Estimated reading time 3 minutes
Table of Contents
Introduction
Do you want to know what the panic factor of music is? Do you need help dealing with performance pressure? The stress of an upcoming performance can have both positive and negative impacts. There is no substitute for playing in front of people, because you’ll never see the positives or learn how to deal with the negatives if you never try. What is the panic factor of music? Keep reading to learn more.
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What Is the Panic Factor of Music: What Is It?
What is the panic factor of music?
- It’s when the stress of an upcoming concert allows you to make a breakthrough before you have to perform.
- It can be a concert or an audition, but the important factor is that there is performance pressure.
- Alternatively, it can be when you realize that you’ll have to walk on stage, and you must overcome stage fright so that you can go on.
Read the next two sections to learn what types of breakthroughs my students have made, and tricks to push down the panic so you can perform.
What Is the Panic Factor of Music: How Can It Lead to Breakthroughs?
The pressure of performing helped my students make a leap in playing ability.
- Many times, I’ve seen students discover the steady beat in the days before a recital performance.
- After weeks of failing to execute the rhythm, the steady beat would suddenly emerge.
- It doesn’t happen with every student, but when it does, it’s a permanent change in playing ability.
Similarly, I once knew a guy who had a breakthrough in sight reading just before an audition for music college.
- Auditions carry significant performance stress, and this person credited the pressure with helping him to be able to sight read at tempo.
- After struggling with sight reading all summer, he made the breakthrough a couple of days before the audition.
There can be other benefits stemming from the performance itself.
- If a concert goes well, it’ll boost your self-esteem.
- If your concert goes off the rails, it can be a good learning opportunity.
- Unfortunately, you’ll usually learn more when things go off the rails than when they go perfectly.
What Is the Panic Factor of Music: How Do I Push Down the Panic so I Can Walk on Stage?
How do you deal with the negative aspects of panicking?
- We’ve talked about how performance pressure can help some students.
- However, stage fright can also make it more likely that you’ll start making mistakes.
- If you get a bad case of stage fright, it can make it so that you’re too scared to perform.
So, how do you short circuit stage fright?
- First, be prepared. If you’ve practiced your music so that you have the pieces mostly memorized, this will give you confidence. That in turn will help you to make fewer mistakes.
- Second, you can ask yourself, “What is the best and worst things that can happen.” This helps keep your fears in perspective, which also helps you to be less nervous.
- Third, don’t say, “I’m scared,” say, “I’m excited!” How you frame things is important.
- If you have nervous energy, you can think of it as being scared or as being excited. It’ll help you to be less nervous if you frame your energy as excitement.
- Finally, consciously relax all the muscles in your body one at a time while maintaining regular, calm breathing.
Many of these concepts come from this book:
These resources all take a deep look at dealing with stage fright.
Final Thoughts
Takeaway points:
- The panic factor of music is when the stress of a concert allows you to make a breakthrough before you perform.
- It can be a concert or an audition, but the important factor is that there is performance pressure.
- Alternatively, it can be when you realize that you must walk on stage, and you force down the panic and go on.
This is why there’s no substitute for playing in front of people, because you’ll never see the positives or learn how to deal with the negatives if you never try.
Have fun playing!
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