Our Work

• The Need|
• Origins|
• Services|
• Unique Role|
• Projects|
• Our Founder

The Need

Seventy-five percent of classical musicians have developed injuries from practicing their instruments with excess tension. And the use of drugs known as beta blockers to combat performance anxiety is "nearly ubiquitous" among classical musicians, according to The New York Times. Injuries have forced many musicians to abandon or interrupt their careers. Physical and mental tension prevents others from performing expressively, which is often documented in concert reviews that adversely affect their careers.

Since 1980, increasing numbers of musicians have been flocking to clinics specializing in the new field of Performing Arts Medicine, and a growing number of publications on the subject of musicians' ailments have appeared. Musicians are looking for programs and products to help them better use their minds and bodies to fully realize their gifts and to train their students in a healthy approach to practice and performance. Music schools are searching for new ways to help their students with serious physical and mental issues.

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Origins

Golden Key Music Institute, a New York State non-profit organization, originated from the work of Madeline Bruser, pianist, teacher, author of the highly acclaimed book The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart, and creator of Fearless Performing E-zine. Our programs are based on a combination of traditional conservatory training, research on the physiological mechanics of making music, and the application of mindfulness disciplines to musical practice and performance. Ms. Bruser developed and tested these programs over the last 30 years through workshops across the U.S. and Canada, which have generated significant interest on the part of teachers, musicians, and conservatories, including the Juilliard School in New York. The institute was formed in response to this demonstrated need for information and training that promotes healthy instrumental technique and expressive, confident performance.

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Services

Golden Key Music Institute's serves to

• Provide scholarships for music students
• Create, promote, and sponsor workshops for pianists and other musicians
• Certify piano teachers and train other instrumental teachers
• Offer mindfulness training in music schools and college music departments

• Produce and distribute educational videos and audios
• Recruit teachers who share our vision 
• Expand our summer institute
• Create workshops for chamber ensembles
• Expand mindfulness training in music schools
• Establish a music conservatory that becomes an accredited degree-granting institution

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Unique Role

Golden Key Music Institute is unique in its support of work that combines physiological and musical principles with mindfulness discipline to comprehensively address the complex, multi-layered problems of musicians. Madeline Bruser's approach draws on her experience as a concert pianist and teacher, an instructor of mindfulness meditation, and a researcher in body mechanics. Her work synthesizes principles from these three traditions and addresses key physical components of healthy piano playing that are overlooked by other pedagogical approaches.

In the current environment of considerable, growing interest in musicians' wellness issues, some organizations focus primarily on the mechanics of instrumental technique, while others focus primarily on psychological approaches to performance anxiety. 

Golden Key Music Institute provides musicians with a unique, comprehensive, and proven training that helps them release physical and mental tension and unleash their full communicative power.

Through this training, musicians learn to

• Streamline their movements
• Increase their awareness and enjoyment of sounds and sensations 
• Organize musical sounds for maximum coherence, fluidity, and rhythmic vitality
• Transform stage fright into confidence

Rooted in the principles of mindfulness, movement, and musicianship presented in the book The Art of Practicing: A Guide to Making Music from the Heart, the institute helps musicians to prevent and recover from practice-related injuries, reduce their reliance on drugs to combat stage fright, increase their effectiveness as teachers, and perform with profound ease, confidence, and expressive power.

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Projects

The Art of Practicing Institute's projects have included

• Videotaping workshops for use in educational videos
• Researching the needs of young artists through focus groups at Manhattan School of Music
• Sponsoring a workshop on mindfulness meditation at Manhattan School of Music
• Sponsoring violinist Martha Caplin to co-teach at summer program
• Sponsoring workshops on Fearless Performing, in New York City
• Sponsoring the Golden Key Salon Series at Klavierhaus in New York
• Launching Fearless Performing E-zine in 2012
• Launching "Mindfulness, Confidence, & Performance: A Transformative Program for Musicians," at Edinboro University, in 2013

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Our Founder

Author of the highly acclaimed book The Art of Practicing, pianist Madeline Bruser is a Juilliard graduate who has trained in mindfulness disciplines for 36 years. She has performed as soloist with the San Francisco and Denver Symphony Orchestras and has taught workshops at the Juilliard School and other conservatories throughout the U.S. and Canada. Her book has sold 75,000 copies and has been translated into Korean, Chinese, and Italian.

Ms. Bruser’s mindfulness training began at 29, after she had won many awards and prizes as a young artist but was still dissatisfied with how she felt onstage. In search of greater relaxation and confidence in performance, she began practicing mindfulness meditation, which transformed her playing and teaching. Her book, published in 1997, presents an approach to practicing that combines traditional conservatory training with mindfulness techniques to help musicians release tension and unleash their full potential.

Ms. Bruser served on the Committee for Pianists’ Wellness for the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy from 2001 to 2003, and she has retrained pianists with practice-related injuries since 1985. She has presented on injury preventive piano technique at the MedArt World Congress on Arts and Medicine and at Beth Israel Medical Center, and she contributed to a research study on pianists’ injuries at Mount Sinai Hospital. Her research on the physiological mechanics of piano playing has included interviews with leading arts medicine professionals in the fields of physiatrics, physical therapy, and hand therapy, as well as with teachers of the Alexander Technique, Body-Mind Centering, and Laban Movement Analysis.She is an authorized instructor of mindfulness meditation and taught weeklong programs combining meditation workshops with music workshops from 2004 to 2010.

 

In 2011, Ms. Bruser’s article “Making Music” was published in The Mindfulness Revolution, a book featuring the writings of leading experts in the field of mindfulness, including Jon Kabat-Zinn. In 2012, she created Fearless PerformingTM, a monthly online magazine featuring articles and videos to help musicians break through to a new level of performance.

Ms. Bruser appeared on National Public Radio's Performance Today in an interview and piano lesson broadcast in 200 cities. She teaches privately in New York City, where she has served on the Adjunct Piano Faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently writing her second book, about developing freedom and confidence in performance.

 

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