Stage Fright

I used to have problems with nerves on stage (still do, sometimes). It bugged me so much that I did a senior thesis on it -- a study of performance anxiety. The results were interesting, but didn't really help me much. What did help was jumping out of an airplane.

Several years ago, I took a quick course on parachuting, then went up and jumped out of a plane twice in one day. It was the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life. And I'll never do it again.

What I learned from jumping was how to control fear. Fear is with you the entire time: it sits next to you on the plane the whole way up. It puts its arm around you and smiles in your face. Then when you are sitting in the door of the plane about to jump, it grabs you and tries to hold you in the plane. If you simply push your way past the fear, you have an incredibly exciting experience.

The fear one feels when looking down 5,000 feet from an airplane is different, but no less real, than the fear one feels while on stage. Many people would actually prefer the parachute to the stage.

There's one difference between these two fears: The fear one feels on stage is not the fear of anything fatal. You won't die if you make a mistake. The very worst that will happen is you may suffer some mild embarrassment.

A couple years ago, in a particularly high pressure situation at an orchestral concert (which I am generally not nervous about), I stood up to play a solo, and was gripped with bad stage fright. I was temporarily terrified and did not play well.

The next night before we performed the same song, I thought back to the fear that gripped me so firmly while my feet dangled in the air 5000 feet up, and a little stage fright seemed almost quaint. The solo went just fine.

For liability purposes, I do not recommend that every guitar student jump from a plane. But it did help me.

P.S. This is just one small part of the equation. The most important aspect of conquering stage fright is thorough preparation.