ABQstrings

01/02/2026

2026

Humble

Consistent

Stay beautiful music makers 💕🎆🎻

12/24/2025

Wishing everyone rest, wonder, and a bit of lovely music this season!

~A

🎻❄️🎻

11/27/2025

Grateful for music making and music makers!

Much Love!!

🎻🍁🦃🎻🍁🦃🎻

11/01/2025

Happy Halloween Music Makers!!

Did you get to learn or teach any fun Halloween tunes?

Some of my faves this season:

This is Halloween (of course!)

Danse Macabre (classic!)

Golden (from K-pop Demon Hunters)

And others!

Gotta love those seasonal tunes 🎃🎶🎃

10/23/2025

Always free! 💰
No tickets needed 🎟️
Children welcome children 🧒

Say hi if you are in the audience!!

05/18/2025

This is a free recital. All are welcome. Students will be performing beginner works all the way up to advanced concertos.

05/08/2025

3 Levels of camp this year to meet the needs of even more Music Makers! Register by June 1st for the full camp experience!!

03/06/2025

When your student comes to office hours to ask for a specific “bonus piece” and wants to practice skills she’s learning in her method book piece too! ✨🎻

This is a very pretty song that I’d never heard before. Thank you for introducing me to it E!

03/03/2025

Nominated for “Best Music Class” 🤯

Would be ever so grateful if you could vote:
https://abqmom.com/

You don’t have to be a momma 😉

March 3rd is the last day to vote ✅

02/27/2025

Ms. Alissa will be in the violas. Ms. Alex is in the violins. Come say hi!

01/24/2025

https://www.facebook.com/100063737643064/posts/1163766592424585/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Great explanation!!

Have you ever had one of those “epic fail” days on stage where everything goes to crap, and you couldn't seem to do any of the things that you had no problem with in the practice room the day before?

Ever wonder why this happens?

It’s easy to blame nerves. And they do play a role. But not in the way you might think.

The bigger issue is what anxiety does to our attention and focus.

How’s that now?

A 2011 study (DeCaro et al.) found that there are two types of pressure:

Outcome pressure is when we get attached to an outcome like winning an audition. And monitoring pressure is when we realize we are being watched and evaluated.

In addition, there are two theories that explain choking: Distraction theory says that because we can only think about so much at once, when we worry about results or others’ opinions, our ability to focus on the music and other task-relevant things is compromised, leading us to make more mistakes.

Explicit monitoring theories suggest that under pressure we tend to overthink technique and micromanage the physical ex*****on, instead of trusting our “muscle memory.” But this interferes with the automaticity of these skills, which then leads to more mistakes.

Which theory is the right one?

Well, the answer seems to be…both.

There isn’t room here for all the nerdy details, but here’s the gist.

When a task requires that we be really focused on what we’re doing (like performing from memory), but outcome pressure kicks in and we worry about messing up instead of staying focused on the task at hand, we’re susceptible to choking.

And when a task requires that we not overthink highly automated skills that operate best outside of conscious awareness (pretty much everything we do on our instruments), but monitoring pressure swoops in, we’re prone to choking yet again.

So what can we do about this? The gist, is that our teachers have been right all these years. To be most effective on stage, it works best to focus less on technical ex*****on (to shield ourselves from monitoring pressure) and more on musical expression (to counteract outcome pressure). To get all the nerdy details, click through to the full article!

https://bulletproofmusician.com/what-causes-choking-under-pressure-and-what-can-we-do-about-it/

01/20/2025

ABQstrings will be closed January 20th