Musicians: Conquer Stage Fright!

More musicians suffer from stage fright than you might think. In this blog, we interview two professionals to find out where the fear comes from and how you can overcome it.

An Interview with Carlo Nabbe: Stick Close to Your Instrument

Carlo Nabbe was already inspired to do everything that he’s achieved when he was just a young and talented violinist. “That was the time when there was a clear distinction between teaching musicians and performing musicians. These days they’re referred to as bachelors and masters. I took my exam as a teaching musician and passed with high marks. So high, that I was allowed to continue studying to become a performing musician”, Carlo tells us. From there, he went on to perform as a solo violinist, work as a violin teacher and a conductor. Next to all of that he’s a musician coach and an ensemble and band coach and has written a book in which he outlines a new approach to music education and teaching in general. But, back at school, Carlo found that he wasn’t interested in continuing his studies as a performing musician. “During the exam, I performed for a full hour. Apparently, if you look at the marks I got, the performance went well.. But while it was happening, I wasn’t really there because, for the three months leading up to the exam, I had barely slept a wink, all because of exam stress. A friend who was also studying there advised me to take pills for it. Beta blockers, which lower your heart rate. At the time, it was really common to take them and I actually think it still is within classical music.” Carlos decided not to take anything, and this is a position he still stands by today. “If you have a story to tell, then you need to tell it, without anything that you think might help you perform. Tell your musical story with honesty, including all of its ugliness as well as its beauty and power, and without anything coming in between.”

Over to Herman Krebbers

Despite all of that stress, Carlo still managed to get high marks for his final exam, but just couldn’t see himself continuing his studies at the same conservatorium. “In my mind, I had played terribly, even though everything and everyone else was telling me how well I’d done. Even then, I still wanted to be able to perform as a violinist. Finally, I decided to call one of the ‘gods’ of the violin, Herman Krebbers (1923 – 2018) and asked him if I was capable of becoming a lead violinist. It was a good next step.”

This is when it all started to happen. “I had a two-hour lesson with him at the Amsterdam conservatorium where he was teaching. My playing was bad. It was so bad, I crawled out crying. But he still took me on as a student and I studied under him for the next year. During those twelve months, I learned so much. Herman gave me the tools I needed to look at my playing technique in a different way.” Thanks to the teaching of Herman Krebbers, Carlo developed a completely different approach to his life within music. “Before I studied with Herman, I would always just do what was asked of me as a musician and afterwards, I finally started to make my own decisions. He also had a massive influence on my technique – which was something that would also have a major influence on my approach to music education later. Whenever I looked at Herman, whether he was playing himself or watching a student play, he was the violin. As he listened, his hands would always move along with the hands of his student.”

Herman Krebbers helped Carlo to realise that, when playing music, you shouldn’t be focussing solely on the notes, but on your body. “I slowly began to notice that Herman had a really great awareness of his own body. The point was that you make music with your whole body: your physical body, your mind and your heart. Therefore, it’s the musician’s job to develop a close awareness of their body. To really sit in their own body so that everything is experienced and every move you make is a conscious one.”

The Source of Stage Fright

Everything that Carlo experienced as a young violinist would go on to form a decisive part of the approach to instrumental education he developed later. It also helped him to understand how a musician can harness their own stage power to tell their own story, without fear. It’s from this perspective that he coaches musicians who are suffering from stage fright, whether they’re experiencing the stress of auditions or exams, or just want to be able to get the best out of themselves.

We asked Carlo about the phenomenon of stage fright – which is a well-known affliction within the music world. “Stage fright is actually the lack of stage power,” explains Carlo. “By far, the root cause of the stage fright experienced by most of the musicians I’ve coached lies in the way they were taught music when they were younger. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, musical teaching has strongly focussed on instructing the student. This completely robs the student of the opportunity to find their own way with their instrument. Being able to discover things for yourself is what will give you that power on stage later on, simply because it is you who has shaped and placed the building blocks for yourself. Within traditional music teaching, the building blocks are handed to you by someone else, so you build less or even no stage power of your own. After around 30 years spent thinking about all of this, that’s my conclusion anyway.”

Musical Talent

According to Carlo, the problem starts the moment that parents realise that their child has musical talent. “I’ve noticed this particularly in young and talented musicians who come to me for help to prepare for an audition. Often the story goes: everyone tells you ‘you’re talented, so you’re going to be a cellist!’ But, even if you’re good at playing the piano, for example, that doesn’t automatically mean that you want to be on stage. This is something I see with a lot of musicians that started really young.” Then, these students are put in front of a teacher who tells them the ‘right way’ to play music. And it’s this, according to Carlo, that is destroying these young musicians’ ability to develop stage power. “There are very few music teachers who will say ‘just play’. And this is exactly what you need to tell children to do, because they are still open and uninhibited. I’m not joking. Drum teachers should just tell new students to ‘just whack something!’ This will allow a dialogue between the student and the instrument to develop naturally. Through that dialogue, the student is allowed to explore and find out what it is that they want to do. This helps develop the right kind of motivation to make the instrument your own.”

Ask Open Questions

Of course, learning to play anything doesn’t stop at whacking, plucking and scratching. The music teacher definitely has an important role, explains Carlo, and describes how he works as a violin teacher: “If a student plays a false note, which can easily happen when you’re playing a violin, I don’t point it out. The challenge for the student is to discover it for themselves. Instead, I ask the student what they think. For example: a student plays a piece that’s intended to be quite cheerful, but it doesn’t sound cheerful at all. I then ask what they feel while playing, and give them the space to become aware of their own playing and find their own way within it. The challenge for the teacher, therefore, is to keep asking open questions. This is something I now have years of experience with, and it’s how I work with the youth orchestra that I lead. I let them chat amongst themselves and I let them improvise. Initially, the result is chaos, but that chaos provides a brilliant starting point for these students to start discovering things on their own.” Carlo does admit that this method demands a lot of patience and distance from him. “The result is that they don’t feel like they have to meet the demands of the audience, but their own demands. So, as an orchestra, they’re developing stage power.”

At first glance, this method sounds really inefficient. It certainly takes much longer before a student is able to play a piece at an ‘acceptable’ level. It also asks parents to have a lot of patience and understanding. “But ultimately, it results in a musician who is more at one with their instrument and a musician who can step on stage in front of an audience without fear,” insists Carlo.

Go Away and Practise

“Learning to play a musical instrument is a vulnerable process”, says Carlo. “So vulnerable that it’s easy for teachers and parents to make mistakes. How does it make a child feel when they’re practising playing their violin and their parents tell them: ‘You sound like a dying cat! Go and practise upstairs!’. Or they’re criticised in any other way for their playing. These kinds of comments already start laying the foundations for stage fright: the fear of disapproval. If your teacher tells you: ‘you’re playing out of tune!’ and you’re constantly being corrected, you’re going to become a pretty insecure musician and later, you’ll struggle to get onto the stage. Children who are raised in really strict environments often grow into insecure adults, and the same applies to children learning to play an instrument.” The problem lies in the fact that, as humans, we have the urge to improve. “But you can really mess things up because of that,” says Carlo. “Teaching is a great responsibility. It’s also very risky. As the teacher, you can sometimes do more harm than good. I think the goal for any music teacher is to create a landscape within which the student can explore and discover the things that they enjoy the most. As long as you guide a student as they develop a relationship with their instrument, engaging their body and their heart as well as their mind, then they’ll have no trouble getting on stage later on.”

Bent Back

There are some incredible musicians out there who make brilliant music but have a technique that raises some big questions. “The pianist, Glenn Gould is a great example. He would tuck himself right under the piano,” illustrates Carlo. “Obviously, it was a technique that worked for him, which goes to show that one technique and one kind of posture isn’t the right technique and posture for everyone. If someone is given strict instructions about how to do things the ‘right way’, there’s a risk of developing a way of holding themselves that just doesn’t work for their body.” Of course, there are ways of holding your body that are undeniably unhealthy and will eventually lead to aches and pains. Playing hunched right over your instrument, for example. Carlo understands that, right? “Yes, of course. But I never tell a student to sit up straight. This makes students sit really tense and uptight and will only cause problems later. It’s better to say, ‘look at how I’m sitting’ and demonstrate the right way. This allows the student to find a way to hold themselves that feels right.” Carlo also notes that around eighty percent of violinists regularly visit a physiotherapist. “I had to myself for almost three years, until I started doing yoga. Yoga helps you to notice where any tension is building up in your body, where your breathing happens and where your attention lies. Yoga has really helped me with the physical problems that have arisen from playing the violin.”

Awareness

Carlo firmly believes that the way in which you learn to play music is often where the roots of stage fright grow. More specifically, he says that believing there is ‘wrong way’ is what gives musicians stage fright. “Also, stage fright doesn’t always come from your early musical education. The cause isn’t always so clear. It could be to do with someone’s upbringing, or that someone is just particularly sensitive and prone to anxiety.” No matter the cause, any musician that suffers from stage fright wants to get rid of it. Because, ultimately, almost every musician wants to be able to play in front of an audience.

So what if you experience stage fright, or something else is holding you back. Maybe you think you don’t have any stage power. Whatever the cause, what can you do about it? “It starts with awareness,” answers Carlo. “So being aware that you lack stage power is the first step. It might sound simple, but that first process of awareness can actually take years.” And then? “Well, usually it’s not something that you can solve on your own. Yoga, meditation, mindfulness – it can all help, but you’ll also need help from somewhere else, so finding a coach or a music teacher who has a feel for what you’re going through and can help guide you is essential. I coach a lot of people who play a completely different instrument to the one I do. So, you don’t necessarily need to find a teacher or coach who specialises in your instrument.”

Stick Close to Your Instrument

The whole process can be a bumpy ride, admits Carlo. “It might even involve having to say goodbye to your current teacher, even if you’ve been taking lessons with them for years. That can be really difficult, so talk to your teacher about it and tell them why you need to change things. You might even find that your teacher fully understands the situation and already knows how you can tackle it. So sometimes, you don’t have to leave at all. If not, then you’ll need to find the courage to leave.” Are there any other possible obstacles? “It can be really hard to find the right person to work with – someone who’s going to give you exactly what you need. That’s something worth taking your time over.”

Carlo also offers anyone who makes music one final piece of advice: “Be daring enough to really submit yourself to the beauty of your instrument. Try to let go of a little control, because it’s that need for full control that’s in danger of limiting your artistic scope. So, don’t always play it safe. Don’t let your inner judge block your game and accept that sometimes, you can just have a bad day or a bad night. Bond with your instrument and realise that, even when playing music, being yourself is always the route to being accepted. If people sense that you’re genuine, they’ll accept all of your faults. If not, then seek out a different audience. Remember: no musician can compete with a rude audience.” And, to finish: “Any musician needs to practise – a lot! That’s unavoidable. But playing the notes, the piece or the song is only part of it. What it’s really about is your instrument. Trust your instrument, try to see it as an extension of yourself and do this very consciously, because that’s exactly what gives you stage power.”


An Interview with Esther van Fenema: Preparation & Acceptance

Esther van Fenema is part of the psychiatry department of the Leids University Medical Centre (LUMC), where she set up her music clinic: a specialised clinic for musicians with mental health issues. As far as she’s aware, it’s the only clinic of its kind in the world. “From the very start, we had a massive influx of patients. This was partly to do with the media attention we were getting, but it also quickly revealed that many musicians were suffering with various psychiatric problems. Fortunately, the majority of these people are easily treated, but stage fright is definitely the most common complaint, across popular music as well as classical music.”

Esther van Fenema studied at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam and graduated from the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. At the same time, she was studying medicine and later specialised in psychiatry. Now, she works as a psychiatrist at the LUMC in Leiden and moonlights as a violinist as part of a chamber ensemble. “Because I’m also a musician, I can really empathise with my patients. I even went through a period when I was experiencing stage fright myself and would often suffer panic attacks during performances, so I really have an understanding of it.”

A Sliding Scale

“Stage fright often sits on a sliding scale,” explains Esther. “In its most innocent form, you could call it nerves or the general anxiety that you feel before a performance. So, butterflies in your stomach are normal and nothing to worry about. Also, being a little bit nervous can actually help you to focus, but the trick lies in managing those nerves so that they don’t start limiting your performance. If that starts happening, then we start using terms like stage fright.”

At least half of the patients that come to Esther’s music clinic are suffering from stage fright. “We also see people with depression, general anxiety disorders and, for example, neural divergences like ADHD. People with ADHD often function very well as long as they only have to focus on their instrument, because that’s where their passion lies. When they’re sent to a conservatory to study, they’re also expected to take other side-subjects, which is where the concentration problems associated with ADHD are able to manifest themselves.” Sometimes, patients come with a combination of problems, one of which is stage fright. “That’s not that surprising,” according to Esther. “After all, it’s pretty hard to play music when you’re truly depressed, and that can easily lead to stage fright.”

Taboo

Esther is well aware that psychological issues are taboo within the music world. “Musicians prefer to pretend that these problems just don’t exist, whether they’re affecting themselves or someone else. But I’m almost certain that there are a lot of musicians out there who are struggling with their mental health, including stage fright. The people we see at the music clinic are just the tip of a big iceberg.”

Esther cites some scientific research: “More than two-thousand musicians were interviewed as part of a study in America. It was revealed that 24% of participants had stage fright, 30% used beta blockers, 17% suffered from depression, 13% suffered from general anxiety and 70% indicated that they occasionally experienced stage fright. This shows that a lot of musicians in America are contending with stage fright and other mental health issues. In Europe, the same is undeniably true.”

The mention of beta blockers raises further questions. These medications are usually prescribed to patients with cardiovascular disease and are used by musicians because they mask the less comfortable physical manifestations of anxiety and tension, including an increased heart rate, sweating and shaking. So, using beta blockers, you can suppress your nerves, as it were. “The use of beta blockers is rife in classical music,” Esther remarks. “Musicians working in popular music tend to lean on alcohol and drugs. That doesn’t help either because, when self-medicating, the cure is often worse than the disease. Overuse of alcohol can actually lead to anxiety and depression. Drugs and alcohol also have a disastrous effect on your timing and motor skills and, in the long term, are extremely bad for your health, so you definitely won’t find an antidote to stage fright there.”

Classical vs. Pop

In general, playing classical music demands more precision than playing pop music. If you play one note even a little falsely, then you’ll hear it. This immediately makes you think that stage fright is probably more common in classical musicians than in pop musicians. “That is true to a certain extent, but I’ve also noticed that many pop musicians also suffer,” says Esther. “Stage fright can result from, for example, not being able to improvise anymore. This actually has a clear explanation because any severe stress can evoke three primitive reactions: fight, flight or freeze. Musicians who are told they can no longer improvise and must play every note in the score will often just freeze.”

Stress is originally intended as a potentially life-saving response to danger. Stress releases certain neural chemicals that can help make you extra strong and less sensitive to pain. This response was extremely useful when, for example, we encountered predators, since it released extra power, giving you the energy needed to fight or run. This means that stress itself is designed for extremely intense situations. Too much of it for too long can have a negative effect on your mental and physical wellbeing. Chronic stress can even make you ill. “Some people can handle stress better than others,” explains Esther. “This is partly to do with your hereditary disposition. Your environment and circumstances also play a role. Anyone who becomes a musician is choosing an extremely stressful working environment. This brings the extra risk of mental health issues, especially if you’re susceptible to them.”

A Stress-Prone Profession

Is it the case that a lot of musicians are already vulnerable to mental health issues? “That’s an interesting question, and one that I would love to research,” answers Esther. “Musicians sit in the top five of stress-sensitive groups. They are an extremely high risk group when it comes to developing psychological issues.” Next to possible predispositions, environmental factors definitely also play a part. “As children, some musicians can be pushed really hard by their parents. Being a musician then becomes strongly bound to their self-image. If they make a mistake as musicians, it’s like they’ve made a mistake as a person.”

Esther’s patients span a range of ages. “Older musicians can develop problems because they feel the next generation breathing down their necks. This becomes even worse if they feel like their body is not able to do what it used to, and playing music is getting more difficult. You sometimes see this with wind and brass musicians.” A striking number of conservatory students also attend the clinic. “I’ve noticed that very little coaching is given at conservatories, which can result in students starting to struggle. What you also often see in conservatory students is that, in their hometown, they were the hot shots but when they finally get to the conservatory, they find themselves surrounded by hot shots, which some students find really hard.”

Competition can also be a factor, which can get quite intense within the music world. “As a result, musicians do not like to reveal their weaknesses, because that could work against them. You also see that perfection is the goal in music, partly because recordings often sound perfect after all of that mixing and mastering. A lot of patients that come through the clinic are perfectionists and are very driven people, which is easily explained because it is a quality that you actually need in order to make good music. But the problem is that it can just as easily turn against you.”

Traumatic Stage Fright

A musician suffering from stage fright is actually suffering from an occupational disease. While a brick layer could develop back problems and a computer programmer might develop RSI, with musicians there’s something extra, as Esther has discovered. “For musicians, it’s not just a profession. It’s their passion; their life-purpose. Making music is not just a job you do. It’s what you are. For a musician, making music comes very close to what makes them human – it’s part of being human. As I’ve already mentioned, when a musician makes a mistake on stage, they see it as making a mistake as a human.” This means that mental health problems among musicians aren’t like normal occupational diseases. “With any other profession, if you experience problems, you can just look for other kinds of work. For a musician, it just doesn’t work that way. You can’t just say to a musician: ‘maybe you should choose a different career.’”

Esther sees a lot of cases of what’s referred to as traumatic stage fright. “A musician may have had just one bad performance or made one big mistake. With some people, this kind of traumatic experience isn’t properly stored in the brain. Before or during every performance that follows, the memory will return and promote stage fright. What you also see is some musicians who were already quite nervous become even more nervous after such an experience.” Stage fright actually covers a broad range of symptoms. It can start with feeling nervous long before a performance and can be so bad that it can lead to vomiting, loss of sleep and even gastrointestinal problems. Once on stage, the fear can manifest itself in a panic attack: shaking, sweating, a dry mouth, palpitations and the terrifying sense that you’re going to die or go insane. “Sometimes, people experience such extreme panic attacks that all they can do is run off stage.” Stage fright can also have long term effects, forcing people to call in sick and keep them out of action for a long time. It can even invoke agoraphobia and prevent people from even daring to attend auditions, forcing them into a poorly paid circuit. Such levels of stress can also cause an array of physical problems as well as pure misery.

Easily Treated

Fortunately, in Esther’s experience, the majority of musicians with stage fright and other psychological problems can be treated. “Sometimes I prescribe medication, just so people can feel stabilised before they start the real work. Talking therapy or other forms of therapy are then much more effective. After treatment, most musicians are able to function as they did before, while some remain sensitive.” So severe stage fright doesn’t necessarily mark the end of a musician’s career then, just as long as they seek the right help.

What can you do if you’re experiencing a ‘normal’ level of stage fright or just feeling nervous before every show? A lot of musicians really suffer with this, making them feel like they can only perform way below their best. Esther has a few words of wisdom: “It’s important to create a safe environment for yourself. You can do this by preparing well and knowing the piece or the set inside and out. Then, at the very least, that part can’t go wrong. It’s also very important to practise at home at the same time of the day or night that you will be performing. Your body can respond differently in the morning to how it responds in the evening.” She continues: “Make sure that you’re well rested, that your body feels good and that your breathing is calm before every performance. During the performance, try not to let the things that you didn’t expect surprise you. Also, arrive on time and well ahead of your stage time, so you can get familiar with the environment and situation. Also, take the time to have a good soundcheck. And, just as importantly, dare to accept that you’re not likely to perform at your best under bad conditions. For example, it’s very hard to play well when you’re fighting with bad stage sound. If you can’t do anything about it at that specific moment, then make the best of it. Accept that you have done everything that you could do and avoid seeing any errors as a personal failure.”

See also…

» Musician-Related Injuries: 8 Ways to Avoid Them
» Vocal Damage: How Does it Happen?
» How To Sing And Play At The Same Time
» Sitting Posture for Musicians: Learn to Sit Again
» Want to Play Tight? Then Nail These Exercises
» Drummers! Build Yourself an Ergonomic Setup
» Tips to Help You Memorise Sheet Music
» Independence Exercises for Drummers
» How to Hold Your Drumsticks
» Learn how to play with a plectrum!
» Adjusting Your Guitar Strap: Playing Comfort or Looks?

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