Does anyone have any advice to avoid stage fright I have performed a couple of solos before but I always shake and it kind of sound like a lot of vibrato when I'm nervous(but it sounded nice)
I can never stand still because i'm shaking from my nervousness.
I have an audition/final on tues morning. It will determine what chair I will be in Symphonic band next semester and it will also determine if I will make wind ensemble which it's our first time having wind ensemble. Please I need help!!!

And if anyone has any advice about sight reading(which is my weakness).

The best cure for stage fright is experience. The more you play in front of people, the more comfortable you'll get with it. For this audition, try setting up a mock audition situation with your parents, or friends or pastor...Really just about anyone. See if having "auditioned" on the music at least once before doesn't improve the real thing. Also, start putting yourself in that situation more often. Try auditioning for any honor or community groups that you're eligible for, realizing that even if you don't make it, you're really just auditioning for the experience anyway. Getting the chair is just a plus. Some people advocate taking just a few (3 or 4) deep breaths before you play to relax yourself. That never really helped me, but it might help you. In a performance situation (even though auditions are really just judged performances), just realize that the people have come to hear your music. They're not going to riot if you hit a bad note here and there. It happens to even the best, and chances are, if you keep playing confidently without letting the mistake lead to other mistakes, they won't even notice. Most audience members are not musicians, and even fewer are flutists with a keen ear for what you'll be playing.

As for sightreading, just pass as much new music in front of you as possible. Ask your private teacher for an etude book, and everyday just read through one or two etudes without stopping. The more music that passes across the stand, the easier sightreading will seem. Also be sure you have your scales and arpeggios (in all their various forms) down, or learn them if you haven't already. A lot of music is just fragments of scales or arpeggios, and knowing what they look like will help you to recognize familiar patterns, and make the experience less taunting.

Hi

Here is an outline of an article I wrote fro Jupiter flutes:

- simulate the situation, perform your piece for family and friends or for you school band or music class.

- be well prepared. practice your piece very slowly and carefully, even with your pianist or other musicians.

- be calm and focused before you perform, avoid unnecessary conversation if it distracts you.

- spend time in the concert hall or performance space before you perform if possible, go out into the audience before the concert to get the audiences perspective.

- remember, if you look relaxed the audience will feel relaxed. If you smile, they will smile.

- focus on the music and nothing but the music. Do so without playing into the music stand.

- If performing from memory, pick a spot to play to, preferably projecting to the last row.

- most importantly, remember that the audience wants to have a good time, be entertained and enjoy the music. If you are worried about mistake counters (those who are keeping track of mistakes), remember that they are indeed a minority, don’t worry about them, feel sorry for them.

- If preparing to play in a recital, select music that you are comfortable with and that you enjoy performing.

- nerves tend to make the heart race, cause shortness of breath and create butterflies. If this happens to you, take the fast movements slower, remembering that the music will sound faster if the notes are clear, rhythmic and in tune.

- be careful what you eat, salty snacks should be avoided as the mouth tends to get dry when one gets a bit nervous
- Last but not least, be yourself.

What Flutist06 and Patrick said was beautiful and perfect, so I don't know how I could follow that up except for one little bit of advice that could work...

What I find helps me is if someone is there for me, like a friend. My band director and I are close, so when I have to perform in front of a group or have a solo in a song, I know he's there for me and I relax. If you don't have a friend or anyone "friendly" around, pretend someone you trust is there, even if they aren't. It's a cruel trick to play on your mind, but it's helped me and a few other musicians in my band.

Interesting trick, Celebrian. I will try this next time I must go trough the experience.

So far, I tend to avoid having family or close acquaintances present when I have to play in public, kind of stupid shame. I will try to take your suggestion in account.

The other recommendations are all extremely valuable, though this has been a recurring issue in the Forum, but it is good to have all together again.

From my very little experience, I would add, however, a couple of tricks. They work for me, maybe they do also for you:

- Apart from playing in front of people the most you can, when alone just imagine you are playing on stage and with important public. Initially it may add some stress and put you a little nervous, even create butterflies, but that is the kind of problem you have to overcome. But this you can repeat as often as you want, no need to have real public.

- Work a lot on recovering from errors. Consider you can not stop and start all over, something we normally (me, at least) do when studying. You can hope there will be no errors, but what if they happen? As long as they remain isolated errors, or groups of errors, the performance will go OK. I say to myself, I can stumble but I cannot fall, no matter what goes wrong. We all know what are the notes or measures we have more difficulties on and so are prone to errors. Then, apart from working deeply on those "dangerous" parts, study how to continue normally if something went wrong.

This is particularly important with duets or accompaniments, specially if the other part(s) is also of your same skill or close to it (like duets with fellow students, I had to go trhough it after just the first year of my lesson).

I practice now a lot with recordings or with MIDIs (now I am "writing" them myself). They will not stop or slow down even if you are dying, so they are very demanding "companions" and good for this kind of error recovering practice.

- A last and strong suggestion (not necessarily applying to you or anybody in particular): Never yield to the temptation or taking pills of any sort (stress relievers or whatever they may call it). They could dangerously impair your playing. Its better to shake on stage and still play OK, than feel relaxed but unable to perform satisfactorily.

<Added>

I had this in mind but I forgot to include it:

If you get nervous to the point of trembling, but still can play, then you must be very good!
So, why not look at the problem with some humor, the type of "well, it will eventually go away, in the meantime I have this vibrato as an added value"...

I wish good luck and enjoyment, the most important part.
:)

I don't know if someone said this before.
Let me just add that I completely agree with all previous opinions here.

There is something about playing in public, note related to any kind of religion at all, that is a sort of concentration exercise. It's like a meditation. You fix the idea of being just an instrument for another stronger power (of the universe, maybe), and you and your real instrument make a team to acomplish transmitting a message, that is acctually the music.

It's very subtle, and works for me because everything I've done before, like preparing myself, taking care of my instrument, rehearsals and practices that led me to know a peace, and all sort of things you do before being in audiance, stayed in the past and served as tools to acomplish the main mission of transmiting something to someone. There is no purpose in playing alone for nobody (except in practicing), so what we do is playing for others.

Try to imagine that every time you go to an audition, you are an instrument along with your flute, and everything you will do is a result (of course) of your hard work, and according to this you and the public deserve to receive the best you can do.

hope it helps

Zevang

I'm fairly close with my band director as well, and he usually makes me play a few measures from pieces of music-solo- in front of the whole band because (not bragging, rather hating really) I'm the only flutist in my band that takes the flute seriously. Having a trusted ADULT around while playing publicly helps me a lot
As for sight reading, I agree with the others. Present new pieces to yourself as much as possible. I don't have a private teacher, so I have to use my parents instead (neither play the flute). I'll try playing a new piece at least once a week (thanks to this website, it's now possible!

PS. I like your profile picture. Wicked is soooo on my top 5 list of musicals. Stephen Schwartz is definitely one of my favorite composers.

confidence.
play your heart out.

this is what i do^^
you've prepared it and the audience just wants to hear you play good.

you'll do amazing.

also remember that stage fright is normal, I have played hundreds of concerts and shows and I still get nervous, as do most performers...

I understand what you mean, jose_luis, about not wanting or having family or friends around when you play; I used to have a big problem with letting people who knew me really well see me perform. It made me so nervous. But, after I realized that nothing bad was going to happen and that they enjoyed it, I stopped stressing.

Thank you for all your suggestion. I'll let you know what happens on tues.

Celebrian:
I have started to work on it. In fact, I am forced to do so, as there are circumstances that are absolutely impossible to avoid.

But it is related to my feeling of being prepared enough or not. I made progress and now feel more confident and so less ashamed.

Recently I had to sing in front of close family and lots of friends and some unknown people. And there will more to come. We are even preparing a kind of "public" performance with a colleague friend, for a coming birthday in December that is a very important milestone for me. This time I will have to play the flute, not only sing, and probably act, as we will have some theater stuff included. My friend is the creative guy, but I do not know yet what he is preparing...

jose_luis:

I'm glad that you're trying new things and performing not just on one instrument. Have you ever done theater before? (That might have been a silly question...) I always get so nervous when I first get out on stage and then, when I relax and actually deliver my lines, I realize how hot those stage lights are!

I remember the first time I sang... I was so nervous!

Wishing you the best of luck, once again!!!!

Thanks. No never ated in theater, not even at school as I can recall. I am very reluctant to to it...
As for singing, I can manage my nerves and the results so far have been satisfactory (for my student level). But I am far from performing in front of real public (the kind that has paid his ticket) and so feel free to throw in tomatoes...