What is stage fright and how to deal with it

Stage fright comes about due to a disturbance of body use and the messing up of breathing.

Mistakenly considered to be something only beginner performers suffer from, stage fright is something all performers have to face. In its mildest forms, stage fright begins with the excitement of having a performance, even if the performance is months away, unconsciously the process has already started.

It is natural and healthy to feel excited when giving a performance, yet that excitement can be translated by your brain as if you were in a threatening situation. The long waiting time before actually getting on stage and start the performance, and all the preparation before the performance itself can become a form of unreleased energy. If the performer doesn't know how to deal with it, the unreleased energy becomes such a frustration for the body that getting on stage can become a nightmare.

Most of the times the performer doesn't even know he/she is actually in a 'stage-fright' mode. They are bound to get nervous for so many reasons: because sound check is taking to long, or because the technicians didn't arrive yet, or the lights are not good, and so on and so on. The performer is bound to keep on running in circles, looking at the watch worrying if there will be enough time... That is excitement on the verge of becoming anxiety.

Anxiety is a common emotion along with fear, anger, sadness, and happiness (and it has a very important function in relation to survival). It can also disturb your breathing patterns, which leads to fear and it may also lead to hyperventilation.

Anxiety is a combination of cognitive, somatic, emotional and behavioural components. The cognitive part recognises danger, somatically the body is preparing to deal with the cause of the threat and the ‘fight or fly reflex’ or ‘panic reflex’ is activated and it takes form of pulling the back of the neck. Both voluntary and involuntary behaviours may arise making the performer wish 'to escape', to avoid the source of anxiety.

The ‘fight or fly reflex’ is easy to observe on animals. See the picture of this cat about to get into a fight, the muscles of the cat's neck are being 'winded', its head is pulled to the back, and all together will work as a catapult ready to fight or to get away from the source of fright.
In this case the cat decides if it goes through the fight or if it runs away from it.

In the performer's case all he/she can do is wait. The performer can't start before time and can't go home and forget about it. In the meantime the body is readjusting to the situation and releasing the necessary chemicals to help him/her go through it.

As a response to physical or mental stress adrenaline is released into the bloodstream, and the chemical processes that normally will help the performer to adjust to a dangerous situation, in this case will dis-organise and make a torture out of the waiting time.
The 'winding of the muscles' that makes the pull the head will disorganise the breathing to the point of having a hyperventilation attack, becoming paralysed (due to the hyperventilation attack), and / or having to vomit. A good example is Maria Callas, despite being such a wonderful singer and excellent professional, Callas felt such a pressure before the performance that her body responded to it as vomiting. It is known that she had to vomit before every performance.

Finally during the performance itself one is bound to feel a release for the enormous amount of energy which the excitement of anticipation produced.

The Alexander technique is a great way of dealing with stage fright. 
The technique brings the awareness of the way we use ourselves in our daily routine and provides the best preparation for the demands of any performance.
It gives the performer the means of keep on 'tuning up' him/herself, therefore having the panic reflex under control. The performer will be able to undo unnecessary tension, to stop 'the winding' of the muscles of the neck, co-ordinating breath and movements. The performer will feel more confident and being in a positive energy flow during the performance.

Free your neck and go bubbles

The music world is quite demanding!

Somehow musicians decided that there must be no room for mistakes. If they make a mistake they feel something terrible is going to happen and they will never recover from it again, so somehow their necks are always at stake. So singers and musicians go on in life doing their best in order not to make a mistake. 

And so they will safely stay where they are, maybe improving a little in disguising their mistakes, mainly just 'hiding' it better, yet they will stay where they are.

Funny thing is that in order to learn something new we all know we must allow ourselves to make mistakes. Jazz music is the proof of that, a good musician will just 'extend' that mistake and make something else out of it, that's when it becomes improvisation.

Yet when making a mistake, singers and musicians in general tend to freeze and that little mistake is bound to take over the mood for the rest of the song, and it will take them at least another song to recover from it. If only they use their heads they would know the audience wants to hear good music played from their hearts, not from their fear. An audience can forgive any mistake if the musician/singer is honest and open.

No, no mistakes allowed or... let's play and sing ugly

After a long journey of searching for my own voice 'outside of myself', learning tricks and practising the best way I could, doing the best I could not to make mistakes, I finally found it. And I found my own voice not by practising the same again and again but by learning how my instrument really works. And most of all, by allowing myself to go wrong, to feel wrong and most important, to have fun with it. By exploring and playing, really playing!

I decided to bring playful ideas into my way of teaching and to have people 'singing ugly' sometimes, so they can give themselves permission to sing differently. You would be surprised what beautiful voices come out when I ask my pupils to sing ugly!

So we all went bubbles
As I mentioned in the last post, the last 'uSing your voice and body well' workshops were in Zagreb, at Kubus Arts Organisation we had a big range in levels, styles, and professions: singers, musicians, actors, dancers, teachers... Everyone learning from each other, which makes the work so much alive and so much fun.

And at the Academy of Music University, time for something 'really serious': opera singers!
A group of pupils from the 1st till the 5th year and their teachers were present, wonderful voices, wonderful dedicated people. And we all had a great time seriously playing with the work.

From the Alexander Technique we know the importance of not disturbing the relationship between head, neck and torso. Most people will unconsciously pull their head back in relationship to the neck and torso for breathing, a.o. That is such a deeply rooted habit in most of us that we won't feel we are doing it (more about sensors and feeling wrong in one of the next posts, keep tuned).

How to deal with it? Well... I like to go bubbles. No need to force nor to be serious about blowing bubbles!

As usual I was giving a feed back with my hands to each one of the participants so they could feel what they were actually doing when blowing out those bubbles, and they all found out a lot. Some even found that if they didn't pull their head back they'd have to re-direct the air flow in order to blow out the bubbles. Some started to get too serious with the new discovery, but I make sure to remind them it's only bubbles!

Free your neck and go bubbles

I remember when I had to learn how to re-direct my voice because my neck was finally freer. It was scary for a moment, it is quite scary to change so much, but what the heck, we get used to ourselves again and again.

I am now 48 years old, and I feel very privileged to be able to keep on playing and go bubbles with such a great bunch of inspiring people.

The one workshop only success story. Is it really possible to get it in one workshop only?

Well, wouldn't that be great?
Yet, we all know that working on the self requires much more than one workshop, or one more, and another one...

It is an ongoing learning process, and getting really closer to the Alexander Technique I should say unlearning!

I used to get discouraged about giving workshops sometimes, as much as I love to do it, there was always a thought hanging, making me think if this was a good thing to do or not, after all what can one do, what can one pass in one workshop only?

That was up until I got an invitation from professor Vlatka Oršanić to bring my work to the Academy of Music University Zagreb.

Professor Vlatka Oršanić is the head of the voice department of the Academy. Together we decided that a seminar and a few introduction workshops on the combination I do with voice and the Alexander Technique would be the best to start with.

I am very happy to bring my work around of course, at the same time I was very curious to know how did she get to my work or how did she hear about me? Later Vlatka told me it was via a pupil of hers, Martina Latin.

Vlatka knew her pupil for a long time of course, yet there came a moment that, according to Vlatka, Martina had a significant change, and the teacher just couldn't place it. So she asked her pupil what was it she was doing in order to change so much, and so Martina told her that she had been to ONE of my workshops! Martina even wrote a paper about voice work and the Alexander Technique for her final year at the Academy.

I can not tell you how happy I am, SO HAPPY!
I receive loving emails and messages after workshops, and believe me I get VERY EMOTIONAL with each one of them, people telling me how much they appreciated it.
Despite of it, somehow there was always a thought hanging from my part:

Did they really get it? Did it really made a difference for them, even when most participants didn't even had a private lesson on the Alexander Technique.

So now I really know, Yes!
People will get the message when they are ready and open for it.

Another big example is my 'star bass player pupil' Danijel Radanović. Every time I see him I get surprised on the amount of good work he is doing on himself.

I was just back in Zagreb for the new bunch of 'uSing your voice and body well' workshops. At first at the Studio Kubus and later to the Academy of Music University. Knowing that as much as I'd love to, it is just impossible to pass the whole work in one workshop only, or two, or...  But happy, so happy to take one step at the time. To help people change their views and old ways of doing things and help them discover the easiness of doing it in 'the non-doing way'.

I met and worked with wonderful singers, actors, musicians, a whole new bunch of wonderful people and I was also very happy to meet the 'good old group' again.

I am always happy to see Dajana Mar, 'my Croatian angel', Dajana was the first one to bring my work To Zagreb. I am also so grateful for Simona Palatinus and her Studio Kubus Arts Organisation. And for Professor Vlatka Oršanić and the Academy of Music University Zagreb for the warm welcome I received.
And last but not least, to the Shiatsu school for lending us their skeleton 'Stanco' for the weekend.

And for each one of you that took part in this amazing journey, thank you so much for being there.

Next post I will tell you all about the very talented singers the went bubbles, bubbles, bubbles...