Coping with nerves
It is normal for people to become nervous before a performance or a presentation in front of a group of people, especially if you don’t know them personally or how they will react to your ideas. However, as I would like to become a professional performing musician, I’ll have to understand why this happens and how to avoid this and gain some confidence when performing.
The three causes of public speaking fear (and what you can do about them)
Above is an interesting article about the causes of anxiety when presenting. Ultimately the synopsis of this article is that performance anxiety is created by you over thinking a certain situation which then leads to you panicking and creating more mistakes.
In actual fact, mistakes are normal and sometimes make performances more authentic or better than planned. Sometimes performing is about taking risks and about the performer creating a personable atmosphere, as if everyone wanted to hear perfection when it came to music, robots and machines would do much better jobs than humans ever could. In my experiences, I enjoy listening to music and buy into artists as their music either relates to my life or creates an enjoyable atmosphere.
Being in a hugely competitive environment such as the industry often places seeds of self doubt in a persons mind and comparisons can be damaging. For example everyone plays music differently and is at different levels according to the amount of time they have practiced and their natural ability. For me comparing myself to other musicians only makes me feel slightly inferior unless it is given to me as a compliment, therefore I now instead prefer to admire an artists technique and skills and analyse wether I can learn any skills from them to improve my own skill set.
Performance Anxiety? 5 top tips
Above are 5 recommended steps on how to tackle performance anxiety. These coupled with some tips that were in the first article have helped me to understand that in order to create a confident performance, I must first accept that mistakes will happen and that I should practice carrying on when they do occur. I have been guilty to this in the past when doing grade exams on piano as my nerves have gotten to me and after making a mistake I have momentarily paused to rectify that mistake which takes away from the flow of a performance. Secondly, it is important to create a relaxed atmosphere and try to enjoy performing if possible. Personally when I am relaxed I am much more energetic, friendly and creative. Finally it is always important to analyse a performance in order to improve on mistakes and grow as a musician, however being too critical can be counter productive and lower your self esteem and enjoyment in that field.
Creating a relaxed and friendly performance environment
A huge part of creating an individual and likeable performance environment stems from a good use of body language and good space management.
A few weeks ago I read a very interesting article from the BBC about the way in which body language affects our confidence levels. This article was mainly centred around the idea that men generally had more confidence in board rooms and during presentations as they were very spread out and commanding of their own personal space, whereas women generally felt more vulnerable and therefore were more likely to cross their arms and make themselves small, thus leading to a lack of confidence. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the exact article to reference it, however I thought I’d share this knowledge as it has changed how I approach certain situations and has generally boosted my confidence overall.
How professional musicians create a good atmosphere
There are many different techniques that can be used to create multitude of different environments.
Above is a trio called EST which was a recommendation to look at from Darren when doing my presentation. What I find very interesting about this bands performances are that from what I’ve seen ,Esbjorn (the pianist) always has his back facing towards the audience. I find this technique very interesting as by doing this he creates a different atmosphere. At first I felt quite tense when watching them play together, however now I feel that it allows the audience to focus on the overall sound by creating a modest atmosphere. Maybe Esbjorn preferred it this way as he was distracted easily or it could have been a design feature for the trios overall look.
Esbjorn is clearly very into the music that his trio are creating, however he doesn’t really show off when expressing himself and instead just looks like he enjoys playing the music more than performing in front of a large crowd, possibly meaning that he is just a very modest and calm person.
Above is a video of Jamie Cullum playing live who takes a slightly different approach to playing live compared to EST. Personally I prefer the atmosphere Jamie creates as he brings so much energy to the stage and he is very good at interacting with the audience. However he is playing a whole different sub-genre of jazz as his brand is much funkier overall and much more upbeat compared to EST’s more relaxed and spiritual sound. From the way Jamie plays and his attitude on stage, you can tell that his sound is going to be free and very open which is quite a feat to be able to achieve.
Next up is a slightly different trio format made up of a pianist, saxophonist and drummer called mammal hands. I thought I’d mention mammal hands as they are probably one of the best Jazz bands I’ve seen live.
The atmosphere they create purely through their sound in this video is incredible and the communication between the 3 of them makes it feel more intimate. The way they’ve set up the stage is very aesthetic for me as by having both the drums and piano side on it makes it more personable as you can see them clearly as well as being able to see what they are playing which for me is a big strong point.
Finally, here is a video of Jools Holland and his big band playing at Glastonbury in 2002. The sound and stage presence of this band is absolutely massive as it is made up of around 20 members. When I saw Jools play live I was blown away by the amount of noise they were making and even more by the fact that it sounded incredible. For me, I’ve always wanted to get people up on stage and include people when playing songs like Jools Holland does on this track. You can see this as he pulls up about 4 soloists, however for my first gig this was slightly unfeasible, though it’s definitely something I’d like to do in the future.
Setting up a gig
Fortunately the venue I have chosen to play at has a grand piano, therefore on my part I won’t be required to supply my own instrument. For this gig, the venue is a decent size but not too big, therefore I won’t have to mic up my piano which is great, however below is a tutorial on how to set up microphones on a piano which I found very educational.