Performance anxiety

When I played fairly lengthy 45+ minute recitals at my grandmother's 100th through 110th birthday parties, I always practiced on the piano beforehand. Of course not always possible but if you're willing to get there early it's a reasonable goal. At one recital I remember having a difficult time adjusting to the sound of a loud air conditioner. As a teenager I remember hearing some of the pianists practicing on the piano before the recital at meetings of the Plainfield Music Club.

twocats the longer I played the worse the shakes got

This is the worse! I’ve had this experience and it just feels awful. Did you only play one piece?

Whenever I perform, whether it’s a more formal recital or mini-concert like I did last November, or even just playing causally for friends, I try to make sure I’m playing at least two pieces (in a row), and I plan it so that the first one is a little easier. My preference is actually three pieces (or more) but sometimes there’s a time limit per performer…

Anyway, the reason for this is that “the shakes” is an adrenaline reaction, the body’s fight or flight reaction kicking in. So the reason our hands shake is not because we’re making them shake by something we’re consciously controlling, and this is why it’s also really hard to consciously make them stop shaking. The body’s fight or flight reaction is a big surge of hormones, a physical reaction in the body, and the shaky hands are just a symptom of that. It’s like when something happens that really startles you, your heart starts pounding like crazy. You can take some deep breaths or whatever, but you’re not really causing your heart to slow back down, it slows down over a few seconds or minutes as your flight or flight system realizes the danger has passed. But when performing, the fight or flight system is sort of tightly engaged because you know have you get through to the end of the piece.

So it’s very rare to be able to stop the shaky hands once the fight or flight system kicks in. But fight or flight, adrenaline, is also time limited. Your body only has so much adrenaline at its disposal. It’s most intense at the beginning but eventually mellows a bit. It’s like the body’s amount of adrenaline (hormone) kind of gets used up as time moves forward.

When you’re playing only one piece, you get the adrenaline surge but not the cool down.

But when you’re playing more than one piece, the first piece gets the full onslaught of adrenaline. Then, in between pieces, you put your hands in your lap, take a deep breath, and when you start the next piece, that adrenaline surge is a little bit tempered, a little bit less intense.

When I play two pieces, during the second piece my hands start to feel like they belong to me again. And when I play three pieces, I notice that the shaky hands are fully resolved by the third piece (if not before).

The other thing that helps me when I’m playing more than one piece is that the pressure is reduced because I know I know it’s not like I only have one chance to get it right. Obviously I only have “one chance” with each piece, but I know I’ll be playing more pieces so the pressure on each individual piece is reduced.

And I know from my own experience now that the shaky hands will start to mellow and eventually go away as I work through my program. And just knowing that makes it easier to ignore the shaky hands while they’re at their worst, because I know two things: 1) I can’t control the shaky hands, and 2) it’s time limited and it will be better when I start piece number 2.

The other thing I try to always do is get some physical exercise, some cardio, on a day when I’ll be performing. This is actually a tip I got from a professional pianist. She is the person who told me the stuff about fight or flight, and she said that you only have so much adrenaline in your body at anyone time, if you do some physical exertion, get your heart rate up, you use up some of that adrenaline and it’s not fully replenished until the next day (after sleep). By exercising on the day of a performance, you can sort of blunt the initial onslaught, the initial surge of adrenaline and that makes the shakes easier to control.

And again, because adrenaline is a physical reality, when it happens, when I get the shakes, I just try to accept it. It’s not my fault, and there’s nothing I can do in that moment to stop it. My only goal is to keep playing, knowing I’ll have another piece as well and when that’s do end piece comes, I’ll be calmer. And surprisingly, this helps a lot.

Sorry, this got quite long! You can tell I’ve thought about this a lot.

twocats but it was 10 minutes (second movement of Dvořák quartet played with a recording). My anxiety didn't get better during that time!

Yep, even with a 10 minute piece, that isn't surprising. I think there's something that happens when you have two pieces, and you get even a 30 second break in between, it helps to reset the fight or flight response, let it calm down.

The longest piece I play right now is just over 7 minutes, so not quite that long, but I would try to put that the longer one second if possible.

You'll have to experiment and see what works for you. And keep us posted of course, so we can compare notes!

To me, the big take away is just that shaky hands, when they occur, are a biological reality. Not a moral failure, not a pianistic failure. Not even a preparation failure (although prep can certainly help). So my goal is to focus on learning how to play through them....

Fear of memory slips is often one of the biggest parts of performance anxiety. The solution is simple... play with the score.

He responds to what he hears for about 30 seconds or maybe a bit longer. I thought the context could be useful.

Actually starts responding at 30:10.