Jennifer Montone: On the Unspoken Mental and Emotional Aspects of Being a Musician

Jennifer Montone is Principal Horn of The Philadelphia Orchestra, and teaches at teaches at the Curtis Institute of Music and The Juilliard School. Jennifer is an active chamber musician, hs performed as a guest artist or soloist with numerous orchestras, and the recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, also has a Grammy Award for her performance of the Penderecki Horn Concerto with the Warsaw National Philharmonic.

Today’s episode is made extra special, in that I’m joined by guest co-host Catherine Cho (violin). A top prize-winner at the Hannover, Queen Elizabeth, and Montreal competitions, Catherine maintains an active performing career, serves on the faculty at The Juilliard School, and has also recently been appointed Artistic Advisor of the biennial Starling-DeLay Symposium.

In today’s episode, we’ll explore…

4:12 - Why is playing horn such a mental game? And what do horn players worry about anyway? Jennifer illustrates the mind of a horn player by walking us through one of her recent low points - and how she recovered.

8:32 - How do you separate how you feel from how you sound? As in, how do you avoid getting sucked into the mental negativity spiral of assuming that if you feel bad you must sound bad?

11:29 - What do violinists (and string players) worry about? And whether as a horn player or violinist (or any musician, really), how can one get to a better place mentally?

14:05 - Jennifer describes the three ingredients that seem to contribute to an optimal mental balance during performing.

17:10 - A funny anecdote which illustrates how different musicians approach nerves differently.

18:38 - Are young musicians nowadays more open to talking about nerves than in previous generations? Or is that just because teachers are more open to providing a space to talk about this than in the past?

23:46 - How does parenthood affect you as a musician? What are the positive impacts, and what are some of the challenges?

28:43 - Jennifer and Catherine describe their teaching journeys and how they’ve worked at the craft of teaching over the years.

35:22 - What kinds of notes do Jennifer and Catherine take during (or after) lessons?

37:44 - What it says on the refrigerator magnet that Jennifer will look to for support on tough days.

35:08 - The thing Catherine did one year with her studio that made a “very, very significant” change in the growth of her students that year.

43:06 - What is something that was really difficult for Jennifer and Catherine? And what is something that has come pretty easily?

46:02 - The approach Jennifer adopted when recovering from a serious jaw injury that helped her go from feeling like a player with lots of technical shortcomings, to feeling like a much stronger and more confident technical player.

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And, if you’ve been feeling stuck on a practice or performance or audition plateau lately, check out the Beyond Practicing mental skills course mentioned in the episode, which is available a

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Have you ever wondered why it is exactly that things often sound better at home than they do on stage?

If you’ve been confused (and frustrated) by the inconsistency of your performances, I put together a FREE 4-minute quiz called the Mental Skills Audit, which will help you pinpoint your mental strengths and weaknesses, and figure out what exactly to adjust and tweak in your preparation for more consistently optimal performances.

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