Wednesday 27 July 2005

Various strands of thought came together this morning in a simple idea. Why don't musicians have coaches? If you're in an Olympic team, you have a coach giving you advice and training on how to maintain yourself at peak condition for your performance. There's an academic discipline called Sports Science. Why not Performing Arts Science? Is it the horror of seeing those last two words together? There is Performing Arts Medicine but that tends to deal with crises rather than performance management. So musicians tend to rely on experimentation with drugs (caffeine and alcohol for starters), vapid concepts (see my discussion of 'excitement' below), or new age nonsense. They're not as superstitious as actors, but I do sense a training gap to be filled, both for students and seasoned professionals.