Butterflies? Sweaty palms? Overwhelming mental stress? Panic? These words are far to common in the world of performing and especially in the world of classical music performance. I felt defeated for years by performance anxiety, but after a lot of research and a lot of practice, I came to a place where I felt it no longer dominated the experience and outcome of every performance. Below I share my favorite practical tips that have become invaluable to me for every performance.
- Be thoroughly prepared through careful deep practice. Practicing using mindless repetition may bring immediate satisfaction but often leaves an unnerving void when it comes time to perform.
- Practice performing your repertoire more and details less as you get closer to performance. You will not be able to stop and fix things when performing so don’t practice stopping and fixing things when you practice performing. Do the problem-solving, then play without stopping. If you have problems, go back and problem solve more after you have finished the entire movement or selection.
- Practice your stage presence before the performance especially if you do not have lots of experience. (See my post on stage presence for more detail.)
- Practice breath and bowing exercises and then strategically incorporate breathing into your repertoire as you learn it. Breathing requires muscle movement which must be learned simultaneously with the muscular movements involved in playing. It cannot be “added” suddenly when you perform. Not breathing intentionally when you perform deprives your brain and muscles of oxygen which results in more mistakes and contributes to the spiral of panic and nerves.
- Learn to feel your whole body through gentle exercise and stretching. Make it a habit so you increase your sense of body awareness.
- Become aware of all parts of your body while you play. For example, think about which leg takes your weight in different passages or whether you lock up the muscles of your left rib cage during a shift. Make conscious choices for each part of your body as you play.
- Take steps to avoid tension in your playing. Check constantly for tension in a finger, for example, that can cause a chain reaction through the arm and shoulder. Habits of tension in practice will show up in an ugly way during performance.
- When you first feel the flutters of nerves, welcome them as something expected. You will not be able to “will them away” no matter how hard you try. It is the hard trying that is your worst enemy.
- Stay in the present. Allowing your mind to dwell on the fact that you are nervous distracts you from focusing on the how-to of your performance. Your mind needs to be free to send the signals you have carefully prepared in practice.
- Practice focus exercises in the weeks leading up to your performance. This includes trying to say the alphabet backwards in your mind (you have to start over if you lose focus) and counting backwards from thirty visualizing each number in your mind. Don’t let any other thoughts intrude. Try it! It’s harder than you think! For a while, I had to do these exercises right up to the moment I started playing in a performance in order to keep my mind from spiraling away into thinking about nerves and how they were affecting my body.
- Have a “performance ritual” you follow every time you perform. Perhaps its a set of stretches you do back stage followed by some breathing exercises. Perhaps it’s sitting relaxed and doing mental focus exercises. Perhaps it’s deliberately (not panicked) going through your repertoire mentally and rehearsing your careful preparations. The ritual will be different for everyone, but research suggests that having a ritual can boost your chances of performing better. It also brings a sense of calm and familiarity to your mind which can quiet some of your apprehensiveness.
- Learn to redirect the adrenal energy which causes the symptoms of “nervousness”. When you feel threatened or apprehensive about a situation, your body responds by sending adrenaline to your limbs in case you need to fight or flee. This is the last place you need extra explosive energy as a string player. It is possible through focus and experience to consciously redirect that energy to your advantage.
- If you suffer from “shaky bow” or “natural vibrato” (your hands shake), learn to redirect that extra energy in your hands into another part of the body. As a violinist, if my hands start shaking, I consciously redirect that energy into my legs. Generally, shaking legs don’t get in my way and are really not noticeable to the audience either in my experience. I also try to redirect the energy into better mental focus (for me, this translates physically into directing the energy “into my eyes”).
- If you suffer from sweaty palms, be prepared ahead by discreetly bringing a small cotton cloth with you to wipe off your strings, fingerboard, and hands between movements or in long pauses. In my experience there is not a lot physically that can be done about this one, but expecting and accepting the fact that you will have to play with a slippery fingerboard can prepare you so it does not send you into a spiral of panic. I had one student who reported that putting hand sanitizer on directly before playing helped some but it is not cure-all.
- If you suffer from suddenly panicking when you have a difficult technique to perform, check that you have not practiced the habit of thinking “Oh no! That horrible shift!” or “Ahh! I’ll never make it through that run!” as you approach a difficult passage. Instead consciously practice replacing that thought with something more constructive such as, “Lead the shift with the thumb. Glide in!” or “I am well-prepared for this run. I practiced it correctly again and again.”
- Know that if you are thoroughly prepared to perform and play, there is no reason to allow multiple “what-if” scenarios to play and replay in your mind. I speak from experience. It’s a tempting trap but it does not help and only makes things worse. Relax as much as you can and let yourself enjoy the experience!
- Be open about the fact that you suffer from performance anxiety if sharing the information with others is helpful to you. The subject has been taboo in the classical music world for far too long. Thankfully, there is more awareness and openness to the subject now, but we can each do our part to help other performers and especially our students from having to silently struggle.