# Stage Problems



## musika (Dec 24, 2008)

Anyone else get problems on stage or in exams where you get so tense that it's near impossible for you to play those passages which demand a loose wrist, arm and shoulders on the piano?
Any solutions???


----------



## PostMinimalist (May 14, 2008)

Try reading 'the Inner Game of Tennis' and applying that to your music. There is a book called 'The Inner Game of Music' which does exactly this but the tennis book is better written!

The basic principle expounded in these books is the 'Permission to Fail' or the 'what have you got to loose?' technique.
FC


----------



## Yagan Kiely (Feb 6, 2008)

> Try reading 'the Inner Game of Tennis' and applying that to your music. There is a book called 'The Inner Game of Music' which does exactly this but the tennis book is better written!


Have you heard of Michael Goldschlager? You sound just like him right now.. (one of my ex-lecturers).


----------



## R-F (Feb 12, 2008)

Believe it or not, I heard a good way to battle nerves is to think of a delicious meal. The theory is something like this: because you've worked yourself into a 'fight or flight' mode, your body assumes the last thing you'll be doing is eating- hence the butterflies and dry mouth. Therefore, if you can make your mouth water it can counter the 'fight or flight' mode.
Or, I dunno, take some deep breaths.


----------



## PostMinimalist (May 14, 2008)

Yagan Kiely said:


> Have you heard of Michael Goldschlager? You sound just like him right now.. (one of my ex-lecturers).


No, but he sound like a very smart chap! (probably handsome too!)
Haha


----------



## YsayeOp.27#6 (Dec 7, 2007)

musika said:


> Anyone else get problems on stage or in exams where you get so tense that it's near impossible for you to play those passages which demand a loose wrist, arm and shoulders on the piano?
> Any solutions???


Not really. But I missed the lower registry keys once... and made a Brahms scandal. I was playing on an old Clavinova whose lowest key wasn't the usual A, but something like an E. I was a bit nervous and my left hand played many passages one fifth up. It was, to my luck, a short piano piece.


----------



## Yagan Kiely (Feb 6, 2008)

> No, but he sound like a very smart chap! (probably handsome too!)


He was one of the best lecturers I've had (he got stand up applause for saying something at Concert Practice, how many lecturers get that?).

Oh and yes, he was very good looking.


----------



## PostMinimalist (May 14, 2008)

Yagan Kiely said:


> He was one of the best lecturers I've had (he got stand up applause for saying something at Concert Practice, how many lecturers get that?).
> 
> Oh and yes, he was very good looking.


I knew it!


----------



## Saturnus (Nov 7, 2006)

I've had some trouble with breath control, and drying up because of stress (I'm an oboist), but also technique problems in fast passages. The sollution is simply to think not of the audience (I said simply, not easily  ), and know what you are playing and what you are trying to express, when your attention goes to that and your fingers know the piece there won't be a problem. Never play anything at a concert you don't have any feelings for. 
This doesn't eliminate the stress entirely, but leaves some, which is only useful for sharpening your concentration.


----------

