THE DOCTOR IS IN

UNPACKING PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

 

About three-quarters of the way through my singing class, I found out that the final class was to be a recital, in which each student would perform all of the songs worked on that semester in front of an audience consisting of classmates’ family and friends. If I had known about this requirement, I’m not sure I would have signed up for the class.

Auditions aside, I had never before performed a song alone for an audience. If you give me enough wine, I’ll sing at parties, but that’s just for fun. And auditions don’t count—they’re business, a means to an end. For me, that end was always the opportunity to back up the real singer. I’m good that that, and I enjoy it, which is probably why I’m now a professional listener and supporter.

The idea of standing up by myself in front of a roomful of strangers and singing just for the hell of it, as though I thought I were worth listening to, paralyzed me. I didn’t want to chicken out—part of the reason I had signed up for this class was to push past my comfort zone. Yet I didn’t see how I could go through with it, either.

I tried reasoning with myself. I used to act, I reminded myself, and now I teach seminars and give readings. I’m used to handling myself in front of strangers. I don’t fall apart. How was this different?

But it was. I made good use of the “fourth wall” when I was acting, the invisible boundary between the audience and the actors that allows the actors to relate to one another in intimate ways, as though alone. And when I read and teach, the material is paramount; when I’m passionate about what I want to communicate, I’m seldom self-conscious. I’m concerned about getting through to the audience, not about what they think of me as a person—and if I’m fascinated by a topic, I seldom imagine that it will bore or annoy others. (I’m not always right about that, but the belief serves to protect me.)

Thanks to the Internet, though, nearly everyone has access to any kind of music they want to hear, performed by musicians of the highest rank. What sort of hubris would enable me to command a roomful of strangers to listen to me sing “Bewitched” when with a few clicks they could watch Ella Fitzgerald sing it on YouTube? I had no new information, nuance of feeling, or subtlety of pitch or rhythm to convey. What was our teacher thinking? Why should I go along with this?

Jimmy, the composer/performer friend who has served as my unofficial coach throughout this process, tried to reason with me, too. “You’ll be fine,” he told me. “You have a good, clear voice and an excellent ear.”

Jimmy spent hours rehearsing with me, suggesting gestures and line readings that would help communicate the essence of the songs. We had a great time playing with them, and I knew his suggestions were first rate. Yet every time I imagined the recital, my throat closed up and I became functionally tone-deaf.

At home, I tried relaxation exercises. I tried visualizing myself as Ella Fitzgerald, opening my mouth and hearing smooth, perfect notes flow effortlessly. And I just got more nervous.

Which, finally, clued me in to what was really worrying me.

When I was growing up, one of the worst crimes an adult could accuse me of was showing off, or getting too big for my britches. “Pride goeth before a fall,” my grandmother used to say, intimating that this was the proper order of things.

Back in those dark ages, girls were discouraged from putting themselves forward, from competing with boys. (This never happens now, as we all know.) In my mother’s WASP culture, a lady’s name was allowed to appear in the paper under only five conditions: when she was born, when she came out, when she was married, when she had children, and when she died. If she was noticed by the media for any other reason, she was clearly not a lady.

My father’s parents were Irish immigrants. They had definite ideas about the separate roles of boys and girls, too. Furthermore, there was a general cultural prohibition against getting above oneself; nails that stuck out were handily hammered down.

I was a precocious reader and writer. Several of my elementary school teachers pushed for me to skip a grade, but my parents resisted. I would have no friends, they said. Nobody likes a smarty pants. They didn’t come out and say so, but I got the strong feeling that they would have preferred a child of more average abilities and interests. So I did my best not to stand out—and a funny thing happened. I started losing confidence in my thoughts and opinions. When I had something to contribute to a class discussion or even an informal conversation, I tended to second-guess myself: How good could my idea be if no one else had thought of it? Often, by the time I worked up the courage to express myself, the conversation had moved on.

It wasn’t until I went away to college, where pretty much everyone was smart, that I started to feel comfortable expressing my thoughts again. But even in graduate school, I was reprimanded for “apologizing for my brains.” I had no idea what that meant at first, but then several people pointed out that I offered my best ideas in such a soft, tentative voice that their first impulse was to dismiss them.

I had thought I’d dealt with all of this long ago, but apparently I need to keep learning the same lesson over and over again in different settings. I asked myself why it was that I could relax and open my voice with Jimmy, who was ten times more accomplished than anyone else I was likely to sing for, including my teacher. If this were simple insecurity, why wouldn’t I be more intimidated by him than by these imagined scary strangers? Because I couldn’t possibly threaten Jimmy. The idea was laughable. Whereas if I got up and sang like Ella, wouldn’t my classmates hate and resent me?

Probably not. Of course, I’ll never know, but they are kind, supportive people, and their kindness extends to both the least accomplished and the most gifted singers in the class. If I had suddenly outshone them, chances are they would have reacted with joyous excitement.

I changed the theme of my visualization. I populated the room with Jimmy, Ella, Frank, and a host of other way-out-of-my-league performers. I sang to them, and my voice and heart opened.

The night of the performance, I did not sing anything like Ella. I doubt I wowed anyone except the friends and family I had brought, who always give me a charitable exemption. I was shaky, especially at first. I went off the rails on one song, accidentally skipping to the end and stumbling through a dark forest for a minute or two before I found my way back home. But I sang with a full heart, and in pretty good voice, and when I finished my classmates, and my friends and theirs, erupted into enthusiastic cheers, hoots and whistles—just as we all did, for everyone who was brave enough to stand up and sing.

I’ve re-upped, and there are some real superstars in my new class. I’m hoping they will motivate me to push myself harder. And I’m looking at how I hold back in my writing, too—at who I might be afraid of threatening. Because there I really could compete. I think.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Comments

[tanita]

As always, these are such an encouragement and a doorway into explaining my own hesitations and false starts when it comes to sharing my gifts. So few people understand parents who wouldn't encourage a kid to the hilt, but they were mine, too. I was essentially told to stop trying to shine. Funny how those lessons stick with us.

[Lorra Laven]

So here's the deal: I have performed countless times as a concert pianist and I can tell you that I always get very nervous right before I go on stage. But, it does become easier the more you do it. And the good news is, once you're into the music, your nervousness usually vanishes especially if you're inside the so-called "tunnel," meaning you are so involved in what's going on in the music, you forget the audience is even there.

But even though I know the nervousness will vanish and that I can get through the performance without fainting dead away, I still have a terrible sense of dread as the time of the concert approaches. I want to kick myself for agreeing to perform and I'm tempted, every time, to run screaming into the night. Still, I keep doing this. Mashed potatoes for brains, I guess.

I have, however, found a few helpful techniques to overcome that sense of panic. It's really important to open up your rib cage, breath deeply. I push down on a table with my palms to open up my rib cage, drawing in long, deep breaths, releasing it slowly. While I do this, I think about the opening passage of the music.

My understanding is that stage fright is the result of your blood pressure rising and if you can control your BP, you'll control your stage fright. (A lot of young musicians taking auditions take drugs to keep their blood pressure from rising, something I believe can be dangerous.) Bananas are supposed to help and I do eat a couple an hour before I play.

Anyhow, think of me October 8th, breathing deeply and trying not to pass out while resisting the urge to make a run for it.

[John River]

惊悉摇滚天王Michael Jackson刚刚逝世，令全球粉丝悲痛万分。那是一个时代的结束，宛若上世纪猫王离世！不过值得庆幸的是Michael不像Myspace那样来大陆卖身（我这次仍然未指邓文迪）；Jackson也不学Yahoo那样到内地做共匪的干儿子！

——摘自《何健语录》，欢迎转载，谢谢支持！