Klarinet Archive - Posting 000720.txt from 2003/04

From: Karl Krelove <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Performance Anxiety techniques/remedies
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 00:40:56 -0400

The best remedy I have found (and it's taken me a very long time to find it)
is to be enough in control of the instrument not to have to worry about it.
I still have very strong jitters when I need to play a solo passage that
hits one of my weaknesses - fast tonguing, for example. Passages that once
made me ill days before a performance no longer worry me as much, not
because I've learned special relaxation techniques or because I've found
something to take, but because I play a lot better now than I did 30 years
ago.

That said, you need time to work out your technical problems, and the
performance next week is too soon for that. One thing that does help me with
a problem passage is to be able to consciously tighten and relax the muscles
I use in playing (or any of the others, for that matter). If you can locate
and feel the muscles in your lower arms and wrists, your neck, and your
respiratory system, you can practice deliberately tightening and relaxing
them each individually. I actually incorporate this into my practice of any
problematic passage that I'm preparing for a performance. When the time
comes for a public performance, you do the same thing - deliberate tensing
and relaxing, ending in the most relaxed state you can achieve just before
you start to play the terror passage. Take a good, relaxed breath, and
remember how many times you played it well in your practice room. It still
may not come out perfectly, but it'll be a lot better than it would have
been with everything tight and, in effect, frozen.

Then, stop worrying about it. Once the passage is gone, it's gone and you'll
make more mistakes by worrying about it afterward and not concentrating on
what's still coming. And one day, maybe thirty years from now, that spot
won't hold so much worry.

My thoughts, for what they're worth,

Karl Krelove

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stacy-Michelle [mailto:stacy-michelle@-----.com]
> Sent: Friday, April 18, 2003 12:48 PM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: [kl] Performance Anxiety techniques/remedies
>
>
> Besides prescription meds, Alexander technique and bananas, anyone
> have any tips/tricks/natural herbal remedies that have worked to
> minimize performance anxiety? I started reading "Inner Game of
> Music" which some of the techniques help, but Im just seeking other
> alternatives. Thanks for any info.
>
> --
> Soulfully,
>
> Stacy-Michelle Valentine
> http://clarinetvibe.com
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ClassicallyBlack
>
> "Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you
> don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's
> a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to
> art." - Charlie Parker
>
>
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>
>

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