How To Beat Stage Fright

A few months ago, something happened to me right before I walked on stage to play a gig – something that barely ever happens to me anymore.

• I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach
• I could feel my heartbeat pulsing through my whole body
• My palms were sweaty, even though it was cold

I had stage fright.

This isn’t something that normally happens to – although I did get it a lot when I was just starting out. So what about this gig made me feel it again?

Well, it was a relatively high-pressure gig with a friend of mine, Michael. I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked, we were playing his original music, so I wanted it to be as good as possible, plus everyone in the crowd was there just to listen to the music. And we were being filmed, so any mistake would perfectly captured.

For some reason, this gig just got to me. (Check out the video at the bottom of this page to see the performance from that night)

So when this happens to you, what are you supposed to do? If you’ve ever had stage fright (or performance anxiety if you want to get fancy), you know it’s not fun.

You might get the shakes, have mental blanks, sweat an ungodly amount – some people even feel physically sick to the point of vomiting. Everyone experiences it slightly differently.

So how are you supposed to beat stage fright? It’s not like a technical thing you can practice on bass like new scale or exercise.

In truth, there’s no single way to overcome your performance anxiety, and because everyone experiences it differently, the solutions are many and varied.

That’s why in this lesson, I’m going to share with you 5 different ways to approach stage fright. You’ll get three quick mental reframes that can help ease your stress around playing. But you’ll also learn two longer term strategies that can help you beat stage fright for good.

Check them out in the video:

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Stage fright isn’t something that goes away instantly – it’s something you work on over time. After a while, you’ll start to notice those stage fright symptoms – the sweating, the shaking, the mental blanks – they’ll start to get less and less intense.

They may never be 100% gone though. If you have a really big performance that’s out of the ordinary for you, it could very easily come back.

This is exactly what happened to me not too long ago. I hadn’t felt seriously stressed or nervous before playing in years! But I was playing some original music with a friend of mine at a semi-high pressure gig and I wasn’t quite as prepared as I would have liked.

So what happened?

I got nervous. For me, that means a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and sweaty palms. In the end, the gig went really well, but it’s because I had these tools I could count on to get me through.

Now I want to hear from you. Let me know in the comments which one of the 5 ways you think will have the most impact for you over the next little while. Was it one of the quick reframes? Or do you like the idea of thinking longer term about this particular problem? Either way, I’d love to hear from you.

By the way, that gig that gave me stage fright went really well, and if you want to see me play at the height of my own stage fright, check out the video from that night:

See if you can notice when I use the 3rd mental reframe I talk about in the video above. I can tell when I make a mistake or mess something up, but an audience member (hopefully) wouldn’t.

Good luck with the lesson and happy playing.

Cheers,

 

 

 

 

P.S. To hear my old mentor, Harry Pickens talk about the visualization strategy I talk about in the lesson, click here.