having said that, the author has a number of potentially very useful suggestions as to how to make that best of one's musical performances, whether one is an amateur or a professional.

[Debi Emerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, but a bit dry at times.

[Jennifer Szabo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I gave this 4 stars is because I read “fight your fear and win” first, and felt it was just a concise and just as helpful version of this book.

[Rachel Walger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every musician must read this book!

[Becca Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did a rereading. Not perfect, but very useful and worthwhile read

[W F · Rating 3 out of 5]

Should we evaluate instructional books based on how nice they sound or on how they impact our lives when applied in the real world? Don Greene is a well-respected and proven teacher, coach, writer, among other roles. However, I find myself facing the same issue again and again when I reflect on Performance Success: do the methods and exercises within the text actually work? Personally, and only in my personal experience, the answer is "no." Here are three gripes for the reader to consider.
One, authority. If a ten-year old child from Nashville, Tennessee manages to solve the Riemann hypothesis and prove his findings, are his results more or less valid than the smartest mathematician in the world arriving to the same conclusion by the same set of procedures? Ask yourself whether the question matters and what it implies. Now go and read the accolades of Don Greene. He has worked with wonderful people. His wonderful people have done wonderful things. My first issue with the problem of authority is that we are all looking at the accomplishments presented as if they are proofs of the theorem, rather than credentials of the mathematician. We can see no distinct connection between the methods presented in this book and the causal outcomes from the high-performers who use these methods. We see only outcome and authority.
Two, potential covariables. Let's go ahead and consider some alternative possibilities for how high-performing people who use the methods covered in Performance Success may have become successful. The achievers may have: already put in the sufficient effort to become great performers, tried alternative methods in addition to the text, studied a level of practical psychology at a personal level to overcome specific and non-generalized problems, learned new insights into personal belief structures, enhanced practice routines and identified key weaknesses in performance, tried harder, and so on. We must evaluate the text in light of our own personal experiences and the effectiveness of the methods in our own particular cases.
Three, outcome-oriented arguments. My third central problem with the text is simple. We are far too concerned with incomplete vectors for analysis: namely, the achievements rather than the qualitative and quantitative methods that we ought to be using to determine "Performance Success." Who is to say that an olympic gold medal is the result of superior preparation or performance? Maybe everyone else did a terrible job. Maybe the winner is in the unique position of having developed a proprietary competitive advantage over his colleagues (col-losers). We need to consider which achievements matter and why they matter. One great way of doing that is to figure out where you are, what you are trying to do, trying out the methods from this book, repeating over a large time-scale, and perhaps reviewing the text on goodreads after at least a few years.
In sum, read if you'd like. Try out the suggestions. Let me know if they worked out for you. My problem is not with the book, but with my understanding of self and my analysis of which methods I have found real "Performance Success" with.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for anyone who performs, in any profession. Don Greene is a renowned sports psychologist who began to work with musicians after an encounter with a bassist who thought the techniques might be useful. Since then, many musicians have learned how to set aside the often crippling levels of performance anxiety that most people believe "come with the territory" and, using his skills, achieve Optimal Performance.

This is my first of two readings of this book, along with its companion book Audition Success. This initial reading was to understand the method, get an overview of the skills, and make notes on the ideas and the process; the second reading will be one in which I actually implement the system. As yet, the system seems good.

[Kim Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently reviewed "Audition Success" and in my review I voiced some frustration regarding how to incorporate Don Greene's advice into my own life. This book was the answer to many of my questions. I loved it. I look forward to incorporating some of these ideas into my own performance regimen. Some of his explanations are priceless. It's a book to read more than once and to set by the bedside table for reference. Highly recommended!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have major performance anxiety and finished reading this book with a hopeful and courageous attitude that I can finally overcome this. It's not just a book about the mental aspect, it gives you concrete tools to help you switch from left-brain to right, to center up or down (depending on what you need), and improve on the specific skills that hinder you personally. There are training exercises in the book that I am just starting, so I should really rate this book after I have done the assignments that lead up to my recital. But his optimism, record, and plan have already calmed some of my nerves.

[Jeremy Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Performance Success is one of the most useful performance resources I’ve come across. I’ve been a professional musician for around twenty years now and return to the book every few years as a refresher. The concept of Centering alone is worth much more than the price of the book. Dr. Greene offers many keen insights on optimal and peak performance. Through the book he develops a process for acclimating to the pressures of performance.

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book concerning the psychology of performing well and confidently. It's a music version of sports psychology. Definitely a good read, especially before a big performance/audition.

[Carlos Amador · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was suggested reading for me and I was very pleased with the content.

Well written and fairly quick read.

Basically goes through the process used to assist students at Juliard including a 21 day preparation aimed at peaking optimally day 1.

Worth the read.