Stage Fright Management

By Lynne Latham

Is it possible to overcome the body’s natural defense mechanisms? To use the surge of adrenaline in a positive way to enhance instead of hinder a performance? Of course it is. It just takes some understanding and practice.

Fight or Flight: The Human Body in Survival Mode

Those familiar feelings are caused by the production of adrenaline. Your brain receives those primal impulses and your body goes into “fight or flight” survival mode. Your body is reacting to perceived danger—it is primed for anything. Response time is quickened; senses are fine-tuned. You can jump higher, run faster, and play daunting technical passages. Although your body is telling you to run, you must stay and complete a performance.

So how do you minimize the negative effects of adrenaline? By changing your perception, by viewing the physical changes as excitement rather than panic. Learn to slow down, breathe deeply, and focus that additional energy into a passionate and exciting performance. This takes practice.

Prepare! Prepare! Prepare Again!

Lack of preparation is a leading cause of stage fright. If a performer is unsure of his or her technical ability to pull off a successful performance, that adds even more pressure and jitters. Especially in the public school setting, there is rarely enough time to fully prepare students for performance.

Some Suggestions

• Pick music well within the technical range of the group. A sure success is better than a rocky performance.
• Do not start practicing with instruments. If there is a recording of the work, listen with students following their parts. Demonstrate difficult passages for your students. Use as many senses as possible to experience the music before physically playing it.
• Address difficult rhythmic passages away from instruments. Have students clap or speak the passages—counting out loud is always good—before attempting them on the instrument. Then, with the instrument, do a monotone, rhythm-only version. Only after the rhythm is solid should students attempt the passage with pitches.
• Divide each piece into small sections, rehearsing only one section at a time for accuracy. Point out where sections repeat. This makes learning a longer work less overwhelming.
• Practice slowly. An assault at full speed on a difficult passage rarely builds confidence and courage.
• During rehearsal, schedule a sure success. This cuts down on group frustration. If students can do something well first or last, the hard work in the middle becomes more bearable.
• Schedule “dry run” performances well in advance of the actual performance. The more students go through the motions of performing, the better the performance will be—and with much less stress.

Internal Pressure

We have all heard those negative, self-defeating voices in our heads: fear of failure and fear of embarrassment. Performing music is such a personal experience, and we can feed ourselves negative self-fulfilling prophecies. Replace the negatives by feeding your brain positives, practicing that all-important skill of ignoring mistakes while delivering an exciting performance.

One question to ask yourself: Is pretty good good enough? Should we not strive for excellence in a performance? Make sure that the work being performed is at the “pretty good” stage at least two weeks before the performance, so that the last five percent of the learning process may be achieved more easily. This quiets the voice inside, calms fears, and allows a more confident performance. We are not striving for perfection; excellence and perfection are quite different.

As musicians, our goal is to entertain, share the love of our art with others, and move people emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Perfection is not our goal, and failure to achieve it is not a punishable offense. Relax and enjoy the music-making process.

External Pressure

As teachers, we must be conscious of the subtle messages we send to students. It is helpful to keep parents separate from students at festivals and auditions, as parents can unintentionally add expectations and pressure. Emphasize to students that, at any level, their performance is unique and special; comparisons to more advanced peers are another source of stress.

Music teachers do not only teach how to play an instrument. We teach an art that is subjective, dependent on technical level, and measured in steps. Teaching a child to enjoy music-making is a gift for a lifetime. It is unnecessary to exaggerate the lasting effects of one performance; there will always be another chance. Do not allow ten minutes out of a lifetime to become a life-or-death experience.

Stage Fright Solutions

Act the Part. Performing is as much “acting” a part as it is executing a technical feat. One useful tool is having students attend a live performance featuring a professional artist on their instrument. Have them pay attention not only to the music being performed, but also to the “music” being portrayed: body language, posture, and breathing. Then have students imitate these qualities in class.

Amazingly, the body becomes more relaxed, breathing deepens, and posture improves. Students have reached outside themselves and removed internal pressure by pretending to be someone else. Giving students something external on which to focus can improve focus on the task at hand: a secure, confident performance.

Visualization

Potential memory slips are often a source of anxiety for performers. To remove this internal pressure, have students write a story about the work to be performed, putting specific feelings, actions, and pictures with each section. Have them close their eyes and “run” the story in their heads like a movie. The more detailed the story, the more important communicating that story to the audience becomes.

Another approach is to picture the actual music running through the mind, visualizing the rise and fall of the notes.

Anxiety tends to build in situations where waiting is involved, such as an audition or festival performance. Have students imagine going to a safe place—for example, a mountain meadow or a deserted beach. Before the performance, have them go off alone, close their eyes, and imagine playing the piece in that safe place. Ideally, the peaceful residue of this meditation exercise follows them into the audition room. This takes weeks of practice to be done successfully.

Simulate performance parameters for students and allow several practice performances. In a situation with a judge, sit behind a desk and write during their performance. If it is a recital, have them perform for peers. The more real-time performance practice students have, the less frightening the actual performance will be.

Directed Breathing. Breathing techniques are discussed in Robert Triplett’s book Stage Fright. Also see Barry Green’s The Inner Game of Music and Kato Havas’ writings.

Diet, Sleep, and Other Management Skills

• Avoid caffeine and nicotine, tapering off as early as two weeks before a performance. Both are stimulants. Increased adrenaline flow compounds their effects, making tremors and a rapid heart rate harder to control.
• Avoid processed sugars, such as candy and soft drinks. Natural sugars aid the body in converting stored energy to action; processed sugars provide a brief high but can have a depressive overall effect.
• Eat a good meal that is high in complex carbohydrates and low in sugars and fats. Pasta, fresh vegetables, and fruit are excellent choices.
• Arrive at the performance as rested as possible by establishing a consistent sleep pattern two weeks beforehand.
• Avoid listening to other performers in an audition situation. It can lead to the comparison game and negative self-talk.
• Remember to breathe deeply before beginning any music-making. Breathing is often the first thing affected by an adrenaline rush, and good oxygen flow to muscles helps steady nerves.
• Provide a quiet, safe place for students to relax before performances.
• Laughter is a wonderful tension release—come prepared with a few good jokes.

Remind students continually that music-making is fun. We choose music education because we love music. Do not blow out of proportion the importance of one performance. In proper perspective, it is one moment in a long lifetime of making beautiful music. Careful preparation produces confident performances. Make sure classroom preparation includes stage-fright management skills as well as learning the notes.