Stage fright - what is it ?

digitalscream

For what it's worth, I'm probably going to get a slightly bigger case of nerves tonight - it's the Metal 2 The Masses semi-final. We didn't take the heats particularly seriously (our music isn't usually right for this sort of thing), but unexpectedly got through and now we've put too much pressure on ourselves to get through to the finals.

Phil_aka_Pip

@digitalscream ; best of luck!

digitalscream

Phil_aka_Pip said:

@digitalscream ; best of luck!

Thanks, I'm gonna need it. Just realised I'd forgotten to charge my wireless gizmo, found my gig jeans with a massive hole in the crotch and the dogs got into the washing basket and have been using the gig t-shirt for playing tug.

Marvellous!

Dopesick

@digitalscream - What region? We managed to get to the QF of our competition but managed to miss out by one single vote. Bollocks. Insanely good talent this year though so cannot quibble.

I'm quite an introverted shy person (well, without alcohol in me) but I just love getting up on stage. It's by far and away my favourite part of being in an originals band.

digitalscream

Dopesick said:

@digitalscream - What region? We managed to get to the QF of our competition but managed to miss out by one single vote. Bollocks. Insanely good talent this year though so cannot quibble.

I'm quite an introverted shy person (well, without alcohol in me) but I just love getting up on stage. It's by far and away my favourite part of being in an originals band.

Nottingham - we're at The Maze tonight. Last time we put pressure on ourselves like this was the regional final of Surface, at the O2 in Birmingham, and we tanked it big-time. We're hoping that we're a bit wiser this time round...at the O2, the stage sound engineer basically didn't give a shit, ignored our requests for more in the monitors, and when the mic in front of the other guitarist's amp failed to launch he just said, "Ah, turn your amp up, I'll fix it for the next band". It was a Laney LX120 solid state thing which could barely keep up with the drummer in a small room.

That went pretty much as you might expect, given that we all took our cues from said guitarist.

Bridgehouse

Stage fright in our house is a bathroom based activity - normally when Mrs B is cleaning her teeth.

HAL9000

It’s the fear that your audience will one day rumble that playing three chords and first box pentatonics isn’t actually that difficult...

blobb

my old band mate used to slyly maneuver himself behind things, usually the drummer. He was a drummer in his previous band and was pretty full on, dragging kit pieces back into place all the time. I guess he felt comfortable hiding behind a kit but when it was just a guitar, and actual music he had written, he felt more exposed. It wasn't to do with making mistakes, he always blended any botched bits into the music and was quite entertaining when he did this, with a cheeky grin.

We also had the opposite, a guy who loved showing himself off to a crowd. He insisted on doing a solo introduction thing and when the cue came to fire up, we didn't. Five minutes is a long time to stand out there on your own fiddling about aimlessly, then we turned his amp down and started. Is that a bad thing to do? Don't judge me, you would have done the same. 

Never bothered me, playing in front of people, so long as we knew what we were doing. I was a bit of a control freak always pre-occupied with whether the drummer was going to get cue's in the right place. 

I'm sure if you dig into peoples childhood experiences you will find the answer.

Emp_Fab

Well, the new band has its first outing a week tomorrow and I’ve already shat myself.

richardhomer

I think a lot of musicians have self-esteem issues - which are ‘their’ problem - rather than it being a ‘musical’ problem. When I first starting gigging, I could barely speak to strangers - so putting myself in a situation where I was standing in front of a lot them would seem a strange thing to do - but talking to others, this seems quite common.

I haven’t played live for a long time - but I attended tFB Huddersfield jam this year and felt really nervous again. I played the allotted song and thought I was dreadful. Oddly enough, when I heard the recording a few days after the event, I was pleasantly surprised....

Eric Clapton once described himself as an ego-maniac with an inferiority complex. That pretty much sums me up....

Nikc

I have suffered terribly with nerves, looking back it stems from childhood. Some odd put downs lack of encouragemnet always having my very talented sisters waved in my face. Funnily my Mum doesn't get it my eldest sister claims the same and my other (older) sister is really supportive of my efforts and wishes she could play (she still has a great voice it had to be said) so now I'm all like yeah so what, up until 10 minutes before I perform and then all the demons come out to play.
I still get up feel the fear and do it anyway

Vibetronic

Luckily I don't really get them any more now; loads of preparation and practice always helps. I'm in a prog band now, and generally the audiences are incredibly friendly and really into the music too, both of which help. I still do the covers stuff, but it's songs I've done a million times before so no fear of messing up at all. The only time I've got nervous recently was doing a short tour with a Canadian prog band, which involved a London gig; I was bricking it about the drive into London (which I've always avoided, I'm not a fan of driving in big cities). Luckily I got a lift down with the other guitarist. 

Having said that, the one time I get properly nervous is at the rock school thing I do every year - the tutors have to perform in front of the kids at some point, and for some reason, playing to a bunch of teenagers makes me shit it a bit! Taking a few deep breaths before usually helps. I have no idea why, and the rest of the week is absolutely fine. 

Matt_McG

When I played in bands as a teenager and in my 20s (on guitar, or on tenor saxophone) I didn't really suffer from stage fright. Nerves, yes, but usually taken over by excitement once it started. I think only really the first ever gig I did was a real attack of nerves.

But, now, I get crippling stage fright. To the point where I really struggle to play. I've not played much in public in the past 10 years, but when I do, just controlling the shakes enough to even fret the simplest notes is hard work. I've done a couple of classical guitar duets at open/jam things, and I could barely play my way through. Listening back to recordings, they sound mostly OK, but at the time, it was sheer pain.

It's different if it's improvising, or a loose jam, or if I am just sitting quietly with friends. I have no issues there. It's specifically about getting music _right_ especially where I have to coordinate with other players and the music is written down or has a fixed arrangement.

My technique and musical knowledge, and my sense of time are all pretty decent. But I struggle to play at a fraction of my basic skill level in public, which is entirely about nerves. I hope if I did it every week again, that'd go away, but at the moment it's really .

It's not about being exposed in public, in general, though. I have to talk in public a lot in my job. This past fortnight, I've given 6 public talks, including a couple of multi-hour workshops, in front of hundreds of people, in two countries including at major national level institutions in the US (Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress). No nerves. I can go up having done basically no preparation and wing it, and not feel much in the way of anxiety. It's just what I do.

Music hasn't been like that in 15-17 years, and I'd love to get back to having the same lack of nerves there, too.

Danny1969

When I started out my nickname was The Corpse as I just stood there ... too nervous to move
Now I've been doing it so long it doesn't bother me and I'm more comfortable on stage than off it .... plus I drink a lot more now.

In your average rock band you can get away with quite a few mistakes. The biggest area of scrutiny I come under now is getting up at The Shadows club and playing Shadows because there's no gain on the amp to hide my bad technique, the part I'm playing is essentially the lead vocal on guitar and every single guy watching me is a guitarist!

Grunfeld

Matt_McG said:

It's specifically about getting music _right_ especially where I have to coordinate with other players and the music is written down or has a fixed arrangement.

I think you've identified your thinking error and it looks like a category mistake.

Music when it's like this appears to be carved into stone as if it has a fixed form, and your mission is to try and reproduce that perfection. Which is, of course, impossible.

I wonder if you already hold the answer too?  In your presentation work you can can wing it.  You say you've done "no preparation" but of course you have, lots of it.  And in your presentations you know you're going to hit certain themes and topics even though you've not carved your talk into stone.  You know you'll cover everything and, if you had to, you'd present them in the same order too.  Maybe you've used a few key phrases?

That's what the classical performance is like.  It's not about perfection (which is impossible).

It's about an order of key phrases but you're listening to the others too -- it's dynamic, not fixed.

Dunno if that makes sense?  Hope so!

Matt_McG

I get what you mean.

But, there's a great deal less freedom when playing written music, that requires precise coordination with another musician which in the classic duet pieces meant note perfect, otherwise the counterpoint and harmony is a car crash. So sure, I'm listening to the other player, trying to make sure we are playing in time, and following each other with the ebb and flow of the dynamics and tempo of the piece. But if I miss a couple of notes, or skip a bar, it's done. Game over without a lot of scrambling and enough experience playing with the other player to recover from a major mistake. 

It's quite profoundly different from giving a talk. And you are right, I'm not entirely winging it. I know my domain really really well, and I talk often, and I am good at hitting points in that talk, in or our of order depending what I feel is working in the moment.

And I'm OK with music when it's like that too. I am fine jamming, or playing something more improvisational.

But I don't think it's true that all music is like that. Lots of music demands that you get it right, not that you wing it. That doesn't mean rigidly the same tempo every time, or unable to flex dynamically and stretch phrases, speed up and slow down, use changes of volume and attack, etc to make music. But ... if you are playing, say, a tightly coupled Bach duet with another player, every note better be the right note in the right order.

Grunfeld

Matt_McG said:

I get what you mean.

But, there's a great deal less freedom when playing written music...

I'm going to put a virtual 10p on this being what is stuffing up your head!

The bit of you which believes that the Bach is so radically different that it's special, and therefore requires special anxiety, is the bit that is not going..

"Hang on a moment, the process of performing is exactly the same as what I do so well without the special anxiety." 

Without doubt playing the Bach is tighter, more challenging, no question. 

Which is all the more reason to focus on the job in hand rather than waste precious cognitive processing power on escape strategies which you're not going to implement.

Basically, look for the similarities in performance, not the differences.

FWIW I've worked with performance anxiety of different flavours, dancers, musicians, knowledge boys training to be cabbies who get nervous on their appearances.  You, as the performer, need to have done your work; that's a given.  (And you have!).

Clinically I use hypnosis, (cos that's what people expect from a hypnotist), but there's no magic about what works:  it's behavioural and cognitive stuff 101.

1) Systematic de-sensitisation

2) Cognitive strategies for the negative thoughts (a lot of people use CBT; I prefer ACT-based strategies.  I don't think what you use matters tbh so long as it feels right and works for you

Matt_McG

That's interesting. I suspect there are definitely strategies of that type that would be useful to me.

I think 1) is where the issue lies (although that's not to dismiss the utility of 2). And why, conversely, for example, talking in public is not an issue (I do it all the time).

Probably also things I can do in practice to make it less like improvisation, or practice, and more like performance, so when the time comes, it's easier.