Managing Your Nerves Pt. 2
It's All About Them
So let's say you've paid your dues, put in your practice sessions, prepared painstakingly for your performances...and you still get VERY nervous. Ask yourself why?
Are you afraid of messing up? Are you afraid you'll look silly and people will laugh? Here's the problem: you're thinking about yourself too much.
Celebrity performance coach Tom Jackson says, "Your audience is ignorant. They don't know what a C major scale is. They won't catch most musical mistakes. But they have a Ph.D. in human behaviour." They can tell when you're nervous, when you're self-conscious, and when you're focused on yourself more than on them.
Audiences want to feel a connection with the performer and experience "moments." Joyful moments, poignant moments...they want you to take them there. But you have to be willing to put the focus on them and their needs as an audience. When you obsess about screwing up the intro or forgetting the harmonies, you're putting the focus on yourself (whether out of insecurity or vanity) and like sharks, they can "smell blood in the water."
Performers mess up on-stage all the time...even the pros. On Eric Clapton's live album Unplugged, he flubs the intro to a song so badly that he has to stop the band and start over. And yet, this was his highest selling album by far...10 million copies!
If you mention Clapton's Unplugged, most people think about the emotional "Tears in Heaven" or the sultry "Layla." Nobody remembers the musical train-wreck. What made the difference? Clapton had a laugh with the audience, shrugged it off, and started over...because he's a consummate professional. He knew he was there first and foremost to entertain his fans...so if they had a laugh at his expense, so be it! He was still serving their needs, and so they were more willing to forgive and forget.
If you're putting your audience first, there are few reasons to get nervous. What's the worst that can happen?
Turn It Around
So are nerves always a bad thing? If we've done our homework and put our focus on the audience, should we never feel "the jitters"? Mick Jagger once said the day he stopped feeling pre-show nerves would be the day he retired. Because nerves are a sign that you care.
The difference between how Jagger handles that nervous energy and so many hapless performers is the value it's given. In other words, what does feeling nervous "mean" to you? Some people feel nervous, and they let it eat them up. "This is going to be an awful night. I'm sure I'm going to screw up royally, and I'll be the laughing stock of the world." That's the meaning they give to the funny feeling you get in the pit of your stomach.
I would suspect Mr. Jagger gives his nerves a much different interpretation. Most professionals learn how to take that nervous energy and channel it into their show. It gives their performance an edge, a sense of drive. To them nerves equals energy, and they know how to channel it in a positive direction.
So What Happened?
I know, I know...I left you hanging with the story. So there I was standing nervously on stage, mouth open ready to sing, anxiously awaiting for the lyrics to "come to me."
They never did. So having no choice, I managed my nerves and did what any performer in my position would do--I made up the words! I have no idea what I sang about that night; it could have been about riding camels in the Samarkand Desert, for all I know. As long as it fit the melody and rhymed, I was blurting out these new-found lyrics rapid-fire...I was "free-styling."
Some fans who actually knew the REAL lyrics were a bit confused by my impromptu interpretation. But at least I kept the gig and lived to sing another day. Clapton would have been proud.
-Spencer Welch
*Used with permission