Stage fright, all kinds of fright

[ziman]

Being a person who gets nervous easily, I often find myself tensing up when performing onstage, or even when first practicing with a new person I've not played with before.

And, as those of you who are fellow xiao-players will know, the xiao is a particularly unkind instrument to those who are tense. Any stiffness in your belly, chest, throat, or mouth, and the sound goes straight to hell.

Any fellow highly-strung souls out there with tension-reducing tips?

When performing, I find it helpful to play with my eyes closed (since I always memorize every piece I learn, I seldom need to look at sheet music.) That helps me relax a little..

[davidmdahl]

I have a couple of suggestions for musicians who wish to perform without getting crazy nervous.

1. Be prepared.
Know the music cold. If you play it well during practice three out of five times, you need more practicing. The other side of this is that it is better to play music that you can play well, than more impressive music that you struggle with.

2. Be positive.
Performing with confidence comes from #1 and a history of good experiences with performance. If you do well, allow yourself to feel the goodness from that. If you are disappointed, don't beat yourself up. Learn from the experience and try to do better next time. If you dwell on the frustration and embarrassment, this will not help your confidence for next time. Over time, you will realize that the Earth will not open and swallow you up when you make a mistake.

3. Be gracious.
When you are complimented on your performance, accept with thanks and a smile. Don't respond with how disappointed you were with the performance, and a list of mistakes. Don't complain!

4. Better living through chemistry.
Well, not really. <g> Some people really get screwed up when trying to perform. If this is you, consider discussing beta blockers with your doctor. Sometimes a banana can help (potassium). And of course, remember to breath.

There are books written on performance anxiety and I know of a lady who teaches seminars on the topic. There is more to discuss than can be done here.

Best wishes,

David

[ziman]

Thanks David!

A couple other things that I find to be helpful are:

1. To have a "backup repertoire" of well-practiced pieces that are relatively simple for one's skill level, so if for any reason a piece one plans to perform can't be performed, the backup pieces can be substituted quickly.

This piece, for instance, is in my backup repertoire for xiao:
"Rain over Jiangnan" (雨碎江南)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkCJ-TOHHNc


2. Practicing in a public place
This is a bit counter-intuitive, but I've found that after several months where I practiced outdoors from time to time (e.g. on scenic bridges or riverbanks that I find beautiful, but where people walk around) I've become less tense during performances. Probably because I have become used to people watching.

[davidmdahl]

Good points, ziman. It is a great idea to build up a history of good experiences by arranging for low-risk performances. For example, sharing the stage with others helps to reduce the stress. Sometimes I am playing background music for an event, and that doesn't feel so stressful either.

Practicing in unfamiliar places is good prep for performance. Best of all, is to practice where you will perform. When you perform, there may be quite a few things that will feel different than practicing at home, and this can be a distraction. The sound of your instrument, lighting, smells, audience noise will be different. If you anticipate this, it will be less likely to mess you up.

Record yourself practicing with a video camera, if possible, and try to make it a "performance". I find it amazing how I can play something almost perfectly, and then I make all kinds of mistakes when I turn on the video camera. The recording will help you to identify what still needs work, and may point out habits and movements that might be distracting to an audience.

Grab a family member or friend to listen as you perform something. It doesn't matter so much if they can't provide useful feedback, although it is great if they do. What is important is to raise the pucker factor a little, so you can deal with just that without feeling the anxiety of a full on public performance.

Just some thoughts.

D.

[edcat7]

The embouchure on the xiao is difficult, as you say particularly if you are nervous. When I first performed, in front of 180 fee paying guests I couldn't be sure that my embouchure would hold playing the dizi, so I choose the hulusi.

I like David's point that if you can play well three out of five times at home then you need more practise. I once overheard a conversation between two golfers:

"Amateurs practise to improve, professionals practise so they don't make a mistake."

[ziman]

What's funny in my case is that I actually get much more nervous when practicing with a new person I don't know well, than when performing publicly.

Although that's a good thing, in that when I mess up it tends not to be in public but only in practice, this also causes me to sometimes embarrass myself when first practicing with a new partner.

Perhaps when onstage, the large number of people watching anonymizes the individual audience members and makes the attention from them feel less 'focused' on me.

When practicing one-on-one with another musician, however, all of his/her attention is acutely focused on me, and being a fellow musician, I know that they will more than likely catch every small error I make.

I guess I just shouldn't worry so much about what kind of impression I make during practice sessions. Practice is, after all, the proper venue to mess up and, from there, learn how to not mess up.

[edcat7]

My main worry when practising with others is timing. I now use a metronome religiously, but when I first started, my teacher who uses no metronome, wanted me to tap my foot and play at the same time. I found that impossible.

[davidmdahl]

When we mostly practice tunes alone, we don't get in the habit of listening to others. It is also likely, unless we are careful, that we will bake in tempo changes that correspond with the difficulty of certain passages, rather than musical sense. Practicing with a metronome will help with that, but better yet is playing with someone else. Both can be a good tool, of course. Like a lot of things, playing tunes with others regularly will, over time, help to improve rhythm, stability of the speed, and playing in-tune (intonation).

As I have frequently mentioned before, recording your practice can be a big help to spot problems of rhythm, speed, and intonation. It never ceases to amaze me how different a performance can sound on playback than what I remember from playing it. Just don't get discouraged by what you hear.<g> Just use it as a tool to find what is not going so well and fix it.

[edcat7]

That's a good idea to record your own playing. It's like looking at photos of youself, I tend to cringe and not listen to it analytically.

My wife recorded my last performance on her camera and it's now on the computer. I showed it to my teacher and he congratulated me. Wow, is my hair really that long! No wonder my boss keeps telling me to cut it.