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THE PROGRESSIVE SINGER’S WORKSHOP
:: STAGE FRIGHT ::
- by Tamara Anderson
Voice Teacher, Professional Singer
WHAT STAGE FRIGHT FEELS LIKE
(To the tune of Addicted to Love…)
Your lights are on, but you’re not home,
Your mind is not your own,
your heart sweats, your body shakes,
Another song is what it takes,
You might as well face it you’re addicted to singing!
Sound familiar? We’ve all been there. We walk on to the stage, grab the microphone, and completely panic. The only thing we feel is fright: the adrenaline rush, shortness of breath, and even cotton-mouth. Believe it or not, even the pros get stage fright. Barbra Streisand didn’t perform for more than a decade because of it. The Beatles and Axl Rose vomited before they walked on stage. Let’s face it, singing is the most amount of sharing you can do on stage. There are facial and body expressions, emotional connections made between you, the audience, and the song. You feel alone and naked, with all eyes are staring at you.
The truth is, the audience wants you to do well and wants you to entertain them. They are not there to judge or ridicule you, but to cheer you on. The audience is actually forgiving and understanding.
Stage fright is real, but the good news is that because it’s the monster we’ve created, it’s also the monster we can defeat.
Now rate the following individually from 1 to 10, 10 being the highest amount of fear.
1. Imagine you are sky diving, you reach over to pull the rip cord and your parachute won’t open.
2. Home alone one evening you hear a noise and creaking on the stairs.
3. You are sitting in a full conference room of business suits, then all eyes turn to you and it’s your turn to give a presentation.
They’re probably all 10’s.
Surveys have found that public singing and speaking is the number one fear in our society today, and dying is number three. You can’t do much about the fear from the first three examples, but you can remedy stage fright. The fright may have originally started from being called on in school, chosen to do a solo in band or chorus, or from a relative making negative comments (which they thought was constructive criticism, but was really destructive criticism) about your musicianship, or lack thereof. This fear grows and grows until we have no control over it. We get countless hours of education on how to do something well, but no training in performance management. Think back where this all started….now, let’s conquer it.
The purpose of singing in front of an audience is to communicate with them. Many of us suffer in silence; this can snowball. You aren’t of afraid of singing, just sharing it with an audience. There is way too much self-inflicted pain and suffering involved with sharing your voice with an audience.
You want to be at ease with the audience, so, stand on your own two feet, relax, and have as much fun as you will allow yourself to. Being prepared, knowing your material inside and out is definitely a big part of controlling stage fright, but it’s not everything. You have to want to do something about it, now read on.
