Picture this.
It’s
the night of your big performance.
You
look great. You feel great. You’re ready
to show your friends and family what you can do.
You’ve practiced for months.
You know your music inside and out, forward and backward, figuratively
speaking of course. You’re as prepared
as you know how to be.
Yet when you step backstage, that’s when he shows up.
Dressed in black with menacing eyes glaring at you above a
disgusted smirk, Stage Fright emerges from the shadows.
“You call that ‘prepared’? Ha! You didn’t even practice
today. You’re about to make an absolute
fool of yourself in front of everyone.
That dream career of yours is about to end with one horrendous train
wreck of a performance. You’ve only had
that last piece for a few months! I can’t
believe you’re ending your big recital with your least prepared piece.”
He laughs menacingly and slaps you on the shoulder.
“Look on the bright side! Once you trash your reputation as
a musician, you won’t have to worry about me showing up anymore.”
Leaning in conspiratorially he whispers, “You could always
just quit and save yourself the embarrassment of falling on your face. Literally or metaphorically. Both will probably happen knowing your luck.”
The stage manager snaps you from your conversation.
“Hey! You’re up!”
Stage Fright takes a seat on the front row and laughs as you
take the stage.
An Ever-Present Foe
My first piano recital was over 25 years ago. I’ve played in
many recitals, competitions, concerts, seminars, auditions, and other
performances since then, yet Stage Fright still rears his ugly head.
What has changed over the last few years is that I have
learned 3 highly effective ways to beat Stage Fright at his own game. These techniques also work when you’re giving
a presentation, attending an interview, or any other situation where you may
fear the outcome of your performance.
1. Best Case/Worst
Case Scenario
In The Inner Game of
Music Barry Green and W. Timothy Gallwey, share a technique for dealing
with Stage Fright. Consider the best and
worst possible outcomes of your best or worst performance. “When you explore the answers to these
questions in a little detail, it usually becomes clear that the ‘worst possible
case’ wouldn’t be so bad after all, and that the ‘best case’ would be just fine
– but not so fine that you’d need to worry about it.”
Imagine yourself auditioning for your dream job.
Best case scenario: You perform incredibly and they hire you
on the spot.
Worst case scenario: You freeze up, perform terribly, and
they tell you they’re not interested.
Can you live with both of those outcomes?
Getting your dream job? Absolutely!
Not getting the job? It stinks, but it’s not the end of the
world. Chances are there are similar
jobs you could audition for. Or you
could work on your skills and come back another time and try again.
Chances are you will neither ace nor bomb your audition, so
when Stage Fright starts telling you that your life will be over if you bomb
this audition, give him a good one-two punch to the nose and tell him that if
today goes poorly you can pick yourself up and try again.
2. Anxiety =
Excitement
Every time I perform, my heart races, my hands sweat, and my
breathing gets shallow. Sometime those
responses are more noticeable than other times, but they are present
nonetheless.
Stage Fright frames those
feelings as fear and anxiety. If you try
suppressing your fear and anxiety by thinking about something else, it usually
makes you feel worse, not better.
In The 5 Second Rule
Mel Robbins shares a fascinating fact – “physiologically anxiety and excitement
are the exact same thing!”
Consider the physical responses you feel when you’re anxious
– racing heart, sweaty hands, shallow breathing, can’t sleep. Now consider how you feel when you’re excited
about something – your heart races, your hands sweat, your breathing shallows,
you can’t sleep.
Notice any similarities in those lists?
When Stage Fright uses those physical responses to prove to
you how anxious you are, give him a black eye by saying “This isn’t fear. This
is excitement! I am so excited to perform today!”
It’s true, isn’t it?
3. Build up to Every
Performance
Have you ever wondered why your teacher has you perform your
pieces so many times in front of so many different people before a big
competition or a recital?
Believe it or not, it’s not to stress you out. On the contrary, it’s to help you beat Stage
Fright!
Don’t you hate it when you can perform a piece perfectly in
a practice room and it falls apart in your lesson? I’ve actually had students
video themselves playing a piece just to prove that they can do it. Performing in front of your teacher is a slightly more intidimating situation than performing by yourself in the practice room.
In the same way that you build up in skiing from the bunny
slopes to the triple black diamonds, you build up from the practice room to the
stage with a series of gradually more intimidating performance situations.
Your personal series may include some or all of the following:
- In a practice room by yourself
- In a lesson with your teacher
- In a practice room with a few close friends
- In a practice room with a few strangers
- In a voice, piano, or instrumental seminar with other voice, piano, or instrumental students
- In an audition at your school or church
- In a department-wide weekly performance hour with other music students
- In a masterclass with a different teacher in front of other students and teachers
- In a small competition
- In juries/final exams
- In a recital with other music students
- In a recital by yourself
- In an audition for a job or other big performance opportunity
When Stage Fright comes at you
dual-wielding light sabers of doubt and fear, you can disarm him easily as you recount
all of the times that you’ve already performed this piece well. Don’t let him trick you into thinking you can’t
do something you’ve already done.
What about you?
What techniques do you use to fend off the attacks of Stage
Fright?
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