Comments on: Overcoming Stage Fright – Here’s What to Do

By: 10 Tips to calm stage fright « Session Obession

10 Tips to calm stage fright « Session Obession — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:16:53 +0000

[...] Overcoming Stage Fright – Tips to overcoming stage fright by Christine Kane [...]

By: Sarah Gershman

Sarah Gershman — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:21:08 +0000

Great post. I especially appreciate #9 – Perform from Fear.

I am a speech coach in DC and recently posted a small tip I learned about overcoming stagefright.
Green Room Speakers: sarahgershman.blogspot.com.

I would love to hear what you think.

Thanks,
Sarah

By: Mackie

Mackie — Sat, 23 May 2009 20:14:11 +0000

Hi, Christine…I’m living my dream and singing with two bands. For some reason I am having a bad case of nerves today before tonight’s show. In the back of my mind, I remembered reading this post so I looked it up. Great ideas, great thoughts, great support. As always, your words are inspiring and uplifting! I’m going to set my deadline now and get ready to get over it and get on with the show!

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:10:47 +0000

There are many moments for “stage fright”. Job interviews, for one. Or tough conversations with people you are at odds with. Any instance that involves public speaking. Personally, I find visualization to be very helpful. I really get into it: sit by myself in a safe place, close my eyes and call up the room where I’ll have my interview or the stage I’m going to speak on. I visualize the bad stuff: tripping and falling on my way to the podium, making a horrible gaff, telling a joke that falls flat. And then I visualize getting over it: getting back up and smiling, moving on from a bad joke. I focus on really feeling that feeling of nailing something. I end by cementing that image of me in my mind doing well, feeling strong and confident. Then when I get to the interview room or to the stage, I feel confident that I can handle anything. And if, God forbid, something does go wrong, my brain says, “Wait, we’ve been here before, just get up and keep smiling!”.

By: Janna

Janna — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:16:39 +0000

Thanks everybody for the info. I am just getting back into performing after 15 years of silence due to a performance where I blanked out. I am finding that inviting friends over in small groups and playing for them first is helping alot. The tips from Christine are helpful and I plan on using them in the future.

By: Judy Rodman

Judy Rodman — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:07:03 +0000

Hi Christine… I so love your blog; it is one of the most intellegently written and thought provoking about music on the net.

I don’t usually have issues with stage fright, but being human, I do feel it in certain situations. If I haven’t played out in a long time, the first song will cause the bottom of my ribcage to tighten (affecting breathing and control). What I do about that is to be sure and choose an easy song so my “horse can run the track a bit”. Then I’m off to the races.

I think it’s important to recognize the many levels of stage fright. Some are conducive to thought-retraining, but some are so core they require medical intervention. My brother-in-law Dr. James Hubbard (http://familydoctormag.com/)prescribes a beta-blocker such as propranolol for his wife who has panic attacks before performing.

It’s such a pervasive issue, I am doing three blog posts on the subject myself. They’ll be at http://judyrodman.com/blog if you wish to check them out. I will add a link on my blog to your great post here.

Thanks again for a great blog!

By: helena

helena — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 11:22:02 +0000

My partner F is a guitarist/composer who’s been working in music ever since he was 14. Despite the fact that he’s been performing now for the past twenty years he still gets stage fright.

I asked him once why he continued to do something which filled him with so much dread and he said that the terror was the thing which made him come up with so many new tricks and pieces, that if you knew you were standing up there playing the unplayable then you were protected from the audience, the gap between stage and floor was one that they couldn’t cross.

The second thing he mentioned was (as has already been said) that you had to practice, practice and practice some more (he still does his scales for at least four hours a day, and that’s on top of coming up with new stuff) so that even if your mind blanked out, your fingers knew what they were doing. In fact, he said that you aimed to have your mind blank out because it was then that you came up with the music of the moment.

The third thing he mentioned (which I’d never thought of) was that the audience wants to like whoever’s on stage. They aren’t there to point the finger and throw things – or at least not usually, he has some great stories of gigs gone horribly wrong.

By: Anton Pearce

Anton Pearce — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 05:19:12 +0000

Thanks for the article! I’ve had problems with stage fright myself so it’s good to read other perspectives on this.
I still get nervous any time I have to perform in front of others, but I find the best things to do are to be totally prepared, accept that a mistake doesn’t mean the whole thing is a disaster and get your breathing under control.
For anyone interested, another website that has articles and help for stage fright is http://www.stagefrighthelp.com

By: MONI

MONI — Sun, 27 May 2007 09:19:11 +0000

It’s the night of dress rehersal, and I’m sitting on the Romeo & Juliet balcony waiting for the blackout. On the blackout, the stage crew rolls the balcony on stage and leaves me. I’m shaking. The seats are empty except for a few mothers and teachers witnessing my fear. The balcony is empty too, but in the box the director of our company watches with eyes like a hawk’s… eyeing me like I’m prey.
The music starts and a spotlight shines over me on the balcony. I have to proove myself. I have to do this right! But my stage frieght over comes me half-way through the scene. I feel like my toes at the hard ends of my pointe shoes have been stubbed ten billion times. But worst of all– I’ve nearly blanked out. The choreography escapes me, sliding out my memory like water through my hands. It’s gone! Romeo leads me through the rest of the scene through whispered words and saves my sorry ass. But tonight is the real deal. Romeo can’t lead me through it anymore…

By: AJ

AJ — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:45:10 +0000

Hi Christine,
I am just catching up with the last few blog posts, and realized that just as this one was posted, I was nervously fiddling with the settings on my laptop as a way to distract me from a big meeting I was about to have with big, important people in a big organization in a big city. For me, the nervousness stemmed from a sense that I would be totally out of my depth and that I had no business seeking out these big, important people to discuss bold new directions. I am way too junior for that!
So, I switched from fiddling with my computer and instead re-wrote the talking points I wanted to cover, and just imagined and ’sat with’ being in the meeting…shaking hands with confidence…being tall…smiling…listening….talking…influencing…sharing ideas. I was still sort of nervous, but in a much different way. I am the only person who can bring my perspective. I am the only person, who so far, has got up to talk about these ideas….and of course, I am the only person on whom my confidence depends! And whether they like the ideas or not, is actually fairly immaterial I realized. So what if the direction I suggested is not the one they want to take. So what?
The meeting was awesome, and the ‘bold new direction’ is on several people’s minds today I think. Cool!