Many a singer, instrumentalist, actor, dancer, and speaker knows that horrible, crippling anxiety that can come up before a performance and make you want to run away…
There’s a lot of advice out there, on how to overcome stage fright.
That’s one of the greatest challenges performing artists face and try to come to terms with.
I dedicated a long chapter of my online singing course “Free The Power Of Your Voice – A Complete Practical Guide To Opera Singing” to stage fright.
I remember suffering from it quite severely at the beginning; wondering why on earth I was doing this to myself; and wouldn’t it be much better to work in a shoe shop? I remember the pounding heart, the red face, the dry mouth, the sweaty hands and the strong impulse to disappear and never be seen again.
I had to work a lot on that! I started by improving the preparation of my performances, I would put more and more time into practising and rehearsing and that definitely made a great difference… it made me les and less stressed, and more and more confident.
Then I started improving my looks: hairstyle, makeup, dress, the way I walked in and out, my posture. I worked on smiling at the audience despite the stress and distress, on making more and more eye contact, on trying to look like I was at ease, even if inside I wanted to die. Then I slowly increased the number, length, and difficulty of the pieces I would perform, one step at a time, and I got more and more used to it.
It was a gradual and demanding thing for me to do, but it worked, and it made it possible for me to become a professional. Otherwise, can you imagine associating your profession with constant agony? What a terrible life that would be!
My personal experience, as well as my experience with other singers and musicians, shows me that there’s a lot you can do to lower stage fright, and even get rid of it.
And over the years, my way of helping singers tackle this challenge, has been increasingly focussed on their mindset and their deeper purpose. The mindset part of that, is about accepting that performing is not about us, but about the music, and about the audience that we’re here to serve. And the purpose side of that, is about finding our own, very personal reasons for wanting to perform, our deepest “why”.
Once the technical and musical preparation on one side, and the mindset and purpose on the other side are settled, there’s no room left for stage fright. In this powerful light, stage fright just loses its relevance and its reason for existing, and we’re free at last, to let the voice of our souls sound in all their magnificence.