Music Performance Anxiety - How You Can Stop Worrying About It

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In this video I'll show you why music performance anxiety itself isn't the main issue - how you REACT to it is just as important. If you worry less, then its effects are massively reduced. Not easy, I know, but I've got some tips to help you do just that...

With that, here's what you'll learn in today's video.

First, although music performance anxiety feels unpleasant and unhelpful, it's actually a perfectly normal response to what you perceive as a threatening situation. And it turns out that worrying about those symptoms of anxiety can actually make things worse.

Interestingly, there isn't a huge difference between the physical responses during a performance of musicians who suffer badly from nerves and those who don't - so any impact on how well you play from the physical side of things will be minimal. The difference is in how they FEEL those physical responses and how worried they are that they will have negative consequences.

That's the reason WHY you don’t need to worry so much about performance anxiety. But HOW do you do this in practice? The trick is to have something else planned out in advance that you're going to concentrate on instead. Finding an effective way to do this - and practicing it in advance - will set you up for a much more enjoyable, and effective performance.

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I was told when you feel your heart race don't consider it anxiety, call it excitement, so it's the same sensation but a different mindset.

tsimons

At 4:43 'To work on having something specific to focus on . . ." I totally agree, and since you invited us to comment on what we personally focus on, here's what has made all the difference for me. I've been an avid student of the classical guitar for over 50 years, and have experienced the shaking leg syndrome myself--only with me, it really WAS shaking visably! I think the secret is to get as good as you can at hearing and singing intervallic distances through fixed-do solfege, and incorporate that into your visualizations and harmonic analysis. Incorporate solfeging the main melody into your daily practice, then keep your focus on this during your performance, just as when you practice and when you visualize. Solfeging gives you a golden thread for your attention in performance. You may get distracted with random thoughts here and there, but then you just slip your attention back onto the familiar thread!

williamash

Thank you for discussing performance anxiety. Mine was/is always so strong, that it feels like dying. Has to do with childhood experiences. My go to skill to try and calm myself down is movement! I can't think my way out of anxiety, but I can dance or shake my way out of it. Because in this way my body can get rid of some of the cortisol and instead maybe produce some endorphins, that make it easier for me to think of my nervous body as "excited", more than "anxious".

innaslifeinmusic

Hey Mark, thank you for your valuable advices.
In this video you mentioned the changed perception of your own playing.
I would like to add little story of my own. I started to compose my own music
some weeks ago. Therefore I finally found a workflow that fits to my own way to approach music.
I play electric guitar for 20 years and my focus was always on improvisation. So my way is to take a small piece of music, for example drums and bass, and jam over it. I know I can record maybe 20 takes in a row, so I don't have to be perfect in every take.
Now comes the interesting part: My perception of what I have just recorded is usually pretty negative. I could listen to the takes just after recording and I would not like them. I could play like Hendrix, I wouldnt even notice :D Everything feels like crap.
The trick is, that I know it happens all the time. So I put the records away for one or two days. Then, on the next train ride I get out my headphones and check the stuff. And very often everything is different. I will find some really, really nice parts, rearrange them in my DAW like Legobricks and then create music I love. :-)
So I play a trick on my perception. Just don't take it too seriously just after the performance.

realfishmusic

What’s helpful is also to play in front of people on a regular basis if you do that it becomes more of a habit but if you always play on your own then that’s when it gets scary to play in front of an audience I suppose buskers are the most relaxed performers

Tyler-

I have a musical performance after two hours
I'm not nervous now but I'm concerned that I'll feel that in the performance and mess it up bec I've done it a lot before ... So I'll try this time to take it easy and focus on what I'm doin instead concerning myself about alot of things at the same time thank u for this video wish me luck 💙💙

gannagamal

Hello everyone I have been a Musician for 30 years, never had a problem getting on stage play or sing last few years anxiety really gets me have to drink a few beers to loosen up but that is not the answer or a good resolution IAlso gained some weight during the pandemic so i feel afraid of agitating hope everyone is fine have a great evening

miguelkennedy