Hey
Firstly I very much apologize in advance if this sounds like a rant

This is regarding piano (my first study)

Last year I started a music course at college, the same as A level standard and I went through the summer not having the money to continue piano lessons and I was working full time therefore trying to teach myself. Anyway when I started college I had a complete crash in confidence, something which I had been bothered with a little before but not nearly as bad as I had then. My sightreading became terrible even though I had been a relatively good sight-reader before hand.
Through the year (it was a performance based course) I never did one performance as I was that nervous. I have this fear of being judged and people laughing at me.
I finally managed to gain a little confidence and managed to get my grade 6 pieces ready for my performance exam, however when I got in the exam nerves got the better of me which resulted in me hitting every wrong note on the piano and having a very red face.
The tutors understand and have accepted me for next year and have suggested I find someway to get my self- confidence up before September.

Can anyone please offer any suggestions because I do not want to go through another year like this one. I want to be able to sit here next year and say I started off at grade 7 and now I have improved to a solid grade 7 standard (hopefully).

Also for sight-reading, why did it get so bad (although I can possibly answer the myself hehe) and how do I improve over the next 8 weeks?

Has anyone else experienced something similar like this.

Any suggestions will be very very very much appreciated!!!

Once again I am so sorry for this rant hehe

Thanks PSL

If you can't have lessons then maybe getting together to play with someone else might help.
This could be piano duets or accompanying another instrument or even getting together to play to each other.
If you do this then do try to make it a fun activity rather than competitive. Learn to laugh when things go wrong.... it's not often the disaster you think, there's usually plenty of smiles and laughter in my lessons both as a student and teacher. If something goes wrong then 'oops, who moved that note?'or something similar can help to put things in perspective.
If you can get back to finding the enjoyment in your playing I think it will go some way to help.

Thanks for the replies!
I do have a teacher during term time, well only 12 per term but in the holidays I don't have a teacher, so it's summer time I need to get a teacher. But last year at college I never got lessons for 2 months whilst everyone did then I got about 3 different teachers in one term so I didn't feel confident or comfortable with any of them as I didn't know them.
Hopefully this year I will get one teacher throughout the whole year lol.
Has anyone else had similar experiences and how did you resolve them.
I worked so hard to get this far, to make it as a music teacher, even though some people said I would never make it and never even make it into college so I am not giving this up. I just need to find a way to keep my confidence and self esteem up through the whole year I think.
Thanks PSL

I know im totally unexperianced!

But I did GCSE music this year and I had the same confidence issue as yourself, I play violin and my teacher told me he would like to hear my pieces infront of the whole class. I did and I played everything wrong totally!. My music teacher then asked me to do it again in the lesson three weeks time. Now you have to remember 90% of my class played modern instruments, and they had laughed the last time, I didnt want to put myself through the same embrassment as last time.

So I decided to tell my music teacher before I played again, I realised it was more nerves than anything else so my music teacher came up with the idea of me practicing after school with just him at first watching me then he would ask the other music teachers to come in gradually and build up my confidence with playing in front of people.

Oh i dont know if i saw the bit about sightreading correctly but if you need to learn it quickly by a book at youe grade and just everyday open the book to a page and give yourself four minutes to look at the piece ( I advise you look for things that are important) then play it. Do this everyday leading up to the performance and you will fly through.

Just have confidence in yourself and whatever you do if you make a mistake CARRY ON!!! DONT STOP! because you can bet yourself that half the class do not know the piece well enough to know you have made a mistake, just make sure you get back into the piece!

Good Luck

Oh and dont make faces if you make a mistake because people will see these and know you have made a mistake!

I agree with the suggestions above- find opportunities to play where you are not feeling judged- duets, ensembles, hymn singing, dance classes... and grab your friends and play for them whenever you have the chance.

You might also find the book The Inner Game of Music useful- I find it rather badly written, but has some good ideas.