Like many other flutists, I’ve had the experience of being so nervous in performances that my mouth felt like it was full of cotton—making it nearly impossible to find my embouchure!
So I know firsthand what it’s like to get up in front of people and think, “Why am I doing this to myself?!”
I’ve also dealt with nerves related to public speaking opportunities. I found my habitual mindset was focused on ‘proving’ myself to the audience: that they were sitting there in judgment of my worth as a person and as a musician. Not good.
Over time, as I gained more experience and insights, I came to realize that the audience was actually on ‘my side.’ They weren’t there to judge me. They were there to have an enjoyable experience. I would see relaxed, happy people after a performance, people who had positive things to say to me.
It was a long process to change my mindset, but I was gradually able to convert my fear before and during performances into positive excitement. It was a process of self-acceptance, confidence building, and gaining clarity about what I was offering to audiences.
I’ve seen other musicians go through similar journeys, but they’re not always able to get to the place where they can be more comfortable with their performance experience.
The question of how to help people overcome performance anxiety has long fascinated me. In working with students I became convinced that there had to be an easier way to help people get past their stage fright. This fascination set me on a path to become certified as a life coach. I’m dedicated to helping people get past their performance anxiety and find more freedom in their music-making.
People often ask me how I help people and what coaching is like.
Here is a mini case study of a client I’ll call ‘Allison.’ She came in worried about an upcoming performance. It was four weeks away, and her inner critic was at it full-time berating her in practice sessions and constantly finding fault with every note.
Negative self-talk is quite common. Most of us are unaware of how persistent our self-talk is—and how negative.
So I asked Ali to ‘perform’ the first movement of one of her pieces for me as her audience, and to notice as she plays, her self-talk messaging. We also agreed to record her playing so we’d have an objective record of it.
Ali played and then told me the commentary that had been playing in her mind. “That’s flat! That’s sharp! You messed up the articulation there. What are you doing?! You can’t even get through the opening phrase without messing up.”
I asked Ali whether or not this was an appropriate appraisal of what she’d just played.
She admitted it sounded mean, and that she would never speak that way to a colleague or to a student of hers. But her inner critic was right in that her intonation and articulation were less than perfect.
So we talked about perfectionism. What percentage of perfection would she be satisfied with in a performance? Was 90% okay?
And if her performance isn’t perfect does it mean that the performance is worthless or that she is worthless as a musician?
I asked her if we could listen to the recording and whether she thought she could be objective about what she heard. Ali said yes to both.
We listened and although Ali realized that there were a few sections of the music that needed some improvement, she admitted that her overall sound and interpretation were “okay.” And that her self-talk was not helping her.
Ali realized that her self-talk was actually making her more nervous and more prone to mistakes. It was creating a negative spiral and a predictable rut — ensuring less-than-ideal performances at less than her potential.
It was time to change her habits. “If you do what you’ve always done,” Tony Robbins says, “you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
Self-talk as Flagellation: Ouch!
We beat ourselves up saying things that would likely make us furious if someone else spoke this way to us.
Some common self-talk scripts include: “I’m not good enough to play this part, I have no right to be on this stage,” and “This is going to be a disaster!” People sometimes say to themselves, “Who do I think I’m fooling?”
I work with clients creatively to help them uncover what’s going on underneath. We talk about what happens in their minds before, during, and after a performance.
Together we work to uncover the assumptions that produce the negative self-talk. These include assumptions about self-worth, the attitude of the audience, perfectionism, and the purpose of the performance.
In sessions, we work to get to the roots of all or nothing thinking; for example, when a person obsesses over a missed note rather than putting across beautiful music. I emphasize that audiences are there to be moved by our performances, not to rate them. They’re in it for the beauty, not to be counting any missed or cracked notes. Unfortunately, knowing this intellectually won’t change our negative self-talk.
With Ali, we decided that the next step would be to have her perform her pieces for two different small audiences made up of colleagues, family, and friends. Part of the ‘assignment’ was for Ali was to write down some of the positive comments her audience members gave her after the performances. She had been so focused on the negative things she said to herself, that it had been difficult for her to hear any positive points about her playing.
In these practice performances Ali said she was somewhat less nervous in part because it wasn’t the real thing. And she received quite a lot of positive feedback. Hearing a different spin on her performing gave her a new perspective to try on.
This was the start of Ali gaining a more balanced view of her playing. Being able to hear what was going well, both in her recorded practice sessions and in performances, was a start to her becoming more positive about herself and about performing. This was an initial step forward.
As a follow-up exercise, I asked Ali to make a list of ten aspects of her playing that she regarded as positive. To work on her focus while performing, my suggestion was to pick one of those positive items on her list and stress that one item in her thoughts before and during her next performance. One way to do this is to write that word on the top of the music to help with focus. And I asked her to center her thoughts on this key appreciation, and to breathe and think about his before she began the piece.
There’s no magic elixir, but in getting to know oneself better through coaching, a person will begin to understand why and when the fear and anxiety crop up, and it’s the first step to making improvements.
Understanding the Process
Changing habitual patterns of fear requires putting together plan tailored to the individual and then working through the process. The good news is that there’s confidence to be found in each person. We work in our sessions to uncover and build on the core confidence and competence we all carry.
I always start with the basics. I ask a lot of questions. It’s very helpful to find out how the musicians’ stage anxiety first began and how it shows up in their life now.
The first step towards solving the problem is to connect the dots to see what their performance anxiety seems to be connected with.
My job is to delve into this issue further with clients. I ask what the symptoms are like: what it feels like and especially what goes on in the client’s head in performances. I ask them about their self-talk, the loop of negative messages that plays in their mind as they perform. I also ask how it evolves over the course of the performance.
Then we work at ‘rehabbing’ the client’s performance focus so she or he can be more fully present and engaged in the music and in the performance, instead of judging it. We work at connecting back to the joy they first knew with music.
Timothy Gallwey, in The Inner Game of Tennis, recommends that we “forget ‘should’s’ and experience IS.” In other words, in performances we need to stop worrying about how things should be or what glitch just happened or what we’re afraid of that’s coming up. Instead, we need to be fully engaged in the NOW.
The Take-aways
Fear often prevents us from being fully ourselves and fully present.
Talking about the fear helps us to see it separate from ourselves and see it as something we can work on and change.
I’ve seen too many musicians freeze up when the time came to perform. And I’ve also known a fair number of musicians who gave up music altogether because they just couldn’t conquer their fear of performing.
When people don’t share their art, their talents, it’s a loss to the world. For me, that’s tragic: two of the saddest words are ‘if only.’
Now, more than ever, the world needs this multiplicity of artistic voices and inspiration.
Whether it’s through coaching or some other intervention you find, I hope you’re inspired to pursue more joyful music-making.
Sue Hurwitz is a flutist and certified life coach specializing in building confidence. Based in New Hampshire, she works with clients online and in-person helping them tap into their true potential.