Medication for Performance Anxiety (part 2)

[trptcase]

Going back to Sarah Hughes at the Olympics--When she got off of the ice after her fantastic performance she was interviewed--"What were you thinking out there?" She said, "I just stopped thinking about winning and decided to have fun." Maybe we could all take a lesson from that.

[RooTheHorn]

Mr Walter, your post has caused me to change my mind and withdraw my original theory. Let me first make clear though, that I did not intend to disrespect classical/orchestral players. For who can deny the emotional content in classical music? Surely, it is classical that can create some of the most increadible emotional responses in the listener and problably even more in the player.

But yes, I failed to take into account the emotional aspect of classical playing and this is where your point sheds more light on the subject. For while in jazz, the emotion is put into the solo as a spontaneous expression, in a classical piece, the emotion has been encoded into the dots by the composer and it is the job of the musician to engage with it, and bring it back to life through the instument, and this can only be done well if the player is feeling the emotion that the composer originally put into the music.

It now seems to me, upon reflection that adrenaline/nervousness alone is is neutral, however once you start to play two things can happen. 1) You play well. Then the adrenaline gives you a positive heightened emotional state as discussed earlier which leads to great blowing and further heightening of emotions etc. This is the buzz felt when playing a good gig. Or - 2) You make mistakes, you get paranoid and self-suggest that you are going to mess up again, which inevitably happens and a viscious circle is formed. Disaster. Which way it goes depends on how confident you are in yourself and how much pressure you feel you are under from the audience.

So, I feel my original point is valid in this way. In a classical concert, a mistake is obvious and there is more pressure to play the piece correctly. So just one mistake can cause enough loss of confidence to bring disaster on ones playing. But in jazz, as, I believe Miles Davis said, "If you play a wrong note, play it again to show you meant it." And I mean that mistakes are not as important, and so they are not as likely to cause a downward spiral and loss of confidence.

And so I withdraw my original assertion that adrenaline is a creative influence on jazz players and a distraction to classical players, and replace it with the suggestion that players from all styles benefit from the positive effects of adrenaline, while improvisors may be less likely to suffer from the negative effects. Does this seem to make sense to anyone?