Episode 5: 4 Strategies to Help you Handle Performance Anxiety

Episode Description

In this solo episode, Hannah Harris discusses performance anxiety in Irish traditional music. She shares personal experiences of feeling frustrated and nervous while playing in front of others. Hannah explores the fear of making mistakes, sounding silly, and being a beginner in a space where one feels they should be more advanced. She offers strategies for handling performance anxiety, including practicing breathing techniques, being prepared musically and externally, surrounding oneself with supportive people, and embracing curiosity and experimentation in playing. Hannah encourages listeners to overcome their fears and share their unique voices in the Irish traditional music space.

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Episode Transcript

Have you ever played in front of another person or a group of people and gotten so frustrated with yourself because it just didn't sound as good as it did in the practice room? Maybe you're sitting in a session and you're like, “I learned this great tune this week and I learned it really well and now I'm going to play it for you all.” And then when you play it, you're like, “I forgot the B part.”

Or maybe you are sitting at a competition and you're suddenly in front of the adjudicator and you've got this audience of musicians all ready to listen to you and you're like, “I have practiced for 100 hours in order to be ready for this.” And as soon as you get the first note out, you're like, “this is not the day my hands are way too shaky. I'm so nervous about everything going on around me. I don't know what's happening. I've completely lost the whole point of this tune that I'm playing and it just all flies out the window.”

Maybe you are in a performance and you play a weird note that you've never played before and you're like, “well, that's it for today.”

I'm guessing that you're probably nodding along to at least one of these situations, my friend, in which case I want to say welcome back to the Find Your Lilt Podcast.

My name is Hannah Harris, and the feelings I've just described are literally things that I have experienced over the past 25 years of being a musician. They're not fun. And today we're going to talk about how to handle these feelings and keep going and keep getting our instruments out and about in the world and sharing what it is we do sharing this Irish traditional music with everybody. So we are talking Yep, all about performance anxiety.

I'm pretty sure that listening to podcasts around mindset and taking action despite fear on a regular basis has definitely played a major role in why I'm able to get up in front of other people on a regular basis and play my fiddle. And so I hope that this episode will do for you what some amazing women in the online business space have done for me. So let's unpack what's happening in these situations.

What is going on when we are, you know, we've prepared, we've done a lot of work in the practice room and we're suddenly in a space where we have to play in public, we have to play whether it's for our dog, for our parents, for our family, for a friend, or for lots of other musicians. Like, what is it that we are really afraid of? Is it this fear of messing up in front of somebody and then them suddenly saying, you know what, that's it, I can't associate with you anymore? Or is it this fear of sounding silly, a fear of maybe if we don't sound like we play at a certain level, we don't belong in the space.

I think that a lot of this is really coming into play where it's this fear of messing up, making a mistake, looking silly, being a beginner in a space where you feel like you should be further along, further advanced, especially us as adults. You know, we've spent all this time in school and we're like, “you know what, I've got this now, I've got this life thing.” And so we think that we can go on and we don't have to ever be a beginner again, which spoiler alert, does not happen.

So I definitely think that a lot of these factors are coming into play. And so of course we know we let ourselves go on the spiral of like, okay, so if this happens, then this is gonna happen, then this is gonna happen. And finally, we get all the way to this thing where we're all alone. We have no friends, we have no family, we are just all on our own and we suddenly can't play Irish music anymore. I think that that is probably where a lot of us end up in our minds when we're thinking of having to be heard and play our music in front of other people.

And so I just want to say that these are valid fears. I mean, yes, it sounds silly when you're like, “okay, yeah, do I really think that these people are not going to like me if I mess up and play C sharp instead of C natural?” Like, it does sound silly when you say it, but it's a fear that we have and your opinions and your feelings matter.

But a lesson I've learned from, I would say, Jen Gottlieb in particular. She's this online business entrepreneur. So if you're in the traditional Irish music space, maybe you've never heard of Jen before, but she is absolutely amazing. And she's got this great concept of putting fear in the passenger seat while you're driving the car. So you are the one who is in control. You are acknowledging that yes, fear is here. It's along for the ride. It's not going to go away.

But you're not letting that actually take control of how you're playing your instrument. So, as an example, I was just at the Midwest Fleadh this past weekend when I'm recording this, and I felt very nervous accompanying my friend. I was there to really just check out the fleadh I'd never been to one before, at least in the States, and I wasn't quite sure what it was all about, but I heard, you know, it's a lot of fun, you know, you have a lot of sessions that pop up, you see a lot of great musicians, and so I figured I'd go check this thing out, see how it was.

And I found out that my friend Jim was going to be entering on bodhrán and then he asked me he's like “well you know I need a melody player to in order to enter in order to play the drum here and would you like to play melody for me” so I was like why not okay so this will allow me to even though I wasn't planning on going competing necessarily it will allow me to be kind of in that competitor situation without me being the actual person who's entering and I'm just here to you know play melody and help him out there.

So that's what I did. But even though I wasn't the one that was specifically being judged there, I still was getting up and I was playing in front of all these great musicians. There were a ton of talented musicians that entered the bodhrán competition for the over 18 group and for the under 18 as well, but we weren't competing against them. So there were also some great musicians just in there just to listen. So it's a lot of pressure, you know, to get up and to sit in front of all these people and suddenly it's like, they're gonna hear me play.

So needless to say, I was very nervous for this situation and I definitely could feel a little bit, you know, I play a lot of gigs these days so I do definitely play my instrument in front of a lot of people. You know, I get in front of my camera and I record a lot of tutorials for students that I know they're going to be watching the recording later.

And so it can definitely be nerve wracking, but I don't always feel the shakes, the nerves, you know, back in the day I would do a lot of performance juries for my classical music degree and like that, that I was really nervous for, like I would be shaking, I could definitely hear the shakiness in my playing, early days of performing at church and other places, just having to play in front of people, you could absolutely hear the nerves come through in my playing. What was different about the Midwest Fleadh this past weekend is that yes, I was nervous.

But I would say 99 % of the people couldn't tell. And that is because I have done a lot of work on this, and I'm going to get more into how I got to this space, but I really, really do think that in this situation, I was able to accept that fear was there and that I was nervous and I wanted to do well for Jim and I wanted to play well in front of these people that I didn't know very well, but I knew that they were great musicians.

That was something that I had to work through and then very quickly turn around and say, okay, I'm going to do the best I can. And yes, maybe my mouth's shaking a little bit. Maybe I'm, you know, kind of, my palms are sweaty and my fingers a little bit shaky, but I'm not going to let that overcome and take over how I'm playing. I'm going to play with the skill level that I know I have put a lot of time into developing. So in this situation, I was absolutely able to do that.

And actually after the competition, we did get this comment from a friend about how we went really, really fast, but we were in control the whole time. So that was kind of one of those yes moments, like yes, it's what we were intending to do. We were going to play fast, but we were going to do it well. And I love that you can kind of, you can put yourself into these situations a lot where you're playing sessions with people who are very advanced and can play very, very fast, but are in complete control of what they're doing. They play at very high speeds.

I'm thinking of Colin Farrell in particular, he’s a great fiddle player, and he can play so cleanly at such a high pace, and you sit in a session with him, like, you listen to a recording and you don't think he's going that fast, and then you try and play along with him and you're like, wow, this is a lot faster than how I would normally play this tune. And so it's really, really good to not only just be in control of your fear, but you know, you're letting that control come over and control your speed as well.

So yes, in this situation at the Fleadh I was scared, I was nervous, but I was in control. And this has been years in the making. So if you are experiencing feelings like this, and it's hindering you from being able to play your best music for other people, let's go ahead and talk about how to get to this place. How can you get yourself to this place?

Now, I will say it was not from eating a banana. And actually, I do think that eating bananas can help with managing nerves. So if you've never heard this tip before, this is something that I did a lot in college before a performance jury is I'd eat a banana, it was supposed to help, you know, regulate your nervous system, maybe the potassium was some kind of thing that interacts with your body that helps you calm down a little bit.

And I do actually think that it helped. I'm just not entirely sure if that was just like psychologically me being like, if I eat a banana, this is going to help calm me down. Or if it was actually the banana doing its thing and you know, actually calming me down or maybe some combination thereof. But that's not what I'm getting on here to talk to you about today.

So yes, if your body tolerates bananas, and you can eat them and you think that they help you play with less fear, then absolutely go for it. But that's not one of the strategies that I'm actually going to cover with you. So the first one that I really wanted to talk about was practice breathing.

I know we think about breathing as like, okay, yeah, it's something I do every day. I kind of have to in order to, you know, stay alive. But there's actually a way to be better at breathing and to allow that to help you regulate your nervous system. So, you know, you hear a lot about in the yoga space, there's the pranayama, there's the breath work, and there's a lot of different practices out there that help you regulate your breathing, that help you really breathe better and breathe more effectively.

So it takes more effort than you'd think. I mean, of course, we're here we are, you're listening to me and I'm talking to you here and we're all breathing. But there is a better way to go about breathing. So learning to tap into your nervous system and comment at any state is going to be a really, really good strategy.

So I know that there's there's bag breathing out there, there are some good performance anxiety videos specifically for musicians where they talk through different breathwork exercises. Some of them are directly related to pranayama and some of them might be from different traditions, but it's all about helping you to tap in, to calm down. So, you know, you can do like the inhale for a certain number of counts and the exhale for a certain number of counts.

And for me, I think that actually starting to practice yoga as a musician, and incorporating a bit more breath work that was very, very helpful in me being able to tap into a more nervous state and think, okay, slow down for a second, make your exhales a little bit longer than your inhales, just focus on the count, tune everything else out. And you can just tap into that safe space where it's just you and your breath and you are in control again.

So again, we're talking about staying in control, even despite all of these other feelings that are happening. So having that more enhanced breathwork practice as part of how you practice your instrument, how you practice performing is really, really valuable.

So my second tip for you around beating performance anxiety and allowing yourself to play without this fear being in charge is to be prepared. So this could be both musically and externally, just your physical environment. So I'll get into a little bit more about what I mean by each. So of course, you know, you spend time in the practice room, you're going through your tunes, you're probably playing for yourself before you play in front of many people.

So of course that counts as practice, but how much effective practice are you doing and how much are you able to get these skill levels to a place where they're subconscious. Like you're not thinking about what direction is my bow going in? Am I playing a down bow or an up bow for this part?

Instead, you're thinking about the music as a whole and then you know how to get yourself back on track. You're using X amount of bow to stay within a certain parameter and you're able to quickly and very flexibly navigate and switch bow patterns in the moment. So, it's less about, you know, all these decisions you have to make in the moment because there's a lot that goes into playing a fiddle, you know, intonation, and tone, phrasing, rhythm, and what is your right hand doing versus your left hand doing. It's, it's all so much and it's a lot to focus on.

So when you're afraid, and that is just kind of crowding out every single other thing that you want to be thinking about, of course, there's not going to be any room for you to think about, okay, my tone quality really could be better, what should I do for that? So, in order to allow your conscious mind to make more of those in the moment decisions, it really helps to have as much of the technique and as much of the basics just ingrained into your subconscious. So no matter what state you're in, you know that you know how to do a down bow. You can easily switch from a down bow to an up bow. You can do a slur, you can add an ornament.

And that just leaves you more free to be thinking about your individual expression in the moment. Now, externally, you can be prepared for any physical things that happen when you get nervous. So like I said, if you have sweaty palms, maybe you bring a towel with you or you have a sweatshirt that you can just wipe your hands off before you go and play. And you can just be prepared that way. You can have plenty of water to keep yourself hydrated.

Just… Take care of future you. Think about what does future me need if I'm nervous, if I'm in this state? Like, what do I wish I had in this moment? So, definitely, definitely good to think about and be prepared in that way because yes, fear is going to show up and it's probably going to show up in a place where we don't want it to or we least expect it. So, wouldn't it be better if we had the tools we need when it does?

My third tip I will share with you is surround yourself with the right people. So I have met many talented musicians in the Irish music space, but I will say there is a line between the talented musicians who I respect and those I don't. And that line all comes down to how they treat other people. So if you are a phenomenal musician, but you're a bit of a jerk, then I'm not going to have much respect for you. I'm sorry.

If you are a phenomenal musician and you treat other people who are not just at your same level or higher, but also maybe just getting into the music or not as familiar with the music. If you're treating them well and with respect, then my respect for you is going to skyrocket. So there's definitely a line there and that's just something that I've come across in the space where I'm really able to surround myself with people that are both good musicians but also good people at the same time.

So, an example of someone who is both a phenomenal musician and a beautiful, beautiful person would be Liz Carroll. I think maybe you went right there as well when you were thinking of an example. Liz is just such a genuinely nice and supportive person. She's got the skill of making you feel valued any time that you talk to her. And she talks to a lot of people, a lot of musicians. There's a lot of young musicians and older musicians who look up to her and her skill level. And she knows that.

And because of that she is very much always conscious of being an encourager and an enabler and allowing these people to really shine and feel like they have a seat at the table. So, I did hear she was one of the judges for the Midwest Fleadh and hopefully I'm allowed to share this here, but I heard some great feedback from people that were listening to her adjudicating this younger group of kids as they were playing. So, she shared her feedback with all of them.

But she did it in a way where it was meant to encourage and to allow them to keep going and also to allow them to improve, but not in a way that made them feel like, you did such a terrible job there. Like, that's, that was awful. I can't ever listen to that again. Like she would never say that to somebody. But it was more like this could have been X, Y, Z focus on that for, you know, improving your playing here.

So just the way that she said it, and I wasn't in the room so I don't know exactly how she said it, but I imagine that it was coming from a place where it was meant to be like, this is awesome that you're interested in Irish music and I think you should keep doing this and here's how to keep enhancing your experience and the experience of those around you in order to really, you know, bring this all together. So like, here you are, let's keep going, you know, super, super encouraging.

The whole point of this is that someone who is doing better and more than you in any field of life, but specifically here in Irish traditional music, they're more focused on being their best self. And that means that they don't have time to criticize you or tear you down or say that sounded awful. my gosh. And like talk to you about talk about you to their friends like that's just, that's not what they are going to spend their time doing. No one who does that is doing better than you in life.

And that could just be again, like, musically and life in general. And they really shouldn't be worth your time. I know that in some situations it might be trickier than others, but really, when it all boils down to it, anyone who is criticizing you and your playing and coming from a place of meanness and not trying to help you out and just not saying things right, like, that should not be worth your time.

And trust me, I know that words sting and people can be cranky and say really, really stupid things sometimes. I work in customer support. So I know that when people are upset and frustrated and they say things that they don't mean sometimes, but they also, you know, you have to really, really take things with a grain of salt. So that's just something to be aware of.

So as long as you know that the person is coming from a place of kindness and from wanting to see your success, that really is more what you want to be focusing on when you're receiving feedback. So of course you have to have a little bit of thick skin if you want to have any sort of feedback because there's always ways that we can improve and always things that we can go about doing better. But really when I say surround yourself with the right people, I mean like surround yourself with the people that are going to lift you up and not tear you down.

And as hard as it may be, really, really should only value the opinions of those close to you who you respect. So as I was saying, plenty of great musicians out there. Not all of them are super nice people. So only be thinking about the opinions of those who you have a lot of respect for who are going to lift you up. And if those opinions turn nasty, mean or derogatory with no care for your mental, emotional or physical well -being, they're out, my friend.

Now, the fourth and final point that I'll make for getting yourself in control of the music you're putting out is to be okay with whatever comes out of your instrument. Get curious, get experimental. You know, this podcast is called Find Your Lilt, so we are all about experimenting and finding a different path to creating our ideal sound, creating this real feel for Irish music. And you can really make a game out of it. You can have a lot of fun with it.

So, the first time that I really started to think about this concept and embody it and actually be able to do it was this workshop that I took with Caoimhín O'Raghallaigh back in 2017. So while I was living in Cork City, there was this great little fiddle retreat out in West Cork. It was over St. Patrick's Day weekend. So this is how I spent my St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, was at a fiddle retreat out in the wilderness in West Cork, and it was a lot of fun.

One of the things that he talked about, one of the exercises he had us do is we just all went around the room and we played this one really long slow note on a down bow. So we just pulled the bow from the the frog to the tip as slow as we could and we just let whatever happened happen. Like maybe you got a lot of shakes, maybe you have more pressure, maybe you were just varying things up a little bit, maybe you got this kind of weird squeak that came out depending on where you hit the bow, but the whole point of the exercise was like, don't make it sound pretty.

It's not meant to sound pretty and great and awesome this entire time. Just see what comes out and be like, “that was interesting.” So you're not getting hung up in what you think sounds nice, but more in like, what can this instrument do? Like what are these cool notes that I'm putting out? And how did I do that? Could I do that again? Could I not do that again? And how do I go about doing that?

You took the judgment out of the exercise. It was like, I don't care what's going on in my instrument. I'm just going to get curious about what's happening. And it took so much pressure off the room because you know, there's 16, 17 fiddle players in here and we all don't know each other. Most of us didn't know each other. And we're just like, we're seeing what sound comes out like and you really kind of get to know a person when they stop putting that boundary up and they're like, okay, what sounds going to come out like some like really intense emotions came out of some of these fiddlers.

And just from like pulling one note on the string. It was a really, really neat exercise. So let that be a lesson that you don't always have to play a super pretty note. Like you should communicate what's going on. You can get curious about what's happening on the fiddle.

Maybe you have, you know, like a whistling E string. And so you're like, okay, well, what's happening here? How is that happening? What can I change? And instead of thinking about like, I can never play my instrument again, I can't do that again, like, get curious, just just think about it. Okay, so maybe maybe I need to change my strings, maybe the angle that I'm hitting the bow at isn't working super well. So can I try something different? And again, get experimental, try something that you weren't doing before.

I do have to laugh because my other example I wrote in my notes here was I had a case of hiccups at the fleadh this past weekend, so I was out a little bit late playing a session, as you will, at these events, and of course there was a little bit of drinkage going along here, and at some point in the evening I had to call it a night. I still had plenty of energy. I was like, you know, it's here we go, four in the morning, we're fine. I'm young, I can do this.

I could still play some tunes, but I could not get rid of these hiccups. And so when you're trying to play your fiddle and you are hiccuping every other note and it's just like, you know what? This is not musically pleasant for anyone to listen to or for me to play at this time, because again, I'm hiccuping and it's uncomfortable. Then like at that point I was like, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and call it a night.

But the point of that was like I literally, I mean, maybe it was because I had a lot of alcohol on me, but I think even if I were sober and I was hiccuping a lot, I would probably just laugh about it. And I'm still laughing about it. And here we are just a few days later recording. And it's like, yeah, no, I didn't sound really great then, but I'm still friends with all these people. Like, I don't think they're gonna look back and be like, she was the girl who was hiccuping at 4am and I don't ever want to talk to her again.

So like, no, she was the girl who's hiccuping at 4am. That was hilarious. And I'm gonna remember her and I want to play with her again, maybe when she's not hiccuping, because it will sound better. But you get my point.

So to recap, we have four areas to consider when we want to play at our very best inside the practice room and out.

The first one is to remember to breathe and spend time getting good at breathing. Second one is to prepare yourself for your nerves and take care of future you by having your little emergency kits and your metaphorical ones. So you've got your practice room skills and you've got your towel or whatever it is you need to make yourself comfortable when you're afraid. Number three would be to surround yourself with loving, supportive people who help you grow without turning you down or tearing you down.

And then the fourth one is to flip your self -criticism to self -curiosity and explore all the fun sounds you can make on this instrument. Because there's a lot of really fun stuff. Like, there's even videos out there of, you know, YouTube musicians and they, you know, try to make like bird sounds or sirens or whatever. And it's just the funniest thing. You can make cat noises. I know Alasdair Fraser's done an arrangement where he makes a seagull and a cat face -off where he's telling this story through just sounds he's able to make on his fiddle.

Those are, those are memorable things, clearly, because it's, you know, it's one tune of his, but it's one that I remember because he's able to, you know, really experiment with those sounds.

So my friend, I hope you are able to take these lessons to heart and use them to overcome your fears and share your beautiful, unique voice with all of us. I would love to hear your playing. I would love to play with you at a session at some point. It'd be a lot of fun. And I hope that you are encouraged to keep going and keep sharing all that you have to offer in this Irish traditional music space.

If this resonated with you, I would love if you could send this episode to a friend who you think would benefit from it and then come on over to our free Find Your Lilt community at https://learn.hannahharrisceol.com/community and let us know how you're working through performance anxiety. I can't wait to connect with you there and until next week, happy practicing and keep exploring to find your Lilt.