Amine Belkhouche

webbs hill studio
 
it would be nice to play in a cover band or do 400 year old songs from sheet music but when it`s your own material it becomes way more personal and there is far more room for error.

You'd be surprised how not nice centuries old sheet music can be, particularly solo works. You'd think some of them had it out for us.

I suspected that and imagine classical audiences to be far more critical and daunting compared to the average pop punter.
would be interesting to see the score of a Dream Theatre epic-that would be interesting to sight read...
cheers  

Hi-
 
IME, stage fright/performance anxiety is a real thing and can be absolutely paralyzing. Your muscle memory betrays you and you have no control whatsoever in front of an audience. Your hands shake uncontrollably. Your mind is (as far as you know) sending the same signals it's always done through the hours of practice you've put in, but your body is not responding the same way, and that's really painful.
 
I don't think the "imagine the audience in their underwear" ploy works except maybe in very simple cases. I spent years trying to overcome it, with mixed results. I'd have absolutely brilliant performances followed by dismal failures and finally decided it wasn't worth it. By "dismal failures" I mean I could perform the entire concert in my head, but when I got in front of the audience I couldn't control my hands shaking. OTOH, I remember telling a student "Don't try to do any better than you usually do" in a recital and that's all it took for her. She nailed it.
 
I just started reading a book called "Playing Scared" by Sara Solovitch. I can't recommend it yet, since I'm only a few pages in where she talks about all the famous people who've experienced stage fright.
 
-Susan

 
hi susan,
you are not alone!
I just googled "celebrity stage fright and found 16 current "celebs" who suffer and the search list goes on:                                                   
                    

:Laurence Olivier                          New Kids on the Block Stage Fright                          Megan Fox                          Video                          Carly Simon Stage Fright                          Actors With Stage Fright                          Fiona Apple                          Cher                          Adele Stage Fright                          Brian Wilson Stage Fright                          Amanda Seyfried                          Stage Fright                          How to Deal With Stage Fright                          Performers With Stage Fright                          Singers With Stage Fright     

cheers   

I happen to think that there is something wrong if I'm not feeling a case of butterflies before performing ..
The times  I was the most in the zone while performing music always seemed to have happened when I was the most willing to be open and vulnerable …..
You lay yourself out there in the total surrender of your limited self and you become a channel of energy that is far greater than your own power ….it takes a lot of faith and trust to go there 
 
Kenny 

Susan G
stage fright/performance anxiety is a real thing and can be absolutely paralyzing.

Yes it is. Andy Partridge of XTC is an example, his chronic stage fright effectively ended the band's ability to tour just as they started to have big hit singles.

webbs hill studio
 
it would be nice to play in a cover band or do 400 year old songs from sheet music but when it`s your own material it becomes way more personal and there is far more room for error.
 

 
That's a very good point.
 

 
 
there are obvious areas of the arts that crossover but to be giving advice in a discipline you are not involved in and have no personal experience is,to me anyway,disingenous. 
 
 

 
Exactly. Which is why none of us would go on a theatrical actors forum and tell everyone to do it like they were playing in a rock band.

Susan G
OTOH, I remember telling a student "Don't try to do any better than you usually do" in a recital and that's all it took for her. She nailed it.

This is such good advice. When performing solo works, I used to have the bad habit of feeling like someone had a gun to my head when it came to moving the piece in terms of rhythm and tempo, giving too much respect to the rhythmic values. It dawned on me one day that I control the tempo and the rhythm, not some figment of my imagination. I would take the advice you just mentioned and perform the piece just under the tempo that I would practice it at, and it worked. Even if it was just a perceptual thing, telling myself to slow down the tempo was actually telling my mind to slow down and relax, which is what it needed most when performing.

Hi,
 

webbs hill studio ... I understand you are a well known director,critic and cook of eggs but do you actually play an instrument and have you ever played in an actual band,in front of an audience? ...

 
Not well known, and I am not interested in well known or obscure. I would rather try and experiment and learn from the experiments, so people can get better on stage, and it doesn't matter to me if they are a musician, an actor or an idiot. I won't do a Trump, btw!
 
I'm not in this for fame. I'm in this for the love of the work, and to ensure that the work comes off "bigger and better" than it might even be, so we think it's great and love it.
 
And this is very badly needed in music right now, so everyone stop sounding and looking like everyone else! How socialistic of them, and it is not a good thing for arts!
 

webbs hill studio ... I am asking because I have had some exposure to theatre and a little bit of film and I have never been on a set or theatre stage where there was the same tension and electricity of a live rock concert.  the fact that if you are playing your own lines,not someone elses and the only direction you have is the faces in the first few rows and your tech in the sidelines,it can be daunting(for some). ...

 
Due to my not knowing the language, my acting career was cut short quickly ... but my first love and attention was always the director from the film side of things, and I applied a lot of that to theater.
 
Just so you know, I was known for SOUND, MUSIC AND LIGHTS, 3 of the things that are normally associated with rock music. And staging, where my imagery tends to show off like colorful Beyruth sets ... with its insane "shafts of light".
 
This is, to me, one of the problems with a lot of living room theater ... WHICH I DO NOT DO! ... and will only work on experimental and new things as a way to help develop them. You can not do this with George and Martha and with Stella and Stan! That theater is not suited for the "vidual" thing.
 
So, you think that the folks in the first rows are not affected by the actors, either?
 
Lawrence Olivier, used to wink and tease them in his performances, regardless of which one it was, which kinda told you that he was so comfortable doing what he was doing that he could sit on a toilet and still do it!
 

webbs hill studio ... there are obvious areas of the arts that crossover but to be giving advice in a discipline you are not involved in and have no personal experience is,to me anyway,disingenous. as a few people have stated,it`s usually only until you realise that : ...

 
The arts of performance, are much closer to each other than we give it credit for. The problem is that rock music, is still playing the "bad boy/bad girl" image, that thinks they can do it all themselves ... and experience tells you and I that all it is, should be called ... behaving like one of our teenage kids. YOU and I can not say it's wrong or right ... they have to learn, but in the end, it is almost the same thing we went through in different clothing!
 

webbs hill studio ... I am not a rock star and doubt I will get the chance to gig enough so that it becomes relaxed and comfortable. personally I would retire from gigging if I didn`t get butterflies or feel that rush when you are introduced.it would then be just a job,like a mechanic or a critic or whatever. ...

 
And that's the issue that is bad, when you go see one of the old timers, and guess what? ... yep!
 
It takes a lot to "know" that, and make sure you are honest with yourself and your audience. I always like to say that the honesty between you two is the most important part of it, since it is the one thing that can drive you better ... and makes it easier to work ... instead of giving you feelings that you are tired and don't want to do this anymore, like ... (not saying!!!) ...
 
Nice comments ... but the electricity that you mention has to happen in the other arts as well, or they would NEVER get enough attention.
 
BTW, as an aside ... now you know why the cover of Jethro Tull's "Passion Play" is so prophetic ... the "classics" have all died, or been killed ... passion plays nowadays are rock songs that you sway your head and body to! ... there ain't no "ballet" anymore! ... and most of us will never even go see a classical music show ... and that is sad ... all those things, all those arts, are OUR EXPRESSION and they all deserve a presentation, but time is harsh on them all and kills people and arts faster than you can say good morning to any of them!
 
I'm on a "course" to help bring all the arts alive ... theater needs fresh blood, and it is not a new musical on Broadway, or a big star doing Camelot in LA again ... it's something else ... and I can light up your performance and show ... if you have the desire to be "there".
 
You and I want the arts to live ... not die! REMEMBER THAT! Sadly, things like ballet is just about dead, except for some fun thing for our daughters that we think is "cute". The meaning is lost otherwise. This is what we're trying to prevent!

Hi,
 
Here is a comment by Robert Fripp to Dave Cousins ... which fits many of you here.
 
"You're self-sufficient. You don't need any lessons! Anything else?"
 
I will say something similar about this thread, but not be rude. I'm merely showing how this can be looked at and worked with ... I have almost always used youngsters, new to the stage, and none of them, NONE OF THEM,  ever had issues on the opening night ... and even Professor John Harrop at UCSB asked me how I did that!
 
It doesn't matter the discipline, sometimes, you have your own expression and this is what you do, and how. So trying to do something like someone else, which is a big issue in the music business (specially classical), is actually tougher than acting ... where there is no idiot professor out there that thinks you can scream like Marlon Brando! That's stupid! But if you think you can do better than Mick Jagger go ahead, but many in the audience will laugh, instead!
 
Courage, and desire, is what makes you better than others. If your attention is on the fear, and not what you do, you are not "FREE" to fly and blow the audience away.
 
It's your choice, of course! I know I tried to help, the best I have ever known and found ... but ... I can tell you there is no secret.

Moshkito
Hi,
 
Here is a comment by Robert Fripp to Dave Cousins ... which fits many of you here.
 
"You're self-sufficient. You don't need any lessons! Anything else?"
 
 

Heck, even you don't believe that!