Then there are musicians who are late in their careers, seeing their skills starting to drop, and they want to go out on a high note. It's fascinating that artists can experience it for long periods. Athletes only do it for a few seconds. Greene says that more than 100 studies have been done on peak performance in athletes. He's now studying the phenomenon in musicians, and has come up with a process that enables artists to set up the conditions where such performance is more likely to happen.
Peak performance is about playing the edge.
Barbara Jostlein, who won the position of assistant horn in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra at the age of 22, had about a month of weekly coaching from Greene in preparation for the audition, and is now working with him again. Musicians at the Met play four of the week's seven performance, plus rehearsals. The operas are long, and for a newcomer the music is all unfamiliar. Focus is really important. It's easy to let yourself flip out, but that's not going to help you.