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"I freaked out."

Those were the words of a good friend describing his experience of playing as a finalist in a mandolin competition at a major festival. He had practiced long hours. He knew just what he wanted to do and had done it well many times. He had done well in the preliminary round well enough that he made it to the finals.

Stepping onto that main stage was something he had dreamed about for years. He was nervous, and hit a wrong note in the first measure of his first tune. At that point his mind, and fingers, froze.

What it is.

We all experience it to some degree. You may recognize it as butterflies in your gut, profuse sweating, dry mouth, frequent trotting off to the lavatory (or port-a-potty), rapid short breaths and quick heartbeat.

You see it in others as the nervous chatter, short temper, giggling, or the avoidance of conversation prior to going on stage. Everyone responds a bit differently, but almost everyone experiences performance anxiety.

For some of us it is a much more serious problem. The jitters become debilitating. For some it does not have to be when you are "on stage" in a formal sense. One mandolin player recently shared with me his experience of being so anxious about playing "in public" that he is nervous even when playing around his wife even when she is sleeping!

For some people, performance anxiety is an extension of anxiety they experience in other areas of their lives.

Prior to the preliminary round of a recent mandolin contest I overheard a friend whipping through an amazing rendition of Kentucky Mandolin. I expressed my support by observing that the playing I just had heard would have won the first prize in the contest the year earlier. He nervously replied that he had a history of choking in pressure situations, pointing to his freezing up during college exams. The outcome: He didn't make it past the preliminary round, largely due to the incapacitating anxiety.

What to do about it.

Fortunately there are several approaches to the effective management of performance anxiety. I'll offer a sampling that should help you be aware of the possibilities.

The first suggestions about how to manage anxiety involve changing how you think about anxiety-provoking situations in order to shift the way you feel. For example, people with anxious responses tend to "catastrophize," or anticipate the worst possible outcome and react as if that was actually happening.

Here's an example of this kind of thinking: "I'm not ready for this next solo. Everyone will notice and I'll look foolish. I'll feel humiliated and never have the chance to play in public again." With that kind of pressure who could do their best?

A related common thinking pattern that causes disruptive anxiety is the tendency toward perfectionism setting impossibly high expectations. Aiming high can be helpful and motivating. Aiming beyond reach and then condemning oneself for not getting there is a prescription for feeling like a miserable failure. These sufferers set such high standards for themselves that there is little chance that they will feel satisfied with their performances; thus, they fill themselves with dread and fear in advance of any public outings. (Do you recall Stuart Smally's "stinking thinking" from the Saturday Night Live skit?)

The first step in changing these disruptive thoughts is to recognize them. When you feel the anxiety building, use it as a cue to do a mental scan: Am I telling myself this is going to be a catastrophe? Am I pressuring myself excessively?

Practice some alternative thoughts to break up these anxiety-producing patterns. Instead of "I must play perfectly or everyone will laugh at me." -- try substituting, "I'm going to do my best and I know that most people out there really hope I do well. Friends and family are going to love me no matter how well I play." The first thought is likely to increase anxiety and actually distract you from doing your best. The second can be calming and help your focus and performance.

The strategies identified above focused on shifting your thinking in order to influence your feelings. There are several other helpful strategies that are more "behavioral." That is, they involve engaging in some types of action to address the feelings, and the anxious symptoms. We all know something about these approaches since the most obvious is called "practice." Let's face it, there is no substitute for knowing the material you are going to perform. In fact, learning a piece, and then continuing to practice results in an "overlearning" that allows performance with limited drains on your concentration. The playing can begin to feel automatic while still being quite musical. Even when you ad lib, overlearning relevant patterns can provide a comfort zone for your playing.

There are ways of practicing intentionally to help manage anxiety. First, practice playing loose. If your hands or arms tighten up that translates into anxiety. Take the time to slow the speed until you are playing with good form and no unnecessary tightness. Experiment with posture so that you and the instrument are at peace with each other instead of wrestling around.

Next, pay attention to how you breathe when you practice those difficult parts. Again, slow it down so that you can breath deeply and steadily throughout the piece and not hold your breath during that section with the tremolo and triplets. If you find yourself continuing to take rapid, shallow breaths, or not breathing at all, it might be helpful to practice some breathing exercises. There are lots of options out there for learning forms of meditation (Zen, deep breathing, yoga), all of which help build the skill of focused relaxation just what you want for smooth, flowing musicianship. Practicing these skills can help your stage anxiety, and other anxieties, in dramatic ways.

One of the most effective approaches of dealing with anxiety is to confront it. In fact, it is well known that avoiding anxiety typically serves to maintain it since you never learn that the feared stimulus is manageable. Therefore, if your anxiety peaks any time you play with other people, get out every chance you get to play with others. Even if that means you crash and burn, do it and learn that you survive.

But even better is learning one piece that you find relatively simple well within your reach skill-wise. Get a few trusted friends together and ask them to play that piece with you. Give yourself a success experience! One e-mail friend of mine wrote that going to one of the players' camps was the key. He put himself in a situation where players of all abilities were playing constantly for a week. By the time camp was over he discovered he wasn't nearly so self-conscious of playing with others. Now that's diving in!

One whole class of strategies to reduce performance anxiety is referred to as "desensitization." This basically means you should take every opportunity to play in the situations that cause you anxiety. If you know from experience that your anxiety grabs you on stage, try practicing in conditions as near to those you'll find in performance as possible. If you are preparing for a coffee shop gig, maybe you can actually go to that stage and play a couple of tunes in advance of the show without an audience.

Here's a cool thing: Many people benefit from imagining themselves successfully engaging in the feared behavior, reducing their anxieties noticeably before they actually set foot on stage. To make this approach work you must first relax. Close your eyes and breath deeply. When you are aware of feeling relaxed, imagine as clearly as you can playing your part. Imagine what you see, what you hear, what the pick feels like in your hand. Remind yourself to breath deeply as you picture yourself performing while feeling comfortable on stage.

Repeat this imagination practice daily and you'll likely experience less anxiety when the performance comes along in real life. You may have heard that this technique is now common practice among top athletes who learn to practice complex routines in their minds as a performance aid. It is equally helpful for all performance-oriented activities.

If your fears have to do with all eyes being on you get a few friends together and play as an informal group. Go to local open mics and you are pretty sure to have a supportive audience who have all been there terrified. They will want to you do well and will appreciate your efforts, even if you flub up.

Of course, many people turn to some form of substance to help manage anxiety. The most common would be alcohol in its many incarnations, but stories about musicians becoming dependent on the widest range of substances imaginable are legion.

In addition to the risk of dependence or addiction, relying on alcohol (or other drugs) to get you "into the zone" is unreliable. For example, the effect of alcohol is highly dependent on how recently we've eaten, how well rested we are, our overall stress levels, etc.

However, utilization of prescriptive medication to help control performance anxiety has proven the most helpful course for some. Medications known as beta-blockers were originally developed to help regulate heart rate and manage blood pressure. They have been discovered to assist many whose performance anxiety is so extreme that they become physically incapacitated prior to going on stage.

One e-mail correspondent offered real hope for using beta-blockers to treat extreme anxiety. He wrote that his stage fright was extreme (he cited lack of skill combined with a Type A personality as contributors) and the use of beta-blockers provided the much-needed relief. Plus, he wrote that with more stage experience, increased acceptance of his level of skill, and by allowing his playing to become more fun he has not needed to use beta-blockers in years. A real success story!

Summary.

Spending time on managing performance anxiety is a form of practice and is as important as working on the tunes themselves. After all, the whole effort is aimed at improving your skills at communicating through the music and anything that interferes deserves attention. Most of us do not relish the thought of practicing scales and arpeggios, but we do them because doing so helps us play better.

What works for you is most likely to be what has worked in the past: What did you do in preparation for and during those big tests in school to help manage your fears and do your best? What can you apply from that experience that might help with your playing? Take what you know about yourself and develop a systematic, intentional plan for addressing your performance anxiety.

Remember, the goal is not to eliminate all anxiety. I wouldn't suggest that anyone become so detached they are numb, zombie-like on stage. An appropriate amount of anxiety can be a performance aid it helps motivate us to do our best. We're anxious because we care and the experience is meaningful to us.

If you find that you are not able to make progress toward managing your performance anxiety on your own, consider seeing out an experienced mental health practitioner to help develop a systematic approach to addressing the fears.

Just as you might consider taking mandolin lessons as a learning aid, you might consider working with a professional to assist you as a performance aid. Or, if you want to learn more about the approaches described in this article you may be interested in checking out The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook (1995, Second Edition, Revised) by Edmund J. Bourne, published by New Harbringer Publications.

Most importantly, don't ignore your anxiety when you discover it is negatively affecting your performance and your enjoyment. Start taking steps to learn what will work for you. Let me know what you discover!

Donn is the Associate Director for Counseling Services at the University of Puget Sound. He works at managing his own performance anxiety with the bluegrass group HeyWire and the singer/songwriter trio, Late Harvest.

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