Performance Anxiety? Still?

Everything goes great up until the day of the event. That's usually when my hindbrain decides that a group of smiling, gregarious people with cheeks rosied from rosé is a threatening mob preparing to pelt me with tomato soup or whatever vegetable happens to be within reach. 

I've been playing since I was five. Performing and competing since I was seven. You’d think that twenty-four years of experience would earn me immunity from stage fright, or at least inoculate me against any physical symptoms. 

Far from it. My fingers shake, my heart pounds, and my vision tunnels, before each high-stakes performance. 

Most recently, I performed as a soloist at a wedding. We'd agreed that the bride would be walking down the aisle...to, Lord forbid, my playing. My fingers began to shake as soon as I'd arrived at the venue, despite the wedding rehearsal having gone well.

I'd come well-prepared, practiced, and rehearsed. So why was my body acting as though I’d never touched an instrument in my life? 

The Strad published an article quoting Carter Brey, principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic, saying ‘The whole thing about being a performer is being able to master the psychological tricks that you play on yourself.’   

Like many performers, I've considered both liquid courage and beta blockers because I'm tired of having my hard work sabotaged by a last minute bout of stage-fright, but always decided against them. 

I decided that finding the internal strength do deal with self-consciousness and quell my panic would do more for my anxiety in the long-term. I needed to uproot the idea that if I fail, I am a failed musician at best and Gollum serenading the Dead Marshes at worst. 

I have to remind myself that we are not the sum of our performances or functions and that we are each inherently valuable human beings. That our job as musicians is to stir emotion in the audience and have them understand the composer's message. 

Ultimately, performance anxiety can be tackled through exposure. If you're anything like me, then we need to continue performing in the most uncomfortable and public of spaces in order to train our minds to settle down. We also need to keep practicing heavily before a performance to give ourselves a sense of confidence and mental focus.

In the end, all's well that ends well and the wedding performance was a success. Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and Canon in D rang out in the hall as everyone admired the breathtaking bride. 

It was a moment of unity, beauty, happiness, and love that I am honoured to have been a part of.