How to Practice for Recital and Overcome Stage Fright (includes a printable checklist)
- Oct 15, 2017
- 4 min read
Stage performance is a challenging art form, whether you’re acting out a role in a musical, giving a speech in front of a crowd, or even playing a solo. It can be even more anxiety-inducing if you’re a perfectionist.
Joan Acocella’s I CAN’T GO ON! What’s behind stagefright? in The New Yorker talks about even professional musicians, from famous pianist Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, to Barbra Streisand and Adele, experienced various level and syndrome of stage fright. Based on my experience, as the children grow older and become aware of the surroundings, people’s judgement, self-pride, they start to experience stage fright. Sometimes, even the parents are more nervous than their children.
Stage fright, also called performance anxiety, is a normal human reaction. Students might feel worried, nervous, and some level of anxiety before, during, or after a performance. Anxiety is not completely a bad thing. With a healthy dose, it could boost a student’s study. After all, we all need to learn to perform well under pressure.
Here, I would like to share some tips about how to practice for your upcoming studio recital and have your performance anxiety under control.
PERFORMANCE PREPARATION
1. Prepare your piece well with good fundamentals. Following the teacher’s study plan, and don’t wait until last minute. Miracle will not happen.
2. Know where you are performing and who will be watching. For example, if you’re playing in a retirement home, audience will come and go, make noises, or even sing with your piece. Don’t feel surprised by the distractions during the performance.
3. Mock performance.
At your home practice, pretend you are now playing the recital.
Record yourself and watch it. You’ll feel a little pressured when your performance is being recorded. In addition, listen to your own performance allows you to reassess your playing from a different angle. It is a very good exercise.
Perform for your parents, siblings, or people who visit your family. Try to expose yourself in these little performances and you will become more confident when it is the real deal.
Perform in school’s talent show when there is a chance.
4. Identify the spots that you easily play wrong, especially when you are nervous. Practice those spots until you feel comfortable. But also practice recovering from mistakes—keep playing, don’t stop, don’t make inappropriate face.
5. A week or 2 before a performance, recital, or exam, DO NOT practice the piece the way you will perform it repeatedly. This will cause more stress and make the performance on the day stale. Play slowly without full strength, make sure you have control over your fingers, good memory of notes, and make sense of phrases.
6. Check your clothes. It is a good idea to practice with your recital outfit on, just to check if you can move freely and breathe. Do not wait until you are about to leave the house and still deciding what to wear.
7. Eat right, sleep well before the recital. My clarinet teacher even told me to watch a movie on the night before the recital. The point is don’t think about your big performance too much and stress out.
BEFORE YOU WALK ON STAGE / DURING THE PERFORMANCE
1. Arrive the performance place ahead of time to feel the space, tune your instrument, or try out the piano if you are a pianists.
2. Nervous is normal. Your job is to perform what you have prepared, rather than paying attention to your anxiety. Concentrate on the music that you are about to play. Like Schumann said, "When you play, never mind who listens to you."
3. Be confident and think positive. Even if there is a little voice in your head saying “you’re going to mess up,” don’t listen to it. Try to relax and breathe. You have been working so hard for this moment. Everything will be just fine.
4. Some people find eat banana or drink milk will help you to calm down, but I didn’t feel any difference. You could try it.
5. Visualize the beginning of the piece, think through the tempo before you start.
6. If you made a mistake, don’t stop and keep playing! If you are play with a piano accompanist, you must keep going too. Your pianist will catch up. If you have a blackout, restart from a preceding section or a following section that you know well (the following section is preferred).
7. Do It. Make music!
AFTER THE PERFORMANCE
1. Review the recital and evaluate your strengths and weaknesses so that the practice/preparation can be improved.
2. If you are satisfied with your performance, take pride and celebrate it. If you didn’t do well and received harsh criticism, sleep with it. There is a tomorrow.
3. Learning to perform well under pressure takes time. Always be looking for performance opportunity and try to make a small improvement every time.
Dr. Nao Kageyama, a performance psychologist, wrote a nice article called A Few Things Every Musicians Ought to Know About Stage Fright, in which he tells what classical musicians would normal do to ease anxiety but actually didn’t work. It is a good read. Here are tips that children want to give to other children who will make their debut:
If you make a mistake, keep going.
Practice until you feel confident, until you can accommodate pressure.
Say “you’re fine” to yourself.
Try not to think how worry you are, believe in yourself.
Think something (happy thought) that will calm you down.
If you like to have a checklist of performance preparation and tips, click HERE. Happy performing!
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