Dealing with Stage Fright

What Exactly is Stage Fright?

Almost all musicians and guitarists have experienced this at least once in their lives: nerves!

Even legendary musicians such as Jim Morrison, Ella Fitzgerald, Adele, David Bowie and Barbara Streisand were known to be shy and nervous of performing live. Jim Morrison is said to be so scared of performing live, he used to face the band instead of the audience in order to be able to sing!

Whether you play in jam-packed 30,000 capacity arena, or in front of friends and family on a trip to the beach, nerves are part of the game. Stage fright, anxiety, lack of confidence or nervousness – whatever you may want to call it – comes with the package when you’re a musician. And needless to say, it can have an adverse effect on your guitar-play.

Most of the times, such problems manifest from a fear of failure, fear of making a mistake, questioning if you’re good enough, fearing what the audience will think of you and your music, to name a few.

Why Dealing with Stage Fright is Important

The ability to be confident and comfortable on stage isn’t something that comes naturally for a lot of people, including musicians. Ultimately, mastering both these attributes – being confident and comfortable on stage – is what makes a good musician and a good entertainer. It is the ‘entertainment’ industry after all, and unless you create a confident stage persona for yourself, you’ll never be able to make it here. No one would really ever pay to see a stiff musician, who is just a bunch of nerves on the stage!

The ability to create a good stage persona for yourself is even more important than making good music! Allow me to support this argument with an example.

Angus Young, lead guitarist of the popular Australian rock n’ roll group ACDC is a good example here. If you’ve listened to their music, you’ve probably also seen them play live and you’ll know what I mean. If not, I suggest you Youtube it straightaway. The point is that Young has a confident and a rather electrifying stage persona, complete with weird dance moves, absurd stage antics, and the ability to keep the audiences engaged. Granted, ACDC have made some great music, but the reason that they are so popular (and have been so for a good part of the last 40-odd years!) and the reason that they continue to sell out wherever they go, is that they’re absolutely fantastic to watch when they perform live. And a big reason for that is Angus Young!

When ACDC sells tickets, when people learn that ACDC is coming to town and when stadiums and arenas where the band is supposed to play sell out, a big reason for that is Mr. Young!

Creating a Stage Persona

The point of everything that I’ve said above is that every successful musician needs a stage persona. A persona that is strong, presents the artist as a confident musician and meshes well with his personality. Trust me on this, being confident will automatically make you a better musician. You’ll actually be able to notice as you become better, and are able to play better!

But you’ll have to look the part first!

Create a look that goes with your personality, and does a good job of portraying you as a musician. The best way to do that is look at other musicians who are in the same genre of music as you, and make similar music as you do. Notice how they dress, act on stage and act behind the scenes. Never copy these musicians! Being yourself is an important aspect of your personality. However what you can do is ‘borrow’ certain elements off these musicians and see which one of these elements can be integrated with your own personality. The most obvious would be the way they dress, so go from there.

Being More Confident on Stage

Before stepping out on the stage (or in front of a group of people) the next time, try these:

1. Don’t put pressure on yourself  about performing at a high level. A performance is not the time to be putting yourself under pressure, you should do that during practice or rehearsal sessions! Instead, have fin during the gig and enjoy your music. Be well-prepared when you step into the arena and onto the big-stage. If you're looking for online lessons to work on your guitar-play head on over to GuitarTricks (review here).

2. In continuation to the point above, you can perform better when you focus on having fun on stage, instead of worrying about making a mistake or what the audience is thinking of you. Even if you do make a mistake, for instance, give yourself credit for playing the other 99% of the notes correctly, instead of obsessing about that one odd mistake on stage. You’ll have plenty of time to do that after the gig!

3. Next time you’re up on the stage, remember this: everyone in the audience – whether its 50 people or 50,000 people – envy you, and would swap places with you in a heartbeat! That is how incredibly lucky and privileged you are. The next time that stage fright kicks in, remind yourself that people in the crowd ‘are in the crowd,’ while you are up on the stage and living the dream!  Think back to when you were learning to play the guitar – when you imagined how cool it would be to play live. Remind yourself how you began, how far you’ve come as a musician and what you’ve achieved during the process. There was once a time that you wanted to follow the footsteps of you favorite musicians an idols, and now you’ve actually gone on and done it! Be proud and feel good about it.

4. At the end of the day, it’s not about impressing others. Music is about ‘giving to others’. When you donate money to charity, help someone cross the road, or do something for someone else, how does that make you feel? Do you feel nervous, or do you feel nice about it? If you look at your performance as ‘giving to others’ you will never feel nervous about it, because you’re adding value to people’s experiences. Some may like it, while some may not, and that is something that comes with the territory.