This has probably happened to you: A piece you’re working on goes well during a practice session, but falls apart when you play it for your teacher—or, worse, in a concert. It’s the result of performance anxiety, something you can control only if you understand what causes it.

Gerald Klickstein, music professor at the North Carolina School of the Arts, is preparing a book on performance preparation. He says that the first step toward building confidence in performance is sorting out the things that can make you nervous. The second step is acquiring specific techniques that counter whatever activates your nerves.

“When I ask students about what makes performers jittery,” Klickstein says, “they usually have intuitive understandings. They tell me things like: too little practice, arriving late for a performance, trying to play music that’s too difficult, feeling like your life depends on how well you perform. You can sort those things into three simple categories: the performer’s personal characteristics, the task he or she has to perform, and the situation in which a performance takes place.”

Klickstein borrows those categories from Glenn Wilson, author of Psychology for Performing Artists.

Feeling like your life depends on the quality of your performance is an example of a problem rooted in the person. If you haven’t practiced well, you haven’t mastered the task. And if you’re playing at an important audition in an unfamiliar environment, that’s stress related to the situation.

So what does every performer need to do in order to be comfortable on stage?

Klickstein ticks off a very short list: “Manage personal issues related to performing, learn the music deeply so you master the task of performing that music, and be organizationally ready for the situation.”

Fight or Flight
The presence of performance anxiety doesn’t indicate there’s something wrong with you, Klickstein emphasizes; to the contrary, it’s related to a basic human reaction to danger, the fight-or-flight response.

“When that’s triggered,” he says, “the mind and body react pretty much the same way whether the danger is real, like if you’re about to be attacked by a bear, or if the danger is imagined, like when you’re about to go onstage and you don’t know how well the performance will go. The symptoms include a racing heart, dry mouth, nausea, cold hands as the blood is drawn away from the extremities and sent to the big leg muscles to help you run away, and a tremor produced by adrenaline being launched into the bloodstream to give you lots of energy to defend yourself.

“But fighting or running offstage are not good options for performers, so when that response is triggered, it can create havoc. We need to manage our response to stress and take charge of our overall health so when we arrive at the hall we’re confident, energetic, and eager to share our love of music.

“In addition, we all need backstage rituals to focus our minds, warm ourselves up, connect with the music, and make us feel the opposite of fight-or-flight response, which is a sense of calm and purpose. Now, this is not about relaxing. Relaxation is not a successful strategy for a performer. Performing is about focusing energy, not letting it dissipate. To counter fight-or-flight and focus creative energy, every performer should have at least one physical technique, one mental technique, and one task-oriented technique that he or she can use backstage.

“One of the most powerful physical techniques is called ‘two-to-one breathing.’ You breathe in through your nostrils for a count of three or so, and then you exhale through pursed lips for a count of six, repeating several times.

“A powerful mental/emotional tool is to use affirmations, or even prayers, that reinforce your passion for music and belief in yourself. An example would be to inwardly say, ‘I can handle whatever happens; I’ve prepared well.’ Or you might remind yourself, ‘I’m a student; my purpose is to learn from my performance and further my skills.’

“A task-oriented technique would be to bring your mute backstage and play some of the opening phrase shortly before you go on. In that way, you bring yourself into the character of the music before taking the stage.”