I had an eye-opening experience today. I realised that I've never been a confident bassoonist.

I don't know what it is, but once I pick up the bassoon, all my creative spirit flies away and I just want to hide. I don't want to play out, I don't even really want people to hear me.

When I don't have my bassoon, I achieve great things intellectually. But I don't know what happens to me.

Although, I had a thought: the bassoon is my first instrument. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? I heard that people struggle more with their first instrument, but I guess I don't really know.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Getting confidence with an instrument is a big hurdle you have to come over. I mean, I hate people hearing me practice, that is why when after my exams, when everyone was at school/work, I'd practice. I always feel like people are judging me.
However, you can boost your confidence, by when people compliment you, by accepting it, and not being like "Thanks, but I didn't deserve it"

well said nicki... accepting compliments is hard if you have no confidence in yourself, but learning to accept them gracefully definitely helps, if you always contradict them then you're telling that person you don't believe them, and reinforcing your own subconscious belief that you didn't deserve the compliment!

Hrm, it's a toughie alright. I always had confidence issues with piano, and I'm sad (and ashamed!) to say I let them win and gave it up ... And now, two years later, I miss it so much - for eight years it was my first and major instrument, then I had a couple of incidents, lost confidence in myself and my playing .. and went downhill from there.

Whereas with the flute, I know I can play it pretty well, and I know my own flute inside out, it's good and bad points etc so no confidence problems there.

So, all I can say is, don't ever do what I did and give in .... You'll learn to believe in yourself, I don't know how, but dont ever ever give in ...

I think that confidence to play in front of people comes with practise. I've been playing piano in concerts(usually as a duet) for a couple of years and it definately is easier now than it was although I get a bit nervous sometimes!

Spot on, and practice of performing in front of other people is far more effective than practice in solitude, even though that helps. For most people, the more performing they do, the less they worry about it, and the nearer their performances approach what they know they can do in the practice room. What I find is that different circumstances - the nature of the audience, the sort of music, and, especially, what instrument I am playing - still affect me very differently, with solo piano still something at which my performances are likely to be disastrous, even after 60 years of intermittent attampts.

For me, everytime i go on stage i breathe really deeply before hand and it really helps, i stop shaking! When i play, most of the time if i keep thinking to myself 'you'll do ok' i do ok, but if i panic, i play really badly..

I'm not that bad on stage, actually. My performance anxiety always hits me really badly after it happens, for some reason.

In general, though, I think I'm just scared of my instrument or something