Nerve Options

[delicato]

Hello wannabegood.

Although I might get shot down in flames, as a teacher, I know LOTS of people who've tried LOTS of different anti-nerves/anti-stress medicines and techniques.

And overall I don;t think they work and the reason is, I reckon, that people EXPECT them to work and expect not to feel nervous so when they do feel nervous they panic. And it's even worse than in the first place.

I think you have to embrace the nerves i.e. I WILL feel nervous. stressed, nauseous, whatever, it's 100% normal. everyone else does. And, then, bit by bit, in my experience, without really noticing it, you feel less and less nervous.

(NB There was a big world-wide study on pain in child-birth where first-time mothers-to-be rated how painful they expected childbirth to be and compared it with the level of painkillers finally needed. Dutch women expected childbirth to be the most painful AND ended up needing the lowest level of painkillers).

I am not going to shoot you down in flames, but would like to say that, my last exam was totally destroyed by nerves. Anyway, i am trying hypnotherapy. So i may let you all know if it is any better - when i do my next exam. But, you mention about "embrace" your nerves --- so what really does this mean?? And how on earth do you do this??? Is this, like accepting that you are nervous and thinking it is normal or a good thing, so i will continue to battle on and bravely go forward into battle, then i will be o.k. ?

I think, and has been said many times, that a certain level of nerves is good as it gets adrenaline going --- this is a physiological fact, and adrenaline as we commonly know it is for "flight and fright" responses. Yes, then i would agree this is normal.

But to be that nervous you feel sick, unable to eat, shake like a jelly fish, unable to control yourself or co-ordinate sufficiently to play a few pieces and few simple scales is debilitating and perhaps not normal or maybe unacceptable any way. And if you are serious about your exams very distressing.

I appreciate your view in that you say they do not work, but then how is it many people have tried, say, hypnotherapy and it has worked very well in many different cases. I do not know if you have tried various remedies your self, or are you simple guessing???

Not all people expect things to work, as i do not believe in some things myself, but thats just my opinion. The basis of hypnotherapy is interesting one, working on the subconscious - i expect you already know this. If you say this does not work, thats like saying a degree in hypnotherapy is a waste of time perhaps? or all psychiatrists waste their time as well and this does not work either?

Hope you do not feel i have shot you down, --- don't want to do that! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
But, lets wait and see perhaps! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

[Mad Tom]

It is absolutely normal to feel nervous before an exam or a performance. If you didn't I'd be worried that you were lacking some essential human qualities. But how do you reduce this natural nervousness to a manageable level and/or learn to perform well despite it? Whole books have been written on this, several of them, but when you try to apply their advice much of it often turns out to be at best impractical and at worst impossible.

When I returned to the piano shortly before joining this forum I could not perform for toffee. Four years on I have overcome the worst problems, although there is still work to do. It has not required NLP, or hypnosis, or pschotherapy, or beta-blockers. Some people will tell you that if you focus on communicating the music, then your ego will recede and things are more likely to go well. That may work for some, but I have found that I cannot focus on the meaning of the music until a certain minimum level of confidence and relaxation has been attained.

I have found three things useful:

1. Know your piece or pieces thoroughly
2. Get plenty of performing experience
3. Put your performance (or exam) in perspective

Let us look at these a bit more closely.

1. Know your piece or pieces thoroughly

It seems to me that most amateurs have no idea of just what "knowing a piece well enough" entails. For most of us it is enormously more than we imagine when we start on the musical journey. If you want to feel totally confident then you should have the piece thoroughly memorized, even if you choose to use a score when you perform. Ideally you would be able to write out your whole programme from memory, complete with every expression mark. One of my teachers, a concert pianist, used to do this before his performances. You should also understand the piece from every angle, melodic and rhythmic ideas, contrapuntal effects, harmonic progressions and modulations etc.. You should be able to start and stop at virtually any point. It should go without saying that you need to know exactly what fingering to use. I am not pretending that this is easy. A lot of it is just a hard slog. The mind often rebels at the hard work involved, and has to be forced or tricked into co-operating!

2. Perform as often as possible

If you perform only at one or two exams each year, and maybe at an annual recital organized by your teacher it is no wonder that it is stressful. By performing more frequently (at least once every 3 or 4 weeks) you will start to notice exactly what is different about the performing situation, become comfortable with the different feelings, recognize what needs to be more thoroughly prepared and so on. You should expect to mess up a few times. Don't worry about it. The more often you perform the less stress you will feel, and the more comfortable you will feel. There really is no substitute for performing often enough to start to feel relaxed and at home doing it. A "performance" does not have to be a big formal affair, with you sitting on stage in front of 100 or so expectant listeners. "Try-outs" in front of a few friends, relatives, or fellow pupils recreate enough of the same stresses to be just as useful. It is defintely tough, after a performance disaster, to put yourself in line for a further failure, but it just has to be done. Eventually a performance WILL go well, and from then on you can build on ever greater successes. [One tip, to ensure a successful operformance is to play something relatively easy for you first few public outings. A simple piece well-played is infinitely preferable to something at your limits played badly. The greatest concert pianists did nopt shy away from pieces that are relatively (for them) easy. Horowitz regularly featured Schumann's "Traumerei" and Liszt'z "Consolation No. 3" in his recitals - trivialy easy pieces for a pianist of his stature.

3. Get it in perspective.

Just how important is your exam or recital in the grand scheme of things? Not very!!! Only a handful of people will care much about the outcome, and they will not care VERY much. While it is easy to tell yourself this, the mind is resistant to accepting it. What is needed is some event in your life that proves to you, unarguably, that other things matter more. In my case it was a sudden and unexpected emotional upset, after which I found that when I performed the nerves were no longer there ... or at least were very much reduced.

(IMG:http://www.trose.net/pimage/gpiano2.gif)

[delicato]

I have found three things useful:

1. Know your piece or pieces thoroughly
2. Get plenty of performing experience
3. Put your performance (or exam) in perspective


(IMG:http://www.trose.net/pimage/gpiano2.gif)

Well i have read this and to a large extent i think you are right with many things and seems very sensible. But, for me, practising performance is not possible. So the exams are the only chance really i get to perform. The exams, as i understand are not important in the scheme of some things, but are essential for those who wish to get their grade 8 and wish to go on further perhaps, so in that sense they are important. But, yes in another context, of life perhaps their are much more important things - as you pointed out.

I like your bit about relaxing first before you can concentrate on the music --- this makes perfect sense to me. If your hands start shaking you stand no chance of trying to concentrate on the music that you may know well and at home play perhaps perfect. You are trying so hard to stop them from shaking and you know that you cannot ask the examiner to wait half an hour. I am perhaps not saying it is abnormal to be so nervous, but certainly i find it unacceptable to the point of being unable to play when at an exam, and is an important point for me.

I am not put off by hard work, but am put off to the extent of the nervousness and how it messes up my playing.

You say you managed to find your way after some emotional upset, so have managed to put every thing into perspective - i think that is great! But, i am not sure if this would make any difference for myself. I also know that doing an exam is only a case of playing your instrument for a short while and should be for me, fairly simple thing to do, and so what, there is only one examiner listening - so why should i get so nervous about this? It is so silly. Well, you may say, its because you want to do so well. But this is still ridiculous. I have done and seen many things in life in the past, which have been many times worse than doing a music exam - putting it into perspective is easy for me really, so i can not use this as an excuse. I have no answers, so try the hypnotherapy to see what happens. If it works well, it will be money well spent, if not, it will be wasted perhaps.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)

[corenfa]

3. Get it in perspective.

Just how important is your exam or recital in the grand scheme of things? Not very!!! Only a handful of people will care much about the outcome, and they will not care VERY much. While it is easy to tell yourself this, the mind is resistant to accepting it. What is needed is some event in your life that proves to you, unarguably, that other things matter more. In my case it was a sudden and unexpected emotional upset, after which I found that when I performed the nerves were no longer there ... or at least were very much reduced.

(IMG:http://www.trose.net/pimage/gpiano2.gif)

This has been my experience exactly. I don't know how to speed up the learning of this lesson, it just had to happen. In my case it was realising that now that I wasn't a music student any more, there was no negative consequence to playing badly.

[delicato]

3. Get it in perspective.

Just how important is your exam or recital in the grand scheme of things? Not very!!! Only a handful of people will care much about the outcome, and they will not care VERY much. While it is easy to tell yourself this, the mind is resistant to accepting it. What is needed is some event in your life that proves to you, unarguably, that other things matter more. In my case it was a sudden and unexpected emotional upset, after which I found that when I performed the nerves were no longer there ... or at least were very much reduced.

(IMG:http://www.trose.net/pimage/gpiano2.gif)

This has been my experience exactly. I don't know how to speed up the learning of this lesson, it just had to happen. In my case it was realising that now that I wasn't a music student any more, there was no negative consequence to playing badly.

I think this is different, if i was no longer a music student then i too would not give a hoot about exams. But i have had many negative experiences in life, but this does not make it easier to do an exam, even when it puts things into prospective.

[corenfa]

It's going to be different for everyone - I know some people who were music students who aren't any more, who still suffer from nerves. That was kind of my point - that there's no way to speed up that lesson. I don't know what it will be for someone else!

[A.U.K]

One of the best ways to conquer nerves or at least get them under control is keep performing..perform at every given oppertunity, play for anyone and everyone and play music you are playing for an exam..

Also if you accept you are nervous and don't fight it things get easier..just say to yourself I am nervous or that you feel nervous, smile and play on..a smile releases tension and alters the focus from the nervousness to the acknowledgement of somone else..

It does get easier, it may never totally go away but if you can harness it you can turn it to your advantage and give some explosive performances..

Andrew

[delicato]

One of the best ways to conquer nerves or at least get them under control is keep performing..perform at every given oppertunity, play for anyone and everyone and play music you are playing for an exam..

Also if you accept you are nervous and don't fight it things get easier..just say to yourself I am nervous or that you feel nervous, smile and play on..a smile releases tension and alters the focus from the nervousness to the acknowledgement of somone else..

It does get easier, it may never totally go away but if you can harness it you can turn it to your advantage and give some explosive performances..

Andrew

Thats lovely i think. I do smile a lot, so in theory should be so cool. So if i can harness it, i should be like a rocket!! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wub.gif)
thank you all very much for your advice.

[Steven Carr]

Matthew Syed talks about choking under pressure in his book.

He has no sure-fire cure. And neither do I, or else I would be in great demand.

There is no certain cure. As sportsmen say, once you've got the yips or dartitis, you've got it.

The only thing Syed recommends is to remind yourself that you are only doing what you can do. It is only playing an instrument. And you have done that. It's just one more session with your instrument. Which indeed , is exactly what it is.

To use a football cliche - 'Just go out and enjoy it'.