Performance: Delivering Your Own Awesome

by Bruce Gandy

An easy-to-read, non-statistical guide to “Delivering Your Own Awesome” in music, sport and other competitive aspects of life, this book provides an understanding of what performance actually is by outlining four key practice, rehearsal, performance and, finally, moving forward. Bruce Gandy’s experiences as a music performer, competitor and, more importantly, a coach have helped developed the advice in this book. He has played in hundreds of performances and competitions around the world and coached musicians at all levels and ages for forty years. With all of this experience, Bruce understands that conquering the fear of failure is perhaps the biggest challenge people face. Using his clearly outlined steps, readers will elevate their own performance level.

170 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 25, 2020

Reviews

[Daniel Lidgren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bruce Gandy is one of the best Great Highland bagpipers in the world. He has won nearly every top prize in solo piping possible and is well-renowned for his very musical playing. He is also a very experienced player in the field of pipe bands as well having won the World Pipe Band Championship back in 1987 and also having played with many other bands over the years.

Lately, in addition to his own playing, Bruce has emerged as a top teacher and coach of pipers. It is this experience that is drawn upon primarily in his book, Performance: Delivering Your Own Awesome.

I really enjoyed this book. It is easy to read and flows well. Most importantly though, the advice given, which could be applied to any performance art or even to other real life situations like the workplace, is simple, sensible and practical. I will not spoil anything but I really enjoyed the down-to-earth One-Eighty Factor which really gets one to focus on problems, but also what the solutions could be to the problem in an easy, step-by-step process.

For me, the most engaging parts of the book are where Bruce goes over real life situations in his past where he encountered difficulty and how he took those challenges and developed the processes outlined in the book. The highlight for me was his overview of his time at the Dr. Dan Reid Memorial. Again, I will not spoil things but it was a great overview of a very good experience as well as a not-so-good experience but also the lessons learned from those experiences. Bruce is at his best in this book when he draws on his extensive and interesting past.

I highly recommend this book; certainly I recommend it to pipers and drummers but really to anyone looking for simple, practical ways to enhance their talents and deliver their own awesome.