Lots of people experience stage fright. Not just beginners but also highly skilled performers. It’s no reflection on how good you are, or even how good you think you are, just a reaction to the idea of performing in front of whatever group of people you’re supposed to be performing in front of. Lots of people experience stage fright.
I never experienced stage fright.
I started “performing” (singing in church choirs and musicals) very young. Probably no later than kindergarten-age, though I couldn’t tell you precisely. So maybe that was a factor. Starting too young to care what other people thought, and getting consistent, positive feedback. When I started singing solos some years later, people were highly complimentary. I know now that they could only have been exaggerating (I had very charitable audiences), but at the time, I think I really believed I was as good as they were saying I was. It wasn’t until I started taking voice lessons that I received any kind of criticism, and that was alongside heavy-handed pressure to compete.
So maybe I never learned stage fright because I never had reason to. Nobody ever, before I was, I guess, a teenager, let me think I was anything less than perfect as a singer. Thus, despite anxiety that I know was present even when I was young, the closest I can say I got to stage fright pre-adulthood was stage euphoria. Performing was something I looked forward to more than pretty much any other thing. I knew people liked listening to me and I liked that they liked listening to me. I liked thinking that I could move people, and they were all ready to tell me I could. Going out on stage was a delightful experience.
The last time that was true was at my graduating recital (graduating from university). I remember the absolute thrill of it. People laughed at my jokes, they applauded loudly despite their small numbers1, I’m somewhat certain I got an A-, wasn’t entirely sure I deserved that while at the same time somehow being sure I deserved better (hypomania, probably), but overall, the performance felt great. And after that, I didn’t perform for years.
I know I descended into some very bad depressive episodes in the years following that my graduation from my music degree. And I know that at the bottom of that I identified myself (with Carrie Fisher’s help) as bipolar, followed eventually by treatment for it. I don’t know whether it was the end to the hypomanic episodes, the rising anxiety that followed, or simply not performing for so many years (which led to a loss of confidence in my skills and talent), but somewhere along the way, I developed stage fright.
I didn’t realize it at first. At one point, missing singing, I decided to go try singing with a choir again. That ended in tears. I attributed my struggle to being out of vocal shape, combined with the stress of simply being around a crowd of people after years of isolation (actually, as I type that, it is sounding strangely familiar). But looking back, I can see that I was terrified to sing in front of anyone. I was analysing my singing as I sang in a way that wasn’t typical for me, and my technique was getting worse as I tried to sing high notes without the people sitting next to me hearing. I was afraid to be heard, and that was new and awful.
Since then, my technique has come a long way. I know that I am a better singer than I was at that grad recital. And yet whatever excitement I might experience at the thought of performing now is tempered by the same fear that closed my throat when I tried to come back to the music the first time. “They” say that excitement and nerves are the same energy pointing in different directions (I paraphrase), and if you can convince your brain that you’re actually excited instead of nervous you can turn your negative nervousness into something more positive. And I believe that’s true. But it’s easier said than done.
Quick sort-of detour. Here’s a story. One time, at a small, friendly event for students of my then-teacher, I sang an original song. One line, which I had not really thought of as laugh-out-loud funny, drew actual laughter. Once upon a time I would have grinned at the response and continued. Instead, I was already so on edge that the distraction made me forget the next line. I was so upset that I stopped the song. Adam didn’t understand what was wrong and kept playing. I couldn’t seem to jump back into that song. I can remember the moment so clearly. I was in full fight-flight-or-freeze and freeze was the response of the day. Eventually, we went back to the beginning of the verse and sang to the end, after I’d instructed the other students not to laugh. You read that right, I looked at my audience and said, “don’t laugh!” Now. When I sing it, I lean into the comedy of the line. But at the time, I was thisclose to giving up on singing again. (I didn’t, thanks in large part to an absolutely epic pep-talk from that wonderful teacher.) I definitely don’t attribute the entirety of that response to stage fright, but I think the stage fright paved the way for it.
I think my stage fright is probably not abnormal stage fright. It feels like malign butterflies. It makes me dread performing when the performance is close-to. And when I overcome it and give a good performance, I feel absolutely fantastic. I still love performing, but it’s going to take some more work to feel truly confident on stage again.
Where am I going with this. Well, I have a few points. First, stage fright is not a consistent thing. You can have it at one point in your life, but not at another. That means it’s dependent on circumstance. What’s in your head, what’s in your body, what’s around you. Mood, audience, comfort with the material, comfort with your instrument, your health, the weather, hydration. So, if I’ve gone without it before, perhaps I can go without it again, I just have to change the circumstances.
Second, performing really can be scary. Your audience is right there in front of you to let you know what they think of you, and people can be cruel. You’re not always going to get a standing ovation. Or even if you are praised, it might come with an analysis of what you should have done differently.
Third, and final, lots of people get stage fright. It’s extremely normal at all tiers of performing arts. There is nothing to be ashamed of in having to deal with it, and it is nothing to be ashamed of. Just find your way to work through it. Get past it. Make art.
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1 I made a cute poster for this event (“Diva in Training”), my mother still has a copy, and then I never… put them up anywhere. I don’t know if I just didn’t have the energy, or maybe was ashamed for my classmates or strangers to see me, but my beautiful posters never hung anywhere. Except, to this day, in my mother’s living room.