This year’s Winter Olympics inspired podcast listener Steven Bingham to write in the following topic request:

“If I could suggest a future podcast topic, it would be “performance psychology” with a bassist or other musician who also is a subject matter expert, for example, a university teacher or researcher. Watching the Winter Olympics reminds me of what human beings are capable of achieving when their mind is made up and their body coached up to do it.”

I put this question out on Facebook and got some great responses, so I decided to take these responses and roll them together with some performance psychology-related conversations from these past guests:

• Dr. Don Greene – Performance Coach
• Paul Ellison – Rice University
• Ian Hallas – Lyric Opera of Chicago
• David Allen Moore – Los Angeles Philharmonic and University of Southern California
• Andy Raciti – Northwestern University and Milwaukee Symphony
• Karl Fenner – Atlanta Symphony

These topics were also covered in my Winning the Audition book and podcast series.

Let me know if you have any other tops-specific episodes like this that you’d like to hear!

Contrabass Conversations is sponsored by:

Upton Bass String Instrument Company

Upton’s Karr Model Upton Double Bass represents an evolution of our popular first Karr model, refined and enhanced with further input from Gary Karr. Since its introduction, the Karr Model with its combination of comfort and tone has gained a loyal following with jazz and roots players. The slim, long “Karr neck” has even become a favorite of crossover electric players.

D’Addario Strings

This episode is brought to you by D’Addario Strings! Check out their Kaplan strings, which are are designed, engineered, and crafted at the D’Addario string factory in New York and are great for all kind os styles of music.

Contrabass Conversations production team:

• Jason Heath, host
• Michael Cooper and Steve Hinchey, audio editing
• Mitch Moehring, audio engineer
• Trevor Jones, publication and promotion