How to Deal with Performance Anxiety
While its perfectly natural to feel nervous in front of a crowd, it can feel like your whole body is unraveling when anxiety gets out of control. There might not be a way to get rid of it completely, but there are ways to prepare for it and minimize its power over you. Today I’ll walk you through a few of the ways I’ve learned to cope with music performance anxiety.
Before I get into it, let me say this: I suffer from general anxiety. None of this has to do with music. Its just anxiety. I call it body anxiety because it often doesn’t have a reason to be around and usually has little or no correlation with the situation I’m in. Its something I’ve had to be aware of and manage on a daily basis for years and years, so I have a pretty hefty amount of experience with anxiety in general. With that in mind, if I can deal with daily anxiety and still get on stage when I want to, maybe you can, too.
Step one is to get real about the material you’re performing. When you’re practicing, it can feel amazing to push yourself right to the edge of what you’re capable of. When planning a performance its easy to think your audience wants to hear you push yourself to the limit. There is certainly a time and place for that, but when you’re learning to navigate performance anxiety I recommend a different approach.
If you’re performing one song, pick a song that you can play a handful of times in a row without stopping. If you’re performing a whole set of songs, make sure you can play through your entire set without stopping! Make sure your whole set is not just doable, but comfortable and consistent.
One thing is for sure, you’re not going to feel comfortable performing songs in front of an audience if those songs aren’t even comfortable to play by yourself in your bedroom! Your audience would rather hear you play a song you’re comfortable performing than watch you struggle to play a difficult song. You being comfortable on stage will make your audience comfortable, and this creates an almost magical feedback loop of good relaxing feelings for everyone.
For these reasons I recommend that you record your practice performances. For some people, knowing you’re being recorded can replicate the feeling you get when you’re actually in front of an audience. You start hearing yourself as if you are the audience. Also, listening to your whole set is a good way to compare how you think you sound in the moment to how you actually sound on a recording. Also, getting used to how you sound on a recording will help you learn to think more critically about what parts of your set you might want to practice.
So, you’ve chosen your songs and you feel confident that you can play your set without stopping, without making obvious mistakes, and without forgetting lyrics. Now lets talk about the day-of-show ritual. I know I need food in my belly before I play or my hands get shaky. I make sure I’ve eaten a good hearty dinner if I’m going to play a show in the evening. If I’m playing for a wedding, I make sure I eat a decent meal before I show up to the event, in case I don’t get a chance to eat something before the ceremony. However, I once played a show with Rocky Votolato and he had Vietnamese take-out waiting for him backstage. He said he could not eat anything in the hours before a show, but he’s always ravenous afterward so he plans to eat the minute he’s off stage. The point here is for you to get to know your own body. See what happens if you skip a meal before a practice performance, then see what happens if you make a conscious effort to eat a good meal beforehand.
Along those same lines, consider avoiding caffeine on the day of the show - often the symptoms of caffeine are very similar to the symptoms of anxiety and if you’re already anxious, that feeling will be amplified by the coffee jitters. Hot tea with honey is what a lot of singers prefer to drink on the day of a show.
I love food and I think its an important element to consider on the day of the show. Another crucial thing to consider is this: performing is a massive outpouring of emotional energy. That means that the day I play a show I conserve as much of that energy as possible. Don’t talk politics with your parents, don’t watch the news, don’t watch that Sara McLachlan commercial with all the sad lonely dogs. Save that emotional energy for the stage.
Now for the part that I like to stick to religiously. The pre-show ritual. This can be different for everyone. Play your set a few hours before you have to leave for your performance. I recommend playing your whole set just one time through, or even just playing the first part of each song to make sure it feels the way its supposed to. The day of the show shouldn’t be the day you put in a lot of practice and work out the kinks. This is just a checkup to make sure everything feels good.
My pre-show ritual is very simple from here. About twenty or thirty minutes before I’m supposed to play, I use the restroom, thoroughly wash my hands with hot water, and dry them thoroughly. I don’t touch anything or eat anything. Maybe I’ll have a sip of water. I don’t want my hands to get sticky. Then I’ll find a place where I can be somewhat undisturbed and quiet for a minute. Usually this is outside or a hallway away from people. There I’ll tune my guitar and get a sense of how my body is feeling. I’ll play a few familiar things on guitar to warm up my hands and maybe I’ll hum a few notes of a song to make sure my voice is warm. I take a few deep breaths to help me feel connected to my body and calmly think through my set in a big picture kind of way, reminding myself that I’ve got this. Something like “you’re prepared, you’re rehearsed, you just need to relax and trust yourself to do what you practiced.” This quiet time is not to make sure I feel the same way every time I get on stage, its to help me observe how I’m feeling before I get on stage so I don’t surprise myself. Some people might call this feeling grounded or feeling present.
Then, when its my time to perform, I walk on stage and try to trust myself to do what I practiced. I take my time without rushing, without trying to be anything or anyone other than myself. I just let my set be what it is and trust myself to sing and play the way I practiced.
The important thing to remember here is that your audience wants to hear and experience you as a person. Whatever you play, if its genuine, engaging, and respectful of your audience, they will pay attention and send you good vibes.
Performing is always going to be a little bit stressful. Everyone has flops and makes mistakes here and there. But a little practice and mindfulness can turn that performance anxiety beast into a more manageable smaller beast that you can develop a relationship with.