Workshops

Mindfulness, Confidence & Performance

\Madeline Bruser and our certified and senior teachers offer workshops in Mindfulness, Confidence, & Performance at college music departments, high schools, music teachers’ organizations, and other institutions. This training can be taught in four one-hour modules, which can be expanded, combined, or adapted to meet the needs of students.

Each workshop includes:

  • Instruction in a specific technique
  • A question-and-answer session

The four modules are:

1. Mindfulness-Awareness Meditation

Mindfulness-Awareness Meditation workshops teach mental techniques for establishing basic presence of mind.

Technique: mindfulness of breathing

Results:

  • Clears the mind and opens perceptions and intuition for practice and performance
  • Reduces stress
  • Increases mental focus
  • Strengthens stage presence
  • Familiarizes musician with state of flow that happens in performance

2. Body and Sound Awareness

Body and Sound Awareness workshops focus on a combination of two techniques using one’s instrument.

Techniques: body scan and mindfulness of sounds and sensations

Results:

  • Connects the musician to full capacity for appreciating sound while playing
  • Enriches sound quality
  • Allows musician to play with more emotional intensity yet less physical tension
  • Creates more engaged and engaging performance
  • Strengthens artistic conviction
  • Deepens familiarity with state of flow, contributing toward confidence in performance

3. The Performing Beyond Fear exercise

The Performing Beyond Fear exercise is a 7-minute technique for rousing confidence. Click to hear the new audio.

Technique: contemplation

Results:

  • Increases epressve power
  • Shifts mental focus from self-consciousness to generosity onstage
  • Transforms stage fright into confidence

4. Focusing

Focusing is a mindfulness technique for developing awareness of visceral and emotional energies used in making music.

Technique: mindfulness of inner body sensations

Results:

  • Increases availability of emotional energies for making music
  • Increases range of emotional expression
  • Clears negative energies that block musical impulses

Teacher Training

The Institute trains teachers in instrumental instruction through private sessions and workshops conducted by Madeline Bruser and Certified and Senior teachers at our individual studios and online.

Certification Process

For Pianists:

Founding teacher Madeline Bruser offers Teacher Certification for pianists. If you live outside of the Philadelphia area, you may study privately with Ms. Bruser online and attend teachers’ workshops and performance workshops in Philadelphia to suit your schedule.

Pre-Certification Training

Prior to Certification Training, pianists focus on basic techniques of the Art of Practicing. This study includes:

  • Private lessons with Madeline Bruser
  • Practicing teaching basic techniques of the Art of Practicing in piano teachers’ workshops
  • Giving oral presentations on Piano Technique Streamlining and Musicianship Essentials

Certification

Certification focuses on developing more advanced skills as a teacher of the Art of Practicing. Underlying this work is the theme of working with the student as a whole person and deepening one’s understanding of teaching as a creative dialogue. Participants will:

  • Teach private instrumental lessons to beginning, intermediate, and advanced students under supervision
  • Explore and study the practice of mindfulness and its relationship to artistic and educational processes
  • Conduct seminars on the Art of Practicing
  • Conduct seminars on Mindfulness-Awareness Meditation for Musicians, Body and Sound Awareness, and the Performing Beyond Fear exercise.

For Non-pianists

The Art of Practicing Institute also offers a Teacher Certification program for non-pianists, each of whom can focus either on teaching their own instrument, or on applying the Art of Practicing to teaching all instruments,

For more information about Teacher Certification, please email Madeline Bruser at madelinebruser@gmail.com