I couldn't help noticing last Saturday at the Leeds concert that generally speaking, people seemed more confident performing this year compared with last year. Was it just that people hid their nerves better, or did people genuinely feel more confident? I know a lot of people felt nervous in the run-up to the concert - how did pre-event nerves compare with nerves on the day itself?

Would you recommend taking the plunge if you were performing for the first time...?

I've found performing at concerts to be great experience, and at friendly events like the forum concerts, I'm now relatively confident. I've got an exam coming up, and I'm hoping I'll be able to view it as a "performing" opportunity which I'll enjoy as much as performing at concerts - certainly last time I did an exam, having performed at a few concerts by that time, I was much less nervous than I had been in previous exams.

There are loads of events coming up, and from my experience, I would really recommend to other adult learners like myself to try and go to one in order to get some experience performing (and to meet up with lots of like-minded people ); and if there isn't one near you, to try and find some other way of performing, maybe like asking your teacher if s/he would organise one for their students.

How has it been for anybody else who has performed at forum concerts - has it helped you with performance confidence in exams?

Never performed at a forum concert although 2 years in a row I have decided I'm going to and have then promptly chickened out

However, my teacher gets all her students together and we all play for each other - this happens twice a year. Unfortunately, I appear to be getting worse rather than better At the last one, I was shaking so badly that (a) I couldn't really play anything (b) it was noticeable from the back of the room!!

Beta-blockers me thinks before the Grade 6 exam (cop out I know but I don't care anymore).

I think I handled my nerves better on Saturday than on previous occassions, and learning to sing has helped a lot with that. I need to be able to deal with distractions better. I was OK on Saturday until I heard a door shutting. It put me off a bit and I went wrong (though I hope no one noticed!!) I'm still not too comfortable knowing that people are looking at me either..

I don't think I had any pre-event nerves. I was looking forward to it too much!

Playing as much as you can in front of different people can only help in the long run. And yes, playing/singing at forum events has definitely helped with exams.

I have never really suffered badly from performance nerves but I would imagine that for anyone who does, taking part in the fun items must help. There isn't the same pressure to perform at a decent standard or else, and the audience will be with you 100%. You still get to stand upon the stage in front of the audience but all eyes are not on you alone. Does anyone else agree?

Yes..there's definitely safety in numbers! And it's a great laugh too!

I find large ensembles the least stressful cos if you go wrong (or miss out some notes (bars ), nobody's likely to notice. I don't know if everyone else feels the same, but that's why I try and put everybody who's playing a solo into a large ensemble first to get some stage experience before their solo. I worry most about duets/trios because if I lose the rhythm, it would all fall apart and it would be my fault

I'm not an adult learner so you might have to excuse me for intruding on your forum, but I just wanted to say that I agree with you, skylark. I think it's a really good idea to put people into an ensemble situation first.

I suppose some 'adult learners' probably think that those of us who have had instrumental lessons when we were younger can't possibly suffer from nerves, and I guess to an extent it ought to be true because some people will have had tons of experience whilst in school. Some of us can relate to being a complete wreck before having to go on stage though.

That said, I think that whether you are an adult learner or just a plain old 'student' (no harm intended! ) music can do wonders for bringing you out of yourself, if only because it has the scope to get you mixing with like-minded people, be it a forum concert or anything else.

I'm a hopeless performer now but I was worse when I was in my last years at school (when I used to by physically sick before playing).

I think that knowing the audience were on my side helped me enormously on Saturday. I still felt nervous, but was able to keep the nerves much more under control.

Tonight at choir rehearsal I felt more nervous than I did on Saturday. I am doing some solo parts of one of the choral medley's we will be performing at our concert at the end of the month. And I know that certain "powers that be" aren't too happy about the conductor giving the solo bits to me. So it was a slightly horrible experience, I could just feel the ######iness from certain quarters, and that just added to my nerves.

I would thoroughly recommend forum events to others because they are such supportive environments.



Ambs
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Strangely enough, I'm the opposite. I LOVED performing as a kid and never felt any nerves at all. This time around I'm quite hopeless, which makes it worse because I'd also be nervous about feeling nervous...

I definitely agree that having the solo at the end did help a lot. On Saturday, my hands were shaking throughout the whole of the first piece (I didn't feel any pre-event nerves, though. The nerves only attacked after the first chord was played ). By the time of my solo, I didn't feel so bad, but still I was on autopilot throughout and didn't quite know what I was doing or how the piece actually sounded.

And this made me realize the importance of practicing until you absolutely nail down a piece and not simply to a "good enough" standard and hope you can get away with sightreading some parts or remembering to do this or that during exam/performance. I'm normally quite a good sightreader and it never occurred to me how often I actually get away with "under practicing" when I feel confident and in control (i.e. hiding in my flat or playing to my teacher)

Must sign up for more forum concerts

I didn't really feel nervous on Saturday until I was half way through my piece and found that my hands were shaking. That's the reason why I didn't play my second piece, I didn't want to push my luck. I was very relieved once the piece was over and I hadn't made any major mistakes!

I thought the concert was very good practice for doing my exam, but am slightly worried that I'll get the shakes again and have problems playing in the exam. Can any of you recommend a way to control the shaking?

I asked my son if he was nervous when he performed on Saturday and he said, not at all.

I really enjoyed your performance and would have had no idea you were nervous when you were up on stage.

And your son has such wonderful breath control, lovely legato lines throughout his piece, a joy to listen to.



Ambs
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I probably shouldn't be posting here seeing as i'm not an adult
But i'm like having to quit due to performance nerves I freak out and lose the feeling in my hands! Even happens in rehearals now :S I've tried everything to get more confidence but it's just getting worse and worse and there seems no other option but to quit

Neither are some of the older folk on the forum - grey hair and wrinkles notwithstanding

Now don't be silly ...

... it is just another challenge to be met and overcome.

You probably haven't realized yet how thoroughly you need to a know a piece to play it confidently under pressure (and how much hard work that takes). You need to know it inside-out, back to front, better then you know the house you grew up in. When you get a piece to the point where can play it fluently, with few duff notes, at tempo, from memory, you've probably done 10% of the work you need to make it ready for public performance.

Can you play it ten times in a row, near perfect, with your eyes shut? Can you stop and start at any point? In fact can you just start to play, from memory, at any point you want? Are you so happy with the way you play it that you would not be ashamed to perform for your favourite virtuoso.

If you can answer yes to all those questions then you WILL have the confidence to play in front of ANYONE, because you will KNOW that you can do it!

Of course, you may be five years older before you reach that point!

I do agree with Tom, though. The better you know the piece, the more confident you will become. Please don't give up just because of nerves - you can overcome them!

What a shame that you're thinking you'll have to quit Have you tried looking at all the threads that there have been in the past on this forum about nerves/anxiety/confidence...?

If you give up, it will be so much harder to get back into it again. Whereas if you keep going, you might find that it's just a phase and it will improve again.

In between rehearsals, could you try playing to friends or family to get a bit more confidence at playing in front of other people? Could you host a little concert for your friends at your house? Acting the host might give you a different perspective and take your mind off your nerves

Practice doesn't make perfect: Practice makes permanent. If you're practicing a mistake, which may include any undesirable feature, you will just get a well grooved mistake.

From a practical point of view, performing is a different skill from merely playing. Practicing performing with undesirable traits in the performance will merely groove those traits. If your performance is characterised by crippling anxiety then crippling anxiety will be what gets grooved. Merely repeating it by taking every opportunity to perform as often as possible is more likely to make it worse than better, unless you take steps to change the way you approach the concept of "the performance" in the first place. How you do that will depend on a huge number of factors.

A good teacher may be able to help. However, if your playing was being hindered by a broken arm you wouldn't expect your teacher to help sort out the arm. In a similar manner, if your problem with performing (as opposed to playing normally) is psychological (and I don't know how else you would describe performance anxiety if not psychological) then the person to sort it out is a psychologist (not to be confused with a psychiatrist, a psycho-analyst or a psychic, or even a cyclist for that matter). I wouldn't recommend everyone to go to a psychologist for performance nerves - to an extent they are normal. When the nerves become sufficient to prevent you doing what you want to do, that's when you need help. Alternatively you could just struggle on as you are with the self perpetuating cycle of performance anxiety.

I really don't understand peoples prejudice against going to a psychologist for a psychological problem. It may be that they charge (quelle horreur!!) and that your sessions with them aren't available on the NHS. To the best of my knowledge, music lessons aren't available on the NHS either, but we are quite prepared to pay for them.

For anyone who is interested, Robodoc started a thread on seeking psychological help last year but you won't find it by searching titles for nerves/anxiety/confidence, which is a shame as it discusses performance anxiety in some detail. Here's the link...

Preparation in the Round

But if you enjoy playing apart from performance why quit?
It's only in the last 3 or 4 years that I've really come round to performing at all.
I wanted to play for no other reason that wanting to play. I certainly never had any thoughts about ever performing even in a small way and I still enjoyed learning and playing. I'm sure there's no rule that says you have to perform for an audience if you play an instrument.

And I don't find it easier the more forum events I play at... I just get through it.

It's been happening for a year or more now, it did get much better but then an awful concert made it a million times worse now i can't play infront of anyone I've had to just stop playing in the middle of concerts before, even when playing in an orchestra - had to just stop playing and sit there (much to the confusion of my conductor and the people sat with me etc.) cause i have no feeling in my hands! It's sooo embarassing
Am i being dramatic? It's just worrying as auditions for music college are coming up, something i've been working so hard towards for years, but there is no way i'll be able to audition if it doesn't get better. But there's nothing i'd ever wanna be except a flautist. That's another point - it only happens on flute. Not violin or not even piccolo! I've just got it in my head

I've got to the point where i'm seriously considering seeing a psychlogist but my parents are really against it ¬_¬ Because i'm just being 'ridiculous'.

Leeds was the first forum event for me. I was very nervous beforehand, trying to practice to perfection (well, relative perfection), not knowing the standard of the others taking part and knowing I would be playing duets with people I hadn't even met. However, Thanks to the mutual support of everyone for everyone, confidence grew as the day went on. I don't expect to ever overcome nerves so I just try to settle and, if I can, rehearse for at least 2 hours on the recital piano before a concert, I'm now looking forward to see what other forum concerts I can fit in.

It sounds like you want to perform, if only you could get over your performance anxiety. Granted my anxiety wasn't as bad as yours sounds, ffliwt, but I did have some panic attacks before I performed for the first time, and it affected me particularly badly in one of my exams.

Somehow you need to change your attitude towards performing. I did it by reading several books and also the many threads on this forum about it. Just looking back at the thread which I posted above, one of the books I read was nothing to do with music, but it was everything to do with psychological preparation for a performance, just in sport rather than music.

Changing your "mindset" is not something which can be done overnight - with me it was a gradual process over several months, studying any advice I read that struck a chord, taking on board that advice which I thought would be useful to me, and gradually changing my attitude.

If you don't do anything to change the way you view performing, you might improve or you might not. But if you take charge of your own attitude towards performing, you can find ways of turning it around, over a period of time.

At the Leeds concert this year, I *sang* on stage - with apologies to the audience because I'm not a singer But I wanted to see if I could do it, and I did, and I enjoyed it (You might have to stop me doing it again ) But I haven't got to that point without making some conscious decisions about my attitude towards performing, and I've only been capable of making those decisions by having read about, and taking on board, lots of advice about how to achieve performance confidence.

Like I've said, it's something that happens over a long period, so start now!!!!

At the Leeds concert this year, I *sang* on stage - with apologies to the audience because I'm not a singer But I wanted to see if I could do it, and I did, and I enjoyed it

So did we, no apology needed.

Thank you oldnotes!

Notwithstanding what I've said here about singing, which was a one-off ( ), I think the single most useful thing which I discovered about performance confidence was the realisation that performing is not about *you*.... it's about the music and trying to communicate the pleasure of the music to other people.

But you can't simply *tell* yourself that and expect it to happen.... it's something you have to *feel* inside, a conviction that grows within you... for me that conviction grew over several months, and was only helped by reading lots of inspiring observations from other people.

Look at your list of achievements. How many people (especially excluding adults) have achieved such high standards? What about if you go back and look at previous pieces, maybe grade 5 or 6 stuff for the oboe and clarinet and see how well you must be able to play those now.