An answer to performance anxiety: Don Greene.(2009 Conference Artist)

MTNA Conference attendees would likely expect the keynote speaker to come from a musical background. However, the 2009 conference in Atlanta holds a surprise. Keynote speaker, Don Greene, Ph.D., dramatically diverges from that expectation with a most unlikely background and perspective, yet he offers a very important message for performing musicians--a message that began to form when he was a young man on his high school diving team.

Greene was intrigued and confounded by how performance fears and anxiety could cause him to miss even the easiest dives after nailing his toughest. Watching other divers experience the same he realized this was a common problem. He, like a musician after a performance, would be left shaking his head and wondering how errors crept into places where they had never happened before.

As fate would have it, his life took a turn that brought him to confront the very thing that had vexed and puzzled him during his diving meets. That turn materialized when Greene went to the United States Military Academy at West Point. The training he received there taught him to win the most serious of competitions under adverse conditions. After graduation, he trained as an Army Ranger and was selected for the most elite of the Army units, the Green Berets. Only the "best-of-the-best" make it into that unit. Success is measured more by rare mental aptitude than by strength and swiftness. That aptitude allows these soldiers to remain calm and focused in the most extreme conditions, such as parachuting into an ambush firefight. (1)

If this were all one knew about Greene, one might wonder just what is in store for the MTNA conference: perhaps some form of musical boot camp--or other military-related training? In some respects, that thinking may not be too far off base. For many MTNA members, this address might become a catalyst to try a self-imposed boot camp--a new approach to attacking an old and familiar nemesis: performance fears and anxieties.

So, exactly what valuable information about performing does a military man have for serious musicians? Greene's story continues ... after leaving the military he wanted to learn more about how athletes perform under stress. He finished a doctorate in psychology. His dissertation on Centering tested a focusing strategy that had proven successful with athletes. He put together a special evaluation (the basis of his Ph. D dissertation) for the San Diego SWAT team and a high-stress shooting course. Using live ammunition, SWAT team members practice real-life hostage scenarios in which they run into a building full of surprise targets that pop up unexpectedly. The officers, within split-second time frames, must determine whether the target is friend or foe and respond accordingly. Officers are graded on their target selection (innocents vs. hostiles). Officers who had received Greene's centering training did significantly better than those who did not. Those results made national news and soon Greene was requested all over the country to train law enforcement officers, including the FBI SWAT team, to perform better under pressure.

After graduation, his clientele expanded to other high-stress performers: the U.S. Olympic Diving Team, the World Championship Swimming Team, pro golfers, Grand Prix race car drivers and the Vail Ski Team. While working one summer in Vail, Colorado, Greene had a chance encounter with a person that sparked a new and exciting direction: a link between his performance analysis work and musicians.

How It Started