I took regular piano instruction for twelve years.
For nine of those years, I attended every small recital and concert that my instructor recommended me to. I practiced various pieces for them, depending on the theme: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and more. There were generally two or three, sometimes four recitals and concerts in a year. One was always hosted by my instructor for her studio. The others were always these get-togethers for instructors of the community to show off their students, raise their prestige, and push those students to the forefront so that they could be seen and heard, perhaps earn accolades, and maybe even be "scouted".
Nine years. Eighteen recitals and concerts at least, twenty-seven at most.
Trust me when I say that I know exactly how you feel.
I didn't get into music, didn't choose to play piano, because I wanted to be a professional, or because my parents forced me to it, or because I was looking to show off. I genuinely love music, especially the works of the Romantic era (Classical and Baroque pieces still hold a strong place in my heart). I love listening, and even more so I love making music, knowing that I can sit down, on my own, whenever I want, place my fingers on the keyboard, and create something beautiful.
But here's the rub: instruction, my teacher told me, is guidance, and practice is, well, practice. The best way to improve was to be exposed to what others could do, so that I'd find my drive, so that I'd strive to better myself, to improve, to be lit on fire, so to speak. Public performances, I was told, were for my own good.
It never feels that way at the time. You're sitting there, hands in your lap, head tucked down, and then, at last, after an eternity of waiting, you hear your name called, and you panic. Except this isn't the sudden panic of cartoons, where the person in question is twitching and running about like a spaz. No. It's not sudden at all. It's a cold chill throughout your entire body, a heavy weight in your chest, a thousand butterflies in your stomach and a million needles across your skin, and that feeling has been building ever since you walked in and sat down. You’re sitting there, and you’re listening to everyone before you, who had their turn first, and they’re setting their fingers to the keys and something marvelously divine is filling the air, but you can’t soar with them, no, that weight in your chest is holding you down, because they’re so good, you’ll never be that good, you’re awful, why didn't you practice more, why couldn't you be better, why are you even here, you sit down at home and turds fall from the sky when you play, you can’t take this, you don’t belong here, you’re a miserable waste of space, you never belonged here and you never will, and that’s when you hear your name called. Now you’re on a precipice. Part of you wants to stand. Part of you wants to stand up and burst into tears, and regretfully inform the crowd that you’re sorry, you can’t, you have to go. That same part of you wants to walk out, wants to run even because you can’t bear the feel of their eyes on you, you want to leave and go home and cry and never come back.
But there’s also a part of you that wants to swallow down all your doubts and fears, wants to nod and step out of the aisle and walk up there and sit down at the bench. You want to set your hands and feet in their places, take as many long, deep breaths as you think you can afford, and then play. You will fuck up. You will hit a wrong note here and there. You’re too loud on this section, and too quiet on the next. You might even freeze up, your mind blanking because you don’t remember what comes next, and you either have to stand and bow, or else suffer the intense silence and the murmuring that follows until memory, mind or muscle, kicks back in. And once you’re done, once you’ve played your part, the pressure is lifted, the weight is gone… but the dread isn’t. Because as you stand to bow, you’re aware: they’re judging you. They’ve been judging you the whole time. All you want to do is play, to have fun, to make music, to listen, to bask, but you have to perform and now they’re judging you for it and what right do they have and oh god they probably think you’re awful, you were nowhere near as good as the folks before you….
What you don’t realize until a long, long time after, years even, is that each and every person in that crowd is rooting for you. They are hoping to hear something beautiful flow from your fingertips. They are cheering you on. Why? Because they’re not here for a perfect rendition. Perfect renditions are boring.
They’re here for YOUR rendition.
Yes, they might have shown up for their child, or their friend, or someone they know. They’re not really here for you. But polite niceties require that they sit through the entire show, and that means that, when you get up on stage, they’re hoping you give it your all, that you can produce something that’ll catch their attention, their interest, that you’ll entice and seduce and enchant them. They don’t want to hear same old Beethoven’s Fifth as played a hundred thousand times by everyone else, their mother, the television and the film industries.
They want your take.
That’s how much you matter to them, at that moment.
I almost always cried when I got home. I was rarely satisfied with my own performance. But gradually, I learned that I was improving. My instructor would bring me the review and commentary sheets from the real judges, the instructors from colleges and universities and conservatories, and they’d be wonderful. “I really liked your take on this section!†“Work on your memorization, you missed a few notes, but I’m looking forward to hearing more from you.†“You have a talent for evoking feeling.†Always, they would know where I screwed up… but they weren’t interested in my faults. They were interested in what I, and I alone, could bring to the music. They loved hearing the way I splashed myself onto the pages, how I colored the music.
So you know what I did? What I kept doing?
I’d take those fears, and that pain, and the tears, and the regret, and I’d ball it up, and I’d feed that ball as fuel to the fire. I told myself I’d do better next time, that I’d practice, that I wouldn’t half-ass it, that I’d put more time and more importantly more attention into my time at the piano, and that I wouldn’t just fall back on muscle memory – that I’d listen to myself play. And you know what? I did. And I got better.
I still get that feeling, every time I sit down at the piano, whether it’s for a recital or for friends and family. Even when it’s for myself, because I can hear every mistake, every off-kilter note. The cold is always there. So is the weight. So are the butterflies and the needles. But it’s worth it. I love creating. I love soaring. And if I have to suffer a little so that I can soar with others, and they can soar with me, so be it. I’ll be smiling and laughing as I cry at the keyboard, so to speak.
Performance anxiety feels awful.
But it can be a good kind of awful. All you have to do to improve your self-confidence is to keep throwing yourself back out there, no matter how much it hurts. Eventually, those review sheets will come back with A’s and S’s and “EXQUISITE†and “I loved it, I was moved to tears."
Mine did. Took nearly seven or eight of my nine years to get there, but they did.
You can do it.
For nine of those years, I attended every small recital and concert that my instructor recommended me to. I practiced various pieces for them, depending on the theme: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and more. There were generally two or three, sometimes four recitals and concerts in a year. One was always hosted by my instructor for her studio. The others were always these get-togethers for instructors of the community to show off their students, raise their prestige, and push those students to the forefront so that they could be seen and heard, perhaps earn accolades, and maybe even be "scouted".
Nine years. Eighteen recitals and concerts at least, twenty-seven at most.
Trust me when I say that I know exactly how you feel.
I didn't get into music, didn't choose to play piano, because I wanted to be a professional, or because my parents forced me to it, or because I was looking to show off. I genuinely love music, especially the works of the Romantic era (Classical and Baroque pieces still hold a strong place in my heart). I love listening, and even more so I love making music, knowing that I can sit down, on my own, whenever I want, place my fingers on the keyboard, and create something beautiful.
But here's the rub: instruction, my teacher told me, is guidance, and practice is, well, practice. The best way to improve was to be exposed to what others could do, so that I'd find my drive, so that I'd strive to better myself, to improve, to be lit on fire, so to speak. Public performances, I was told, were for my own good.
It never feels that way at the time. You're sitting there, hands in your lap, head tucked down, and then, at last, after an eternity of waiting, you hear your name called, and you panic. Except this isn't the sudden panic of cartoons, where the person in question is twitching and running about like a spaz. No. It's not sudden at all. It's a cold chill throughout your entire body, a heavy weight in your chest, a thousand butterflies in your stomach and a million needles across your skin, and that feeling has been building ever since you walked in and sat down. You’re sitting there, and you’re listening to everyone before you, who had their turn first, and they’re setting their fingers to the keys and something marvelously divine is filling the air, but you can’t soar with them, no, that weight in your chest is holding you down, because they’re so good, you’ll never be that good, you’re awful, why didn't you practice more, why couldn't you be better, why are you even here, you sit down at home and turds fall from the sky when you play, you can’t take this, you don’t belong here, you’re a miserable waste of space, you never belonged here and you never will, and that’s when you hear your name called. Now you’re on a precipice. Part of you wants to stand. Part of you wants to stand up and burst into tears, and regretfully inform the crowd that you’re sorry, you can’t, you have to go. That same part of you wants to walk out, wants to run even because you can’t bear the feel of their eyes on you, you want to leave and go home and cry and never come back.
But there’s also a part of you that wants to swallow down all your doubts and fears, wants to nod and step out of the aisle and walk up there and sit down at the bench. You want to set your hands and feet in their places, take as many long, deep breaths as you think you can afford, and then play. You will fuck up. You will hit a wrong note here and there. You’re too loud on this section, and too quiet on the next. You might even freeze up, your mind blanking because you don’t remember what comes next, and you either have to stand and bow, or else suffer the intense silence and the murmuring that follows until memory, mind or muscle, kicks back in. And once you’re done, once you’ve played your part, the pressure is lifted, the weight is gone… but the dread isn’t. Because as you stand to bow, you’re aware: they’re judging you. They’ve been judging you the whole time. All you want to do is play, to have fun, to make music, to listen, to bask, but you have to perform and now they’re judging you for it and what right do they have and oh god they probably think you’re awful, you were nowhere near as good as the folks before you….
What you don’t realize until a long, long time after, years even, is that each and every person in that crowd is rooting for you. They are hoping to hear something beautiful flow from your fingertips. They are cheering you on. Why? Because they’re not here for a perfect rendition. Perfect renditions are boring.
They’re here for YOUR rendition.
Yes, they might have shown up for their child, or their friend, or someone they know. They’re not really here for you. But polite niceties require that they sit through the entire show, and that means that, when you get up on stage, they’re hoping you give it your all, that you can produce something that’ll catch their attention, their interest, that you’ll entice and seduce and enchant them. They don’t want to hear same old Beethoven’s Fifth as played a hundred thousand times by everyone else, their mother, the television and the film industries.
They want your take.
That’s how much you matter to them, at that moment.
I almost always cried when I got home. I was rarely satisfied with my own performance. But gradually, I learned that I was improving. My instructor would bring me the review and commentary sheets from the real judges, the instructors from colleges and universities and conservatories, and they’d be wonderful. “I really liked your take on this section!†“Work on your memorization, you missed a few notes, but I’m looking forward to hearing more from you.†“You have a talent for evoking feeling.†Always, they would know where I screwed up… but they weren’t interested in my faults. They were interested in what I, and I alone, could bring to the music. They loved hearing the way I splashed myself onto the pages, how I colored the music.
So you know what I did? What I kept doing?
I’d take those fears, and that pain, and the tears, and the regret, and I’d ball it up, and I’d feed that ball as fuel to the fire. I told myself I’d do better next time, that I’d practice, that I wouldn’t half-ass it, that I’d put more time and more importantly more attention into my time at the piano, and that I wouldn’t just fall back on muscle memory – that I’d listen to myself play. And you know what? I did. And I got better.
I still get that feeling, every time I sit down at the piano, whether it’s for a recital or for friends and family. Even when it’s for myself, because I can hear every mistake, every off-kilter note. The cold is always there. So is the weight. So are the butterflies and the needles. But it’s worth it. I love creating. I love soaring. And if I have to suffer a little so that I can soar with others, and they can soar with me, so be it. I’ll be smiling and laughing as I cry at the keyboard, so to speak.
Performance anxiety feels awful.
But it can be a good kind of awful. All you have to do to improve your self-confidence is to keep throwing yourself back out there, no matter how much it hurts. Eventually, those review sheets will come back with A’s and S’s and “EXQUISITE†and “I loved it, I was moved to tears."
Mine did. Took nearly seven or eight of my nine years to get there, but they did.
You can do it.