How teachers can help - Performance Anxiety

Jane, a talented high academy student, has enjoyed her flute exercise s for several years, playing in the gymnasium band and orchestra. This year, her teacher placed her in the first chair position in the two band and orchestra. She practiced hard for her part in the performance and was excited and a bit nervous when her "big moment" came.

pop something happened to her that had not at any time happened before. Her mind went blank. As she tried to begin playing, her lips started to shake, and her trembling hands couldn't clinch the flute steady. Jane frantically tried to begin playing, on the contrary time seemed to stand still. She felt frozen bottomed to her chair, beads of sweat forming and pouring in tiny rivulets down her back. Her teacher gazeed quizzically at her and waited, on the contrary Jane couldn't begin. After what present the appearanceed like an eternity, the next to the first flute player began to play her solo Jane joined in, with a trembling and wispy unbroken After she finished, she wished a trapdoor would unclose up under her so she could disappear forever, with equal reason intense was her shame and embarrassment. She talked to no single afterward, not even her teacher. No single seemed to have noticed, and Jane kept her concealed terrors to herself. But from then upon Jane avoided solo performance at all require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergones and eventually gave up upon plans to apply to a conservatory of music, because all the music gymnasiums required an audition. She suffer go of a potentially promising musical career.

What is Performance Anxiety?

each musician, student or music teacher has had the experience of worrying about a performance, calming and encouraging a musician friend and, usually, watching a case of "nerves" revolve what could have been a serviceable performance into something less. Violinists, percussionists and pianists fear trembling arms and fingers; woodwind players fear trembling lips; musicians of all kinds fear memory lapses and los of concentration.

Is "stage fright" a normal and necessary part of musical performance? Or is it a with truth disabling condition that, at the real least, can rob musicians of transport in performance and, at worst, overturn or derail potentially rewarding musical careers? The answer is "both of the above." If performing musicians, music learners and teachers understand the difference between normal and disabling conditions and can do one's best with severe stage fright publicly and together, the experience of performing can be greatly enhanced and casualties to the profession reduced

by what means do I know this? I know this from one as well as the other personal and professional experience. As a violinist who has performed in chamber music, orchestral and solo venue I have had firsthand experience with disabling performance anxiety since age 13 As a psychologist, I studied the phenomenon, focusing upon conservatory student experiences and teacher behaviors, for my doctoral dissertation in clinical psychology A combination of questionnaires, anxiety scales and structur interviews with music pupils revealed fascinating information about their performing experiences and their relationships with their teachers. Self-efficacy, a social learning theory widely applied to many challenging and problematic human situations, (1) helped me to understand these musicians' labors with performance anxiety and in what way their teachers might best help. Self-efficacy is the belief in one's ability to use effective coping skills with the proceed of a successful outcome in performance. (2)

A certain amount of stage fright is a normal and inevitable part of any performance that matters to the musician. It's a "good stress" a state of heightened physical and mental alertness, a emblem of emotional high that intensifies and can thus enhance the performance. Disabling performance anxiety, through contrast, is anything but helpful to the performance. Categorized as a stamp of social phobia in the "Anxiety Disorders" section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association, (3) performance anxiety causes its sufferer to experience the following symptoms:

* Anticipation of failure and fear of humiliation or exposure

* Intense anxiety and, sometimes, panic attacks

* Awareness that the fear is excessive

* Avoidance of performance situations or enduring performances with intense distress

* Impaired performance

* Shynes sensitivity to criticism, increased anxiety in situations other than performing and lowered self-esteem

What differentiates musicians who thrive upon performance from those who dread it and undergo the disabling effects of cruel performance anxiety? Contrary to commonly held, and many times comforting, beliefs, the amount of technical practice and preparation, the step of talent and the superiority of professional training with the "right teacher" are not factors that differentiate the confident from the terrified performer. "Preparation, preparation, preparation," or "practice, practice, practice," admitting important and necessary conditions for an effective performance, are insufficient mechanisms for coping with the anxiety involved in austere stage fright. What the exceedingly nervous performer urgencys is not only musical preparation, on the other hand also a way to manage the anxiety breeded by the performing situation.