“It’s not about getting rid of the butterflies in your stomach, it’s getting them to fly in formation.” — Sean Critchfield (via Amanda Kaiser)
I have struggled with performance anxiety in my life and I’ve written about it quite a bit (which you can search for – some of it a bit more personal than I think I would get now). It has manifested in a variety of ways:
- legs shaking
- unable to get a solid breath
- phlegm
- mental fog
- dryness
Once I dried up so much as a result of it that I went for a high note and my upper lip stuck to the top of my front teeth – and then suddenly released while I was holding it. I had butterflies, all right, and they were not flying in formation. They had taken control of my body. They were evil butterflies. They might have been mutants.
It’s not an issue for me anymore, probably because I’m more comfortable with who I am as a performance and a person. But from about 1999-2008, yikes.
One of the many blogs I wrote on performance anxiety was very specific, and it’s worth a look. Check out Golden Rules for Conquering Performance Anxiety from June 2012. Do you agree with these ideas? How do you deal with performance anxiety? Is it something that you have dealt with? Once? More than once? Every time you get up in front of anyone? Do you wonder why on earth you do it but yet you keep doing it? (I’ll talk about that another time.)
If you have some opinions on the subject, please share them in the comments!
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If one of the things that would make you feel more confident about your performing is having a solid foothold on vocal technique, try the MVS Vocal Boot Camp on 1/9/2021.
$40 Early Bird price with EARLYBIRD2021 before 1/1/2021. Contact me for more information or go to https://MezzoidLessonTimes.as.me/MVSVocalBootCamp to register