A
Customer Survey Request was returned on 4/30/99 to JANPress Publications
indicating an interest in seeing some articles in our Learning Center focusing
on methods for overcoming stage fright (see the referencing
e-mail below). I immediately thought, "Yes! What a great idea."
This topic has been very infrequently explored in the music industry and
also within the accordion community. Therefore, it seemed like a
gap in the Learning Center that could and should be filled immediately.
There are many different aspects and approaches to the problem of stage
fright. Certainly, the thoughts expressed here are not exhaustive
in any way, and many of the readers who would like to contribute their
own recipes for overcoming stage fright are welcome to add their own ideas
to this offering. JANPress would be happy to print those at the end
of this article or in future articles of your own.
Stage fright is a topic that many people do not ponder
until they find themselves ready to perform in front of a group of people.
Then suddenly the topic becomes all too real and urgent and leaves many
performers wondering, "Why hadn't I considered ways to deal with this horrible
feeling before this very moment that I had to step on stage?" Some
people never seem to get rid of the feeling of stage fright, even if they
are seasoned performers. Yet, to a certain degree stage fright will
always and should always accompany a performer onto the stage. It
is what helps them maintain that "edge", insuring that mistakes from over-confidence
are kept to a minimum. However, in spite of this positive side, stage
fright has a negative side that can easily get the best of a performance
and quickly decimate a potentially great presentation into a disastrous
and embarrassing one. Hopefully this article can lend some ideas
on how to avoid the negative aspects of stage fright.
Practicing the Right Things
One key contributor to stage fright, especially in musical
performance, is a lack of preparation. Many performers will immediately
jump to their feet in protest of that sentiment with this response: "I
practice 5 hours a day for several months before I perform a concert, yet
I still get terrible stage fright. How can that possibly be a lack
of preparation?" Practice is a good thing, and is one of the best
ways to combat stage fright. However, I am reminded of a philosophy
I once learned in a management training seminar that stated, "One should
always remember that doing things right is not nearly as
important as doing the right things." Similarly, during
practice sessions, people will practice things right in their
minds when they should really be concentrating on
practicing the
right things. Philosophically it is hard for some people
to separate these two ideas, but they are in fact very distinct.
Let's explore further.
Assume that you are preparing a Bach Invention for either
a competition, a recital, or a talent show. I've chosen this example
for a few very good reasons:
Contrapuntal pieces from the Baroque period are often much
harder for many people to memorize than vertically structured pieces (i.e.
melodies with chordal accompaniment) from the Classical and later musical
periods.
Also, contrapuntal pieces by their nature tend to make people
practice in a way that focuses them away from practicing the right
things.
For all of you Baroque enthusiasts out there, please do not
think that I am in any way demeaning contrapuntal music with the second
bullet item. In fact, my opinions are just the opposite. I love listening
to and performing Baroque music. Yet it is because of the very cerebral
nature of contrapuntal music (with 2 or more lines proceeding independently
of one another) that many people tend to commit the cardinal sin of practice.
They play these pieces over and over again, until they feel their hands
can be placed on "auto-pilot". Vertical/chordal structures in other
types of music are frequently easier to grasp and to use as mental "landmarks"
when memorizing a piece. However when one encounters contrapuntal
pieces, these "landmarks" are much harder to establish, and many musicians,
who do not have the more extensive training to dig deeper into the structure
of the music, will often let their "fingers do the walking" as the only
part of the memorization process. As I said, this is the cardinal
sin of practice because it lures you into a false sense of security that
the music is being committed to memory, when all you are really doing is
committing the music to a portion of memory – your motor skills.
If the cognitive part of your memory is kept out of this process, disaster
is sure to strike when a failure in your auto-pilot mechanism fails your
fingers.
Mental Insurance
So what happens when those motor skills get interrupted
for any reason (a cough, any other loud sound in the audience, your own
mistake, or a temporary lapse in what section comes next)? Typically
what will happen is that the person who has been doing what they feel is
practicing
things right (i.e. letting their fingers memorize the music), will
find their performance breaking apart piece by piece. It's like an
athlete who misses the first hurdle and continues to stumble over the next
several hurdles until either knocking them all down or crumbling to the
ground before the finish line. All it takes in this scenario is one
slight distraction and it is all over. Therefore, the only insurance
against this embarrassing event is to memorize by practicing the
right things. And practicing the right things should involve
the following points:
Map out the major sections of the piece. Make
a conscious effort to understand the tonal centers of each section.
Even if the piece is contemporary or atonal, this can still be accomplished
to a certain degree by recognizing reoccurring vertical or horizontal patterns
in the music.
Try to recognize where each section of the music is similar
and dissimilar. Recognize where repetitive sections occur, so
that you do not have to memorize those sections a second time. If
the repetitive section is transposed, then apply the same principles you
used to memorize the first section in the original key.
Dig into the structure of the piece IN EVERY SINGLE MEASURE.
This
ensures that you understand how each measure evolves (both horizontally
and vertically) and how it leads into the next measure. For example,
if the current measure is centering around an F7 tonality, how did it get
there? Via typical chordal constructs (like a Cm7 / iim7 as it is
on its way to a tonic of Bb)? Or is the harmony progression more
chromatic and obtuse? Or did this tonal center evolve as a result
of contrapuntal lines that are merging and producing passing tones at this
point? There are many theoretical reasons but as you can see, the
deeper you dig, the more familiar you are becoming with actual understanding
and memorization of the piece. Once you get to this level of cognizance,
it is almost impossible to become susceptible to momentary memory lapses
or distractions.
Try to practice the music by choosing random stop points.
This
will assist you in determining how well you accomplished the ideas in bullet
point #3 above. You will be able to determine if you can resume playing
on any particular measure or even within a particular measure or beat without
having to go back. This can and should be done physically during
your actual practice sessions. But you can also accomplish this mentally
by going over a performance of the piece in your mind, trying to actually
visualize the music and again randomly choosing stop points. When
you have arrived at this level of memorization, you have most definitely
deepened your overall comprehension of the structure of the music such
that almost any mistake or distraction during a performance will be recoverable.
Perform your selections to incrementally larger audiences.
This
is the part of eliminating performance jitters or stage fright that many
people overlook. Once you think you have developed the deep understanding
of your music as outlined in the first 4 points above, you then need to
test yourself in mock performance situations prior to the real event.
A boxer will choose a sparring partner, and a basketball team will play
several mock games before the main event for these very reasons. You never
want your live performance to be your first performance. These mock
performances in front of incrementally larger audiences will surely allow
your weak points to surface if they exist. And you can always "go
back to the drawing board" to weed out your weak spots until you are fairly
certain you have caught them all.
These recommendations will work for just about any type of
music performance….anything from pop standards, to jazz, to classical,
to contemporary or atonal. Following each of these points is like
buying performance insurance. The question is, "How much insurance
do you want to buy?" Clearly, the more insurance you buy, the less
likely you are to have a failure during performance due to stage fright.
In fact, your confidence will be elevated to such a level that the only
stage fright remaining will be the positive kind that is there to "keep
you on your toes."
Physical Insurance
The recommendations above deal with the type of stage
fright that can result from poor memorization techniques and a lack of
true understanding of the music. But there are many other people
who still experience stage fright for other reasons, even when they have
the music in front of them! Although I am certainly not an expert
on the human body, having owned a health food store for many years and
having been deeply involved in the wholistic health approaches for the
last 30 years, enables me to share a little knowledge of the hundreds of
volumes I have read on the subject as it potentially relates to stage fright.
Sometimes people can be frightened to speak or perform
in front of any group of people (small or large) just because of their
chemical or metabolic individuality, no matter how well prepared they are.
There can be many root causes for this type of fear (psychological and
physical). I would not even attempt to explore the potential psychological
causes of stage fright since I certainly have no expertise in that realm.
However there are a few areas revolving around the proper care and feeding
of the human body that would be interesting to explore with you.
Since the human body is a well-tuned mechanism that depends
on the finest foods, fresh air, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes for fuel,
one can understand that the adage "garbage in – garbage out" can apply
when exposing the body to the stresses of public performance. For
example, someone who smokes, drinks, or abuses drugs on a regular basis
may have a metabolism that is especially vulnerable to these negative influences.
The results of these toxins in the body can very negatively impact the
brain, which is literally sucking up these poisons from the circulatory
system. In other words, these toxins are what the brain is being
asked to use for nutrients to maintain proper functionality. Doesn't
make a lot of sense does it? Similar negative results can occur for
someone who is a junk food addict. Their metabolisms may be equally
impacted and susceptible to the toxic byproducts of a relentless junk food
diet. Again, keeping the bloodstream clean so that it is carrying
nothing to the brain but life-giving oxygen and nutrients, is the only
way to make certain that you can depend on your most important instrument
– your own body – to help you through the stresses of public performance
and resultant stage jitters.
Essentially the formula is usually the same. A poorly
maintained body will typically respond negatively to stressful situations,
like public performance, where stage fright is just one manifestation or
symptom of this negative response to stress. There are many ways
to make sure your body is operating at peak performance levels. I
will leave it to each of you to explore at your local library or health
food store some of the readings that will help you maintain a body well
equipped to deal with stress. However, here are just a few of the
themes you will see surface repeatedly in many of the publications you
will read:
Consume the highest quality foods wherever possible.
This typically means giving up junk or fast foods, which are prepared with
a much bigger concern for profits rather than your well being. Most
government, medical, or wholistic sources agree that we should be consuming
plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and other sources
of high quality fiber and nutrients on a daily basis.
Try to consume your meals in a relaxed atmosphere,
taking 5-minute rests whenever possible directly after your meal.
This aids in the digestion process, helping to deliver as many nutrients
to the body as possible after consumption.
Exercise daily. Aerobic exercise that produces
sweat helps the body rid itself of toxins via its largest organ, the skin.
Not only does this activity clean your blood and cells, but it also aids
the body in getting more oxygen and more nutrients to the areas that need
it most.
Perform daily deep breathing exercises.
Getting life-giving oxygen to all the cells, not just the brain, is very
much facilitated by doing deep-breathing exercises in an area that will
afford you fresh air. For example, you wouldn't want to do these
types of breathing exercises on a crowded downtown street in Los Angeles.
However, a park loaded with trees is a good place, since trees are constantly
giving off oxygen to replenish the environment. If you are lucky
enough to live near an ocean, salt-water air is also an excellent place
to do this deep breathing.
Get plenty of rest. Many of us in our fast-paced
techno societies overlook this important aspect all too frequently.
But the right amount of rest for you is not necessarily the right amount
of rest for another. Typically most people know exactly how much
rest they need, in order to avoid sleeping too little or sleeping too much.
Sometimes too much sleep can produce the same lethargic results as too
little sleep. Most of you have already identified your proper sleep
"zone". Just make certain to follow your own advice here.
These are just a few of the things you can do to better equip
your body to deal with stress. Many people will have their own approach
that is more in tune with their lifestyle and their biochemical individuality.
But whatever your approach, remember that your body is depending on you
to make the right decisions to keep it performing optimally. An automobile
is very similar to your own body and one can often draw on appropriate
analogies. If you put sugar in the gas tank of an automobile, it
will fail very quickly because the combustion engine is not designed to
run on sugar. Similarly if you do not give your body efficiently
burning fuels that it needs, lack of energy and negative responses to stressful
situations (like public performance) will be but the first manifestations
of an "engine" running at less than optimal performance.
Best of luck to each of you who have ever experienced
stage fright. Remember that stage fright can be controlled and harnessed
into a positive energy, as long as you have taken the time to eliminate
its negative root causes. Hopefully, some of the suggestions in this
article will help point you in that positive direction.
[Back to Top]
Here is the e-mail that inspired this article from Sandy Bednarek
Subject:Re: Stage Fright article at JANPress
From: Sandy Bednarek <sandyb@badgeralloys.com>
To: Joe Natoli <jnatoli@raex.com>
Hi Joe,
Many thanks for the article on "stage fright"- and so
quickly put together.
Your article reconfirmed many things I already
know I should do, and many
things (play for informal audiences, friends, ladies'
group, accordion
club) that are common sense, which I already do.
Your JANPress is priceless ! I learned about it
after reading Henry
Doktorski's web page - which referenced his fiancee's
web page, which
listed her "favorite sites", one of which was JanPress.
Many thanks . . .
Sandy
At 12:30 PM 5/1/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Friends,
>
>JANPress would like to announce the addition of a new
article entitled
>"Overcoming Stage Fright" in our Learning Center (which
you can reach by
>clicking on our home page link below and following any
of the links to
>the "Learning Center").
>
>Many thanks to Sandra Bednarek who submitted a Customer
Survey yesterday
>indicating that she would like to see some articles
on this subject.
>This is a rarely discussed topic that needs some attention
and I am glad
>Sandra supplied the incentive to get started.
>
>Any of you are welcomed to submit your own articles
or additional
>thoughts on this subject to the Learning Center.
>
>Best wishes,
>Joe Natoli
