I read Dr. Gilreath’s comment again.
“Dr. Parsons would be disappointed in you.”
I had just finished my jury, a type of final exam for music majors in which you perform a piece of music for your professors. From what I remember, most music majors hate juries.
Why?
Imagine performing a piece of music in front of a group of world-class musicians who, by the way, know exactly how that piece of music is supposed to be played. They know more than you; they hear better than you. You are at a severe disadvantage.
They sit directly in front of you, scrutinizing your performance and writing down every weakness. They don’t smile often and react both visibly and unconsciously when you make a mistake.
To put it mildly, juries can be nerve-racking.
For this particular jury, my primary trombone professor, Dr. Parsons, was on sabbatical. So I studied with another professor.
For the entire semester, I worked on a number of pieces that challenged me. My jury piece was no exception. In the practice room and in my lessons, the piece started to come together. I sounded pretty good.
But, on the day of my jury, my performance anxiety got the best of me and everything fell apart.
As I entered the room, I felt nervous, more nervous than I should have been. After all, I prepared well and knew my music. I should have felt confident that I would play well, but I didn’t. Instead, I felt my confidence dwindle and my heart rate increase.
Then, my mouth dried out, and I knew it was over.
I realize that dry mouth doesn’t sound particularly dangerous to most people. But, to a brass player, dry mouth is the kiss of death, making it almost impossible to play. When you add a rapid heart rate, shallow breathing, and weak legs to the mix, you get a performance anxiety cocktail of epic proportions.
When Karen, my accompanist, started the piece, I raised my horn to my face. I knew that I was in trouble. I could feel it.
Within seconds, I started missing notes. My legs grew weaker. At one point, I wondered if I would pass out.
I got lost in the music, not in the sense that I was carried off to a dream world where everything was perfect but in the sense that I was quite literally lost. I had no idea where I was and stopped playing, for what felt like forever, to find my place again. If Karen wasn’t so skilled, I would have had to stop, regroup, and start again.
To say that the ordeal was agonizing would be an understatement.
Performance anxiety had taken me over, and I was unable to do anything about it. I felt like I was tied to a chair inside of a burning house.
When the piece ended, I collected my music and left the room.
A couple of days later, I got copies of the panel’s comments, which were almost entirely negative. Dr. Gilreath’s pointed comment about how Dr. Parsons would have been disappointed in me added insult to injury.
“What a bitch!” I thought. But, she was right. Dr. Parsons would have been disappointed in me had he been there.
At that point, I realized that performance anxiety was killing my potential for a career as a professional musician. I knew that I had to overcome it. But how?
As I do with most things, I took to the Internet and googled the hell out of performance anxiety.
Serendipitously, I found an article on a trombone forum (yes, those exist), sharing a lesson that helped me overcome performance anxiety once and for all. The lesson has also served as a compass when I feel overwhelmed, stressed, angry, and more.
Like me, the trombonist who wrote the article suffered from performance anxiety. Fortunately for him (and later for me and hopefully for you), their teacher gave them some simple yet powerful advice.
Don’t impress, express.
The writer went on to say that, when they started to feel nervous during a performance, they would focus more intensely on expressing the music. The more nervous, the more expressive. The writer even taped the advice to his music stand on a small piece of paper so that he would always remember to focus on expression, not impression. Eventually, their nervousness would subside, and their quality of performance would improve.
You see, your mind can hold only one thought at a time.
As much as you want to think of yourself as a multi-tasker, multitasking does not exist. Rather, your brain switches rapidly from one thought to another, which is both unproductive and exhausting. It is far better to focus on one thought at a time and spare your brain the whiplash.
In the case of my performance anxiety, my thoughts kept switching from the music to the panel and back again. I was so caught up in my own head, worrying about impressing the panel, that I forgot about the most important thing of all: the music.
My ego and desire for approval got in the way of the reason that I was in the room in the first place: to make beautiful music. I prioritized the panel’s reaction over my own action, which ruined my performance.
Remember that you can only control your actions, not other people’s reactions.
As your level of nervousness or anger or frustration increases, focus more on your actions. Be so action-oriented that you forget about others and their reactions.
While a careful analysis of reactions can help you determine what did and didn’t work and what to do next, you can only move the needle through action. All progress, then, is dependent on action. So get up and get moving.
When you get stuck as we all do, focus more on the expression of your art, whatever it is.
Performance anxiety? Focus on expression. Writer’s block? Focus on expression. Big presentation? Focus on expression.
By focusing on expression, you will overcome the obstacles that hold you back and enable yourself to do something truly great. Now, go express your art.
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