Performing Under Pressure: Personal Insights From The Last Two Years

[gzero]

***Disclaimer: I am not an expert by any means - these are personal opinions formed based on my experiences****


Prelude/Context:

As a performer, inarguably one of the largest barriers to overcome (for most people) is performance anxiety (“stage fright”), caused by a conscious and/or subconscious fear of judgment.
After having talked to musicians and performers, I have learned that everyone who is successful still deals with this to some degree or another. What makes them successful however is the ability to manage the impact of nerves on their performance. For most it’s the sheer love and passion for music (combined with experience) that overpowers this fear.

However, this doesn’t apply to all musicians, some with whom I’ve interacted still deal with substantial stage fright despite being seasoned professionals.

In my opinion, a significant factor is the genetic predisposition to be sensitive to the judgement of others. Some people simply have a bigger hill to climb to overcome stage fright.

Since I was a child, one characteristic I cannot remember being without was stage fright. I was never the kid to raise his hand in class, to be comfortable in drama class or to be attracted to the spotlight in any form. My comfort zone was in my small group of friends and in hobbies.

Music changed all of that. For some reason once I had a guitar in my hands – I had a desire to perform. This desire was further amplified when I discovered fingerstyle guitar and songwriting.

To this day it’s a desire that I have not fully reconciled.

I am constantly at war between my intense passion for music and my equally intense fear of judgement. This is a battle that plays out every time I’m on stage.

My typical first task is to mentally navigate my way to a mental zone where I am able to play with full passion and no nerves. In all honesty I reach that zone every time, but the time varies with each performance.

With regard to this, I want to share what I’ve learned over the last two years of forcing myself out of my comfort zone and onto the stage. These insights have translated and helped me in many aspects of my personal and professional life, I believe they can do the same for you.


Insight #1: Put In The Work (Repetition, Repetition, Repetition)

I’ve been on stage in many different contexts; from busking in a farmer’s market to playing headlining showcases. No matter the occasion, I have developed the ability to produce a certain level of performance no matter the occasion.

This is because of the daily amount of practice that I put in, whether it’s learning songs, techniques or songwriting. This consistent practice has allowed me to function under pressure despite any nerves because I have built everything into MUSCLE MEMORY.

This comes from a principle that applies to mastering any skill: repetition, repetition, repetition.

When you have performed a task so many times that you can “do it in your sleep” you will have no problems performing it at maximum nerves. Your brain is equally as engaged with your performance in both cases.

This principle also applies to performing, especially when starting out. This is why I believe open mics are the best thing to ever happen for aspiring performers. There were two open mics in my city that I attended religiously every week for the first year and a half of my career. These performances were equally as important as a daily practice routine.

Through sheer repetition, I was able to condition my brain to being in the center of judgement and give it frequent opportunities to figure out how to deal with it. To this day I will always play as multiple open mics leading up to a big show to recondition my brain to the stresses of being in the spotlight.

The point of everything here is that you can reduce the impact of the stage fright on your performance by putting in the repetition in the practice room and on stage.


Insight #2: Let It Be, Let It Be

This only applies if insight #1 is done well.

I’ve tried multiple mental tricks to try and calm myself before and during shows. Including thinking positive, breathing slowly etc.

They work on occasion however, I have found the most consistently successful inner monologue has simply been “let it be”.

Don’t think- don’t think about how to beat the nerves. Accept that they exist and that they will go away eventually. Essentially, shut off your brain and let the work that you’ve done show. If you’ve practiced enough – you don’t need to think about anything except enjoy being on stage and enjoy making music.

Nine times out of ten I have found the nerves will simply fade away after a couple of songs.

The best part is that I also feel authentic on stage. I’m not trying to put on a face to make the audience accept me, I’m simply playing and letting what happens happen. Don’t get me wrong, I will reflect of performances after they happen and adjust for the next one, but on stage is not the time for this analysis.


Insight #3: It Wasn’t Meant To Be Easy (So Keep Working)

Two years isn’t a long time to be a performer. Most professionals have been performing for a lot longer than I have.

However, two years was long enough to teach me that beating something like stage fright isn’t a simple task. I’m still contesting with it to this day, but I have made significant progress to this point.

When I first decided to embark on the journey of being a performer, I expected that the nerves would simply go away after I got used to performing.

The truth is they never do – you just learn to reduce their impact and eventually use them to your advantage. This takes many years and many hours of on-stage practice to be able to do.


Wrap Up

I find it interesting how there are always levels to every profession- a lot of times it’s not inherently obvious how the next level is accessible. In the case of performing the I have learned that the best solution is hard work, the right mindset and patience.

Additionally. I am applying this principle to my personal relationships and my various day jobs and I have been seeing an equally positive effect.

I hope you gained some value from this post. I welcome any and all feedback.

Derek

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-S...A7ujmGUf3q1VIw

[tonyo]

Great post. Extremely well said. So much of what you wrote resonates with me.

In my opinion, a significant factor is the genetic predisposition to be sensitive to the judgement of others. Some people simply have a bigger hill to climb to overcome stage fright.

One line jumped out which was the one about being sensitive to the judgement of others. That describes the difference between my wife and I. She's particularly sensitive, I'm only mildly so.

You said it's genetic? Do you have more details on that?

[tonyo]

I also agree about the value of open mics. I've battled stage fright and been able to get much more on top of it by

1. Starting with an easy slow song. I play fingerstyle and as soon as I introduced complex picking (Travis style), that's when the nerves kicked in big time.

2. The more open mics you do, the better you get at it.

3. Have a home setup that's similar. Mic on a stand, good quality acoustic amp.

When I first battled stage fright it was so bad it was like banging your head against a brick wall. It felt good when you stopped / walked off stage.

Thankfully, I had an open mic recently where it all went swimmingly well. So well that the countless hours of practice and numerous painful open mics were all worth it. The high when I walked off stage was euphoric.

[JonPR]

In my opinion, a significant factor is the genetic predisposition to be sensitive to the judgement of others. Some people simply have a bigger hill to climb to overcome stage fright.

Since I was a child, one characteristic I cannot remember being without was stage fright. I was never the kid to raise his hand in class, to be comfortable in drama class or to be attracted to the spotlight in any form. My comfort zone was in my small group of friends and in hobbies.

Music changed all of that. For some reason once I had a guitar in my hands – I had a desire to perform. This desire was further amplified when I discovered fingerstyle guitar and songwriting.

This resonates with me especially.

I don't think you need to claim that this predisposition is genetic, though. Talking about personality traits as innate makes them seem set in stone - but it is possible to overcome this kind of oversensitivity: to train oneself out of it.

However, in many people who suffer this, that's a steep hill to climb. My observation - that makes sense to me from my experience - is that that strange desire to perform - despite being nervous/shy/sensitive to judgement - is a kind of compensation for the difficulty one has in normal social self-expression. If you feel unable to fully participate in broad social groups (preferring to stick with a small group of close friends, or private hobbies), it's like you build up a lot of unexpressed ideas and feelings. Obviously you are absorbing influences and ideas from all around you all the time, in any social environment, but there is a limit to how you can respond and express yourself in the way others do.

Music offers you that avenue of self-expression - gives you an outlet for all that build up of feeling and thought. The advantage of music is that it's a set of formulas which can be learned, and yet it still contains a deep sense of communication - it's a primal language you're tapping into. You don't have to form ideas into words to construct verbal expressions - you can use the ambiguous but meaningful sounds of music.

Moreover, people respond to musical performance. As a performer, you are elevated - sometimes literally on a stage, of course, but also metaphorically. You have a skill, which is mysterious and impressive to non-musicians. It commands attention, over and above the attention commanded by normal speech. Music is important to everyone, in a way that few understand or think about, but it definitely has emotional power.

Wihout going into my own history (very similar to yours in what the discovery of music meant to me), I think a common element of "stage fright" is impostor syndrome. That's what this oversensitivity to judgement is all about. You feel like you're a fake, that you're an amateur pretending to be a pro, that you have no right to be on a stage, because (you believe) the audience expects professionals to be doing that. You think they're going to see right through you. (After all, you know there are countless virtuosos out there way better than you are.)

I get this all time (even after over 50 years performing in public) - it's why I can't meet the gaze of anyone in the audience. I try to look out at the crowd, not just stare at my guitar the whole time or close my eyes, but I also try not to look anyone in the eye, at least for more than a nanosecond. Otherwise I feel painfully exposed. ("What do I think I'm doing? What makes me I think I can get away with this?")

Of course, in many ways I am still an amateur. I make my living from music now, but as a teacher not a performer. Strangely, when teaching a group of students I have no such problem. I suspect that's because my role as a professional is accepted by the set-up. In that scenario have full confidence in my ability both as a player and a teacher. But it's very different in front of a crowd of strangers which may be no bigger than my guitar class. The difference is the sense of competition there. Am I as good as the last person they saw perform? Or the next person?

Obviously I give myself all the advice in the rest of your post - and pretty much always have done. I know the fears are only in my head. I know (from seeing videos of myself) that I don't look as shy or awkward on stage as I feel. I can even see that I played better than I felt I did on that occasion.

[RedJoker]

Originally Posted by tonyo

3. Have a home setup that's similar. Mic on a stand, good quality acoustic amp.

I think this is a great idea and has always helped me. Plus, you don't have to spend much to be able to do it. I don't have a large PA system but this little rig is fine for practice and coffee-shop type gigs.

[DesertTwang]

Thank you for sharing these insights! Some great thoughts here. The disclaimer is not necessary, by the way. By definition, an online forum like this one reflects the opinions shared among a bunch of people whose knowledge about certain things runs the gamut from being completely ignorant to being experts, and everything in between.

[gzero]

Those are some great points and I definitely agree that a lot of stage fright comes from your environment and conditioning as you go through life. I'm personally a huge believer that a lot of your traits (like being anxious on stage or in social situations for example) aren't set in stone. If you are active about it you can greatly improve your situation.

I've never heard of the "imposter syndrome" before - it's a cool concept. I can definitely relate (especially in situations where playing more high profile gigs). You sort of have to prove to yourself that you belong on stage before you can be fully relaxed and comfortable.

[ManyMartinMan]

While I see validity in some of your posts, as a professional performer for decades having performed with hundreds of other main-stream top-tier performers, I see no genetic predisposition to anything. That would certainly require genetic testing and scientific evaluation of empirical data.

A genetic predisposition would require generational evidence of not only performance predisposition but also predisposition of stage fright or other fear of performance. Everyone has some level of performance anxiety. I have found that the more support you have around you (trio, band, big-band...) the level of personal anxiety diminishes. Performers, by their nature, seek the approval of those to whom they perform. From that, their anxiety of acceptance and approval comes at different levels depending on their level of professionalism and sobriety. Also I've seen the level of experience to proportionally assuage one's anxiety. That said, I've worked with performer's that we all know that are far more anxious than one would expect prior to opening a show. Again, I've witnessed no evidence or suggestion that any of this is genetic or predisposed.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by ManyMartinMan

While I see validity in some of your posts, as a professional performer for decades having performed with hundreds of other main-stream top-tier performers, I see no genetic predisposition to anything.

I agree.

There's a danger with such assertions - like the one about "talent" being innate - that they're used as excuses by many. "I can't do [x] because I don't have the talent", or "I was born shy so I can't do [y]".
That's OK, you don't have to do those things if you don't want to. But they're not impossible, just difficult to begin with. If you want something enough, you'll do it. If you think you can't, you just don't want it enough. (Obviously I'm assuming there's no insurmountable physical or financial block.)

The problems the OP describes are real. There's just no evidence that they're a result of any "genetic predisposition"; and it seems highly unlikely that they could be, when other explanations make a lot more sense.