Live performance stress. GRRRRRRR

[thereallyniceman]

After recent suggestions for pieces to play, I decided to have a go at Smiler Rag as I had previously studied the 1950s Fred Van Eps version and liked the twiddly bits he puts in! Hours and hours of practice and all seemed fine, well acceptable, to have a go at a recording.

I could play it all the way through so what could go wrong? I forgot to account for the video camera staring at me.

 All started well enough,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then a stumble, then another, then more, and more until I had never seen the piece before and never ever played a banjo before. My heart was pounding, I was sweating and as for the gurning!!!  It is totally irrational, I know!!!  Is it just me?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now to my point!

I have watched Jody's performance of Gryphon and Star and he is SOOO relaxed. Am I the only person to crack up in front of a video camera and doing live preformances. How on earth do I over come this. I love playing the banjo... but struggle to relax when being watched, live or by camera. Am I cursed with this for ever??

 

.........HELP  !!!!

 

[Sylvia]

Well I dunno,  perhaps trying to forget about the camera, or if you are in front of a live audience thinking

 " well I can do this and you can't ",  perhaps total absorbtion and enjoyment in what you are playing, or even perhaps not caring that the camera/audience is there.  But whatever, you have my sympathy :)

[Mike Moss]

Hahaha, great pictures, I'm sure we can all relate to starting out as in the first picture and ending up as in the second! I'll be facing the red-eyed monster tomorrow (gasp!) as I've been procrastinating too much... however I can't guarantee that a crack team of Alien Illuminati Bilderbergs from the planet Banjar won't abduct me during the video, causing unexplainable cuts which prove that there is a conspiracy (or lazy cheating) afoot!

[Steve Harrison]

It must be the bow tie!!!!!!...Steve.

[Jody Stecher]

Ian, you are *not* the only person rendered stupid by the video camera. I become a musical nincompoop. It's ok if someone else points the camera at me. But if I do it myself I forget how to play. My rendition of Gryphon & Star is off by a fret about half a dozen times. What I posted was the fourth or fifth time I tried to make a video of the piece. If I look relaxed it might be because I'm  not breathing. Dead people are very relaxed looking. On the other hand I'm wearing a loose shirt, untucked, with an open collar. I'm not wearing shoes either. I never do at home. So maybe I looked relaxed because at home I usually am at ease.

[Alan Ramsay]

I can't help either :-(

 

I have a few pieces I can play well enough but every time I attempt to video myself, I make a complete mess of it!  I now don't even think about recording myself and just enjoy playing the music.  

 

I suppose when I think about it, when I play a piece and I hit a bad note or whatever I don't worry so much and just move on, and maybe practise that section in isolation afterwards.  I am, after all, practising.  When I try to record myself, every bad note I play sounds terrible and it really throws my concentration.  The difference between practising and performing maybe?

 

The answer is probably to get someone to record you in secret :-)

[Trapdoor2]

I generally have to do dozens of "takes" before I get one that is even remotely right. It is worst with fingerstyle (probably because it is a complicated thing), easiest with stroke-style. I get so disgusted sometimes with this problem...turn the camera or recorder off and I just sail thru the piece but the instant I hit the record button, my fingers refuse to function.

I have been trying to video "Whistling Rufus" for nearly a year now. It seems that I can play thru the A part with no problem but as soon as I get thru the A part, I struggle with the B part. I am so relieved to get thru the B part that I generally speed up intolerably in the C part and by the time I get to the end of the C, I'm either playing impossibly fast for the return to A or I forget where to go next.

None of this happens with the video off. I never catch myself tensing up or thinking fearfully about the B part or whatever. I just play the piece.

I am going to try Xanax (Alprazolam), a medication used to treat panic/anxiety attacks. I have talked to several performers who have used it to great effect...it is routinely prescribed for performance anxiety. We have a dog that panics during thunderstorms. She gets a Xanax in the morning if T-storms are predicted. It doesn't seem to affect her at all...other than she no longer panics at the first thunderclap. I asked my doctor about it and he says there is no reason I shouldn't try it. He said he has prescribed it for a number of local performers.

[marc dalmasso]

I noticed that if if forgot to turn off my celular telephone just before recording  a banjo tune , this last will automaticly ring during the best " take " ........ Is is the same in UK or US or just in France ?

[thereallyniceman]

It is the door bell here in the UK, or a low flying aircraft and the person next door mowing the grass.

Always, as you say, just when things are going well!!

[thereallyniceman]

I can really empathise with you Marc, Mike, Jody et al.  The fact that it is totally irrational that an inanimate piece of plastic and a few wires can turn  grown men into quivering idiots does not make it feel any better!  Performance nerves is such a well known problem it may just be in the psychology of us humans. 

As Sylvia says knowing that you can play and THEY can't, should work and is good advice, but it all falls down when your fingers cease to work.

I was once told that:

" When you are young you worry about what other people  are thinking about you. When you get to middle age you say that couldn't care less what others are thinking about you. But when you get old you realise that people are so busy thinking about themselves that they never were  thinking  about you in the first place!!"

I think that Steve is probably correct.. It is probably the bow-tie cutting off the blood to my brain cell.

:-)

 

[marc dalmasso]

I found this  from an old BMG  ; interesting too

[marc dalmasso]