navindra Iām really sorry to their this! Not because ācrashing and burningā is bad, but because the feelings left in its wake are awful.
After my worst crash and burn (letās call it C&B) recital, I was depressed and in a funk for weeks afterward. But in the end, I learned a lot about myself and my reasons for playing the pianoā¦ ultimately , I came to the conclusion that I care enough about playing, and about playing for others, that I would keep doing it, whether any given recital ended with C&B or not. Not everyone ends up at that conclusion, but it really helped me to be able to articulate my goals for myself.
I have lots more to say about that, and I could share my own C&B storyā¦ but for now, I think Iād like to focus on two things. First, the physical realities of stage fright and second, being oneās own worst critic.
The physical realities of stage fright
Stage fright is the fight or flight response, which as you probably know, is an off-the-charts adrenaline rush. Adrenaline is a hormone and when it gets released in the body, it kicks off a chain of events that canāt easily be stopped, but mostly needs to run its course. How this manifests varies for different people. For me, it includes the shaky hands, but also weird things like having parts of my body feel hot and feverish and other parts feel ice cold.
I think itās important to remember that stage fright is based on this physical release of hormones, because whether or how much of the āproblemā is mental doesnāt even matter once the hormone release is triggered. You canāt really āthink it away.ā Deep breathing helps, we can get ourselves calmed down. But hereās the thing, in a recital situation, thereās usually not enough time to calm the adrenaline, unless youāre a pro playing a 30 minute or longer set.
So there are really only two options: 1) prevent the fight or flight response from ever happening, or 2) learn to live with it and play through it.
For amateur pianists, both of these are very, very hard to do. If we performed publicly on a regular basis, eventually that adrenaline rush would stop happening (or become muted enough to not matter). But one recital every three months (or less, for most of us, itās less) is no where near often enough. And, if we experienced playing through the an adrenaline rush, we would get better and better at playing with shaky hands etc. But again, we just donāt have enough performance opportunities to truly make this happen.
And the other thing, which you @navindra now know very clearly, is that itās pretty much impossible to recreate true stage fright in your own home, so again, we canāt really āpracticeā it.
So the best we can hope for, for #1, is to blunt the adrenaline even just a little bit. Thatās where the exercise thing, that @twocats mentioned above, comes in. And the key is it has to happen on the day of the recital. And for #2, we have to just say āok, if I get the shakes, so be it. I forgive myself.ā Play through, smile at the end. Resolve to do it again next time.
On being oneās own worst critic
First, we are always our own worst critics. And after a C&B recital, I think we have zero concept of how we actually played. I used to never want recordings of my recitals, and I would specifically ask people not to record. But last year, I had my husband record me and it ended up being really helpful. Since then, Iāve recorded all the performances Iāve played and Iāve found that it was never as bad as I expected, and having the recording is a great learning tool. So if you donāt have a recording, try to make sure you get one for each recital in the future.
Second, stop being so hard on yourself. (I say this to all of us, not just you, Navindra). We are not professionals. Most of us work full time (you also run this website)ā¦ If our hobby was running marathons, a āsubparā performance would be different because itās not art, music, beauty, aesthetics. Some days are better than others, and we should all congratulate ourselves for getting to the finish line. There will be another race in the future and what really matters isnāt how long it takes to get to the finish line, but that we get back to the starting line for the next race. Yes, we want to be able to play somewhat close to how we can play at home. But when that doesnāt happen, that doesnāt mean we should give up, and that doesnāt mean thereās no point in doing those recitals. It just means weāre human.
So give yourself some grace, forgive yourself, and go pick out your next recital pieces.
Ironically, I think my worst C&B was after Iād been playing for about 5 years, I say this because thatās about how long youāve been playing, right @navindra ? But since that time, I have had many public performances where I didnāt crash and burn. That doesnāt mean I didnāt experience the shakes. I pretty much always do. But the shakes donāt always make me C&B.
But maybe thereās something that happens after weāve been playing for a few years, a transition point, and maybe thatās why these C&Bs are so painful, because we actually can play, and it hurts a little more to not be able to share that ā¦
Ok, this has gotten quite long so Iāll stop for now. Please indulge my wordiness, I stared piano at age 30 and have now been playing for 26 years, and in that time Iāve had lots of time to think about these issuesā¦ š
@navindra if you take nothing else away from this post, the one thing I really want to say is, donāt stop, donāt give up.