Performance Psychology for Musicians: Interview with Noa Kageyama of Bulletproof Musician
Photo credit: Rosalie O’Connor
If you’ve ever gone online searching for answers about nerves, focus, or how to perform better under pressure, chances are you’ve landed on Bulletproof Musician, the brainchild of Juilliard and CIM performance psychologist Noa Kageyama.
Noa is wonderful. His approach is practical, down-to-earth, science-based, and — most importantly — effective.
I hope you enjoy this interview a much as I did chatting with him!
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Could you give us a quick overview of your background and how you got into performance psychology?
I started playing violin when I was about two and always figured I'd be a performer. But like a lot of musicians, I dealt with nerves, inconsistency, and sometimes just not enjoying practicing. Some days I’d practice a ton and not get better, or other days I’d barely practice and somehow sound great. It was confusing.
I didn’t really have a framework for how to fix that until grad school at Juilliard. That’s when I took a class with Don Greene, who taught performance enhancement from a sport psychology perspective. It was all super practical, and I started seeing immediate improvements — not just on stage, but in how I practiced and approached learning.
Eventually I got curious about the research side, went to Indiana for a PhD in psychology, and ended up teaching back at Juilliard. Now I try to help others with the same tools that helped me — how to practice more effectively, how to manage nerves, and how to play more consistently under pressure.
There can be some confusion about what performance psychology really is — some people assume it’s like psychotherapy. How do you frame the difference when you’re working with musicians?
Yeah, that’s a great question — and honestly, that was my assumption too, at first. When I saw a psychology class offered where I was studying music, I didn’t really know what to expect. I hadn’t had much experience with therapy, but I figured it’d be kind of like what I’d seen on TV.
But what really surprised and drew me in was how much it actually felt like a lesson or a coaching — very action-oriented, very specific, and concrete. It wasn’t about unpacking childhood memories or anything like that. It was about tools.
That said, there are definitely situations where deeper issues like trauma do affect how someone performs, and those things can’t always be addressed through coaching. That’s where therapy or other modalities come in. But for most folks, it’s really about how to prepare for the demands of performance.
It’s not just “run the piece and hope for the best.” It’s things like:
How do you control your attention under pressure?
How do you recover from a mistake mid-performance?
How do you mentally transition between excerpts in an audition?
Or just how to stay focused on the present moment while playing.
Most of us don’t really think much about that in the practice room. We just kind of go through the motions, and when our mind drifts — to lunch, to a to-do list — it’s not a big deal. But in high-stakes situations, that same kind of mental wandering becomes a problem. You start thinking about the hard passage coming up, or what’s happening behind the screen, or what your teacher might say afterward — and that’s when things can fall apart pretty quickly.
Since a large subset of students spent critical formative years at home and learning remotely, have you noticed any post-COVID changes in music students? Unique challenges?
Yeah, definitely. A lot of teachers are saying students seem less comfortable performing live — and I think that makes sense. During COVID, people got used to playing on Zoom, which has a totally different feel. When they came back to real rooms, that social piece — having someone physically in the room listening — felt harder.
I was talking to Linda Chesis at Manhattan School of Music, and she noticed embouchure changes in flute players. Her theory was that students unconsciously adjusted their tone for close-up mic settings instead of projecting to a hall.
Even though it was only a year or two, it changed people’s habits.
On the topic of times changing… I had a few “old-school” teachers who didn’t take performance psychology seriously. They thought you just needed to tough it out and stop overthinking. Do you still come across that attitude?
Honestly? Not really. I think attitudes have shifted. The people I work with are already open to this kind of thing, so I’m not hearing as much resistance. And maybe because we have access to so much more information than we used to, I feel like newer generations of teachers are more curious about these sorts of topics and not as quick to dismiss something even if it wasn’t part of their own training.
Can you walk me through the evolution of Bulletproof Musician? How much of it is still you behind the scenes — or do you have a team helping out?
So, the first blog post went up in summer 2009, but the idea had been brewing much earlier.
I defended my dissertation in 2007, then Don invited me to join him on a trip to the New World Symphony, and around that time started thinking more seriously about how to do more work with performing artists specifically. I’d been doing more general psychology work, but by 2006 or 2007, I was trying to develop a niche.
Back then, blogging wasn’t new, but it also wasn’t something everyone was doing. I started reading about how to get clients and do “marketing,” and blogging seemed like a natural way to put helpful information out there and show up when people were Googling things like “performance anxiety.”
So I actually launched several websites at first — and this was before it was easy to make one. I used Dreamweaver (if anyone remembers that!). One site was literally called performance-anxiety-solutions.com. I thought it looked okay, but didn’t know what to do with it, so nothing really happened.
Don Greene and I even built a site together at one point, but we didn’t add much content, so no one found it.
Eventually I discovered WordPress, which was a game changer. I wanted “musician” in the domain, and I remembered reading a sport psych book that used the term “bulletproof” — that stuck. “Bulletproof Musician” felt unexpected, but relevant.
At first, I just wrote about things I’d learned — effective practice strategies, mindset, that kind of thing — not citing studies yet, just riffing. And honestly, nobody was reading, so it didn’t matter if I skipped a week. But after a while, I started wondering what else I could write about. I worried I’d run out of material after 10 posts.
What changed everything was when I began writing each post around a specific research study. There’s just so much fascinating work out there, and I realized I could build each article around one study, keep it to about 1,000 words, and end with an actionable takeaway.
That became the formula. And it also became my own continuing education. I mean, psychologists are supposed to do CE credits, but reading for the blog has kept me sharper than anything formal would have.
It’s one of the ways I’ve stayed up to date with research — and honestly, it’s helped me keep learning beyond the narrow path that I might otherwise have stuck to.
I still remember working on all this in the basement while my wife was practicing upstairs. She’d ask, “Shouldn’t you be out finding clients or doing real work?” But I really believed this would pay off. It took a couple of years before anyone was actually reading, but eventually it clicked.
Tell me about the courses you offer.
The first course started after I began teaching at Juilliard. I realized I’d only be able to work with a certain number of students — limited semesters, limited seats. And I’d taken a few online courses myself at that point — mostly in business — and thought, What if I could offer something similar for performance psychology?
I had all these slides, exercises, homework assignments... so I started adapting them for an online format.
I didn’t use anything like Teachable or Kajabi — they didn’t exist yet. I think I started with just WordPress pages — manually embedding videos and linking them together. No fancy LMS or plugins. But it worked.
What surprised me was how effective it was. People were learning and engaging. Some of those very first students are still part of the Bulletproof community today. I met one of them in Germany just a few weeks ago.
That’s what’s been most gratifying — realizing that something I put out into the world without ever meeting these people in person has helped them feel more confident and less alone.
Then, a few years before the pandemic, I teamed up with Rob Knopper and started teaching a live Zoom class. What we saw was that many people learn more effectively in a live group. There’s accountability. You’re not practicing in a vacuum.
So when the pandemic hit, I thought — What if I strip this down to the essentials? What would I want someone to walk away with if I only had four weeks with them?
That became the Essentials course, which I originally aimed at teachers and educators — folks who had students of their own. I figured if I could equip teachers with these tools, it would reach way more students than I ever could alone.
Over time, more adult learners and students joined as well. Eventually, I combined the groups — with a few tweaks to support both — and now we’re on Cohort 23. More than 2,000 people have gone through it.
And that’s what led to the Learning Lab?
Exactly. It started because after the course ended, people would say, “I wish this didn’t stop after a month.” So I built a private community just for alumni.
At first, I didn’t even make it public — it was quietly running in the background. But now, it’s a space with monthly workshops, a book club, and a lot of peer feedback, and continued learning.
You can only join if you’ve taken the Essentials course — that way, everyone’s on the same page: how to practice effectively, how to control attention, how to give helpful, respectful feedback.
And that’s really the heart of it. People record themselves, give feedback to others — often on different instruments — and they get more comfortable, more focused, more confident. Some go from being terrified to record themselves to making it part of their daily practice.
When I first started teaching this work, I really wanted to help teachers — educators who already had their own students. I figured, I can only work with so many people directly, but if teachers can integrate these tools from sport psychology, the ripple effect is bigger. Maybe one day, someone takes my class and says, “Oh, I already know all this — my teacher’s been doing it forever.” That’d be a great outcome.
But I also noticed that adult learners and students really wanted to work on this stuff, too. So over time I created a cohort for them, and eventually merged the groups. Now we’re in Cohort 23, and over 2,000 musicians and educators have been through the course — some of them multiple times.
The community piece is the most powerful part. There’s weekly homework — usually short recordings, like 10 to 20 seconds. At first, people are really nervous, but they get more comfortable. They post clips to a private forum, and give each other feedback — often across instrument types, which is really cool. You start to see how people listen, what they notice, and how they encourage each other.
Eventually people asked if they could continue after the course. So I built a membership community to support ongoing growth.
And there's a book club which started off with me needing some accountability so I could read something that I had in my bookshelf forever and it ended up becoming a thing that the community actually really enjoys and it's like, what's next? What are we gonna read next?
What are some of the books you’ve read in the book club?
We started with a book by Kristian Steenstrup — he’s a trumpet educator in Denmark who studied with Arnold Jacobs and wrote this book on practicing.
Then we read Breath by James Nestor — which I feel like every brass player has been recommending for years.
We’ve done one on memory — it wasn’t music-specific, but it was super useful.
Then we read Molly Gebrian’s book, Learn Better, Perform Faster.
We even tackled a motor learning science book — kind of jargony, but people really geeked out about it.
Not to make you list books forever, but are there any sports psychology books you recommend most often?
Yeah — when I do presentations, I usually mention these five:
Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, Mark A. McDaniel – It’s about how we learn. Not a music book, but it’s super relevant to how we practice.
10-Minute Toughness by Jason Selk – That’s a daily mental routine he teaches to a lot of his athletes, like the St. Louis Cardinals. Very actionable.
Performance Success by Don Greene – This was our textbook when I took his class. Still great.
Molly Gebrian’s book again, Learn Better, Perform Faster – It’s like Make It Stick, but specifically for musicians. I wish I’d had it as a student.
How We Learn to Move by Rob Gray – He’s a motor learning professor at ASU and consults with major league teams. The book is dense, but really challenges the idea that there’s only one “correct” way to do something.
Have you ever worked with someone who’s fully engaged in the mental training, but seems held back by gaps in their fundamental playing? How do you handle that kind of situation?
I remember asking Don Greene that when I was still a student.
And he said, “That’s not your job.” Your job is to help them with their mental game. Their teacher/coach/colleagues are there to help with the musical or technical side.
That stuck with me.
Especially with audition prep, I always encourage people to not only play for a variety of folks, but also work with a teacher or mentor who really understands their instrument — because outside of our own area, it can be hard to give as much feedback.
Even top players sometimes miss things when they’re listening outside their instrument family. I’ve seen programs where people get feedback from musicians in other sections, and while that’s immensely valuable as well for lots of reasons, it’s also eye-opening how much less specific the comments can be. You just hear different things.
So I try not to make assumptions about playing — but I do nudge students to get playing-specific guidance.
Thoughts on beta blockers?
Yeah, that comes up a lot. I don’t really have a strong for-or-against stance. I just want people to consult a physician first.
They’re usually safe, but not always — for instance, if someone has asthma or a low resting heart rate, they might not be a good fit.
Also, beta blockers mostly address the physical symptoms — shaking, elevated heart rate — but they don’t usually affect the mental symptoms, like negative self-talk or focus issues.
Some people find that once the physical stuff calms down, their mental state improves too. Others still struggle.
I never encourage or discourage them directly. But most folks who bring it up are hoping to rely on them less — and that’s where the mental training work comes in. It gives them tools so they’re not dependent on medication.
Are there any body-based modalities or other tools you recommend to students?
One thing I noticed early on is that there’s a lot of crossover between my performance psych class at Juilliard and the Alexander Technique classes. Students who took both said they really reinforced each other.
So I always encourage students to explore those if they’re available — Alexander, Feldenkrais, and Body Mapping, which has become more well-known in the last 10–20 years.
These awareness-based modalities are great because often people aren’t aware how much tension they’re carrying — even when there’s no pressure. Then, when they get onstage, that baseline tension spikes, and things fall apart.
The key is not just awareness but being able to selectively release tension where it’s not needed. That skill can massively improve comfort, confidence, and performance under pressure.
A lot of young music students don’t have access to things like performance psychology, Alexander Technique, or body-awareness training — either because their schools don’t offer it or because it’s financially out of reach. What do you recommend for students in that situation who still want to grow in those areas?
Yeah, I’ve thought about that a lot. It might sound self-serving, but I usually point them to the Mental Skills Audit on my website — a 21-question quiz to help identify weak spots: practice habits, attention control, confidence, resilience, etc.
Then I suggest finding articles in those categories on the blog and working through them in seven-day chunks, like weekly assignments.
You can:
Record yourself at the beginning and end of the week
Try small daily recordings
Involve a friend — share recordings, give feedback, support each other
Even without formal coaching, people make huge progress this way. I’ve had students say, “I never took your course, but I read your blog in high school — and it really helped.”
That’s why I’ve never restricted access to articles or required subscriptions. Even older blog posts are timeless, and I’ve started adding dates to updated ones to reflect current research.
So yeah — there’s a lot you can do, even without a teacher or budget.
For folks who want to join future cohorts or courses, where should they go?
The best place to explore is: bulletproofmusician.com/courses or
What’s a piece you never get tired of hearing or performing?
That’s a good question. I’m not sure this totally fits either category, but the last piece I really worked on was the Schubert Fantasy. My wife’s a pianist — we’ve been playing together since college — and that was one of the last pieces we tackled as a duo.
I’ve always liked a pretty odd mix of things. I love Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven… but also Wieniawski and Paganini — so kind of a strange combination of classic-era clarity and then this flashy, virtuosic stuff. I mean, I enjoy Brahms and Tchaikovsky too, of course, but I never quite connected with them in the same way when it came to playing.
So the Schubert kind of sat in the middle for me — I “got” it stylistically, but it’s also crazy difficult, so it was fun to take on with my wife. And now, with a better understanding of practice and performance, it’s something I’d love to revisit and try to do better than we did the first time.
Love that. Do you have a Desert Island Album or five?
My taste is kind of frozen in the 90s CD club era — you remember those “buy 1, get 15 free” mailers? My taste was totally formed by those.
So my top 5 might be:
Metallica – Metallica
Red Hot Chili Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Eagles – Their Greatest Hits
Alice in Chains – Unplugged
Led Zeppelin IV
Honestly, no classical music in that stack, which might be kind of telling?
Same for me. Maybe I’d throw in some Bach. Favorite comfort food?
It used to be lasagna when I was younger. But now, whenever we come back to the city after traveling or being away, my whole family craves spicy Sichuan Chinese food. No idea why, but that’s become the go-to.
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Performance psychologist Noa Kageyama is on the faculty of The Juilliard School and the Cleveland Institute of Music. A conservatory-trained violinist with degrees from Oberlin and Juilliard before completing a Ph.D. in counseling psychology at Indiana University, Noa now specializes in working with performing artists, teaching them how to utilize sport psychology techniques and principles and more consistently perform up to their full abilities under pressure.
He has conducted workshops for institutions ranging from Northwestern University, New England Conservatory, Peabody, Eastman, Curtis, McGill University, and the U.S. Armed Forces School of Music, to programs such as the Starling-Delay Symposium, The Perlman Music Program, and the National Orchestral Institute, and for organizations like the Music Teachers’ National Association, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the Sphinx Organization, the Performing Arts Medicine Association, and the Association for Applied Sport Psychology.
Noa’s work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, NBC News, CNN, Forbes, Slate, TED-Ed, Musical America, Strings Magazine, Strad, and Lifehacker. He has taught over 8000 musicians, educators, and learners through his online courses, and authors The Bulletproof Musician - a performance psychology blog and podcast which reaches over 45,000 subscribers every week.
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