Managing Performance Anxiety

Abstract

Unfortunately, musicians do not always enthusiastically welcome all opportunities to perform for an audience of people. Instead of sensing excitement to share their music with an audience, musicians sometimes feel apprehensive and anxious. This anxiety, commonly called “stage fright,” can be a serious and debilitating problem. Unfortunately, the problem can start in youth and continue into the performance lives of adult musicians. The fact that even successful musicians struggle with performance anxiety shows that it is fundamentally unwarranted; it does not stem from being untalented or ill-equipped to perform. From a psychological perspective, a proper treatment strategy cannot be prescribed without first diagnosing the source of anxiety. This chapter looks beyond the physiological symptoms to define performance anxiety by its causes and the conditions that produce it. The three broad sources of performance anxiety, the person, the situation, and the task, are explained in detail, with treatment suggestions made for each.