So you get up to play a song at the jam session and you're terrified you're sweating
you're nervous you just don't feel good you're afraid you're gonna mess up
screw up and embarrass yourself so how do we get over performance anxiety so we feel confident and
fearless that's coming right up what's up brent here from learn jazz standards we help musicians
just like you learn how to play jazz all while shortening the learning curve no matter what
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mindset tips like in today's video so make sure you subscribe to the channel and hit that bell
notification button to never miss out on anything going on listen we can all relate to that feeling
of just being so nervous and overwhelmed when we're going to perform especially after we've
practiced a long time we freeze up we just end up getting lost in jazz solos and jazz
standards and we just don't feel good about our playing as a result of that performance anxiety
so we need to learn how to manage that and be able to set ourselves up for success as much
as possible and quick disclaimer before we get in today's show here i am not a psychologist nor
am i a neuroscientist nor do i play one on tv so all this is just really based off of my personal
experience and the things that i've seen helpful in my students so i'm gonna go over my five tips
for overcoming jazz performance anxiety but of course i'd love to hear from you leave in the
comments or the show notes how do you deal with performance anxiety would be great to hear your
thoughts and ideas as well tip number one is to over prepare now this happens obviously before
we even get to the jam session or gig so this is the obvious first step is the more prepared we are
for whatever musical situation we're going into the better off we're going to be but of course
a lot of us naturally know that so what are some ways that we can over prepare if you're going to a
jam session figure out what songs are being called ahead of time so feel free just to go to that jam
session and actually just sit there and not play at all just notice what normally is being called
that way you can go back home and learn those jazz standards or at least learn several of them
so that you're prepared to play them now if you have played at this jam session before and you got
lost in particular jazz standard then now you can mark that as something that you need to work on
so go back and just work on that tune a lot like why did you get lost really try to analyze that
and over prepare over that particular tune so that doesn't happen again now perhaps you realize you
actually don't know a tune as well as you thought so again deep dive into that tune and make sure
you're able to play it in different keys make sure that you're able to play it in different tempos
anything that you can think of any kind of variation you can think of that would help you
more deeply learn that tune is going to be very valuable now one thing that i learned from a
colleague of mine for over preparing is actually to practice with distractions so oftentimes that's
what we're experiencing when we go to performance is distractions and so you know practice playing
while your tv's on practice playing while you're walking around your house any kind of environment
that can be a less than ideal environment for you to play or perform in can actually help you
feel more comfortable when it comes to playing at a noisy bar or a noisy restaurant where there are
things distracting you and can kind of make you feel a little bit unsettled so tip number one
is to over prepare just really repeat things over and over again just spend the time in the practice
room so that at the very least when you do get to that jam session you know that you put in the
effort and the time to get as comfortable as you possibly can be now tip number two is to simulate
a performance environment so ultimately when we get to perform we are feeling an environment
that we're not used to we're used to playing by ourselves in our practice room and that's not a
very high pressure situation so there's a few ways that we can simulate a performance environment the
first one is to simply record yourself and record yourself regularly you probably have
experienced before if you have ever recorded yourself that when you hit that red button and
everything starts recording everything seems like it's in hyper focus and that's because you feel
intensity adrenaline and pressure to perform well even if it's just by yourself in front of a camera
in front of just your computer recording something especially if you ever recorded
in a studio before you've probably really felt this really intense anxiety about it so
by practicing recording ourselves regularly this can actually help simulate that environment help
us feel a little bit more comfortable with having a spotlight essentially on us recording is a great
way to do that another great way to do this is to actually just ask someone who you trust if you can
perform for them maybe just one jazz standard one tune it could be your significant other your wife
your husband your girlfriend your boyfriend it could be a family member whatever it happens to
be just go up to them and say hey i would really like to perform this tune for you and to make it
not awkward just say the reason i'm doing this is because i have a lot of performance anxiety and
i think it would help me if i just performed for somebody else ahead of time this could be a great
way just to at least get yourself out there and perform in front of somebody else and you trust
them so even if you mess up they're not going to judge you really harshly and they're going to know
why you're doing it in the first place tip number three is to take control of the physical things
that you can actually control right because a lot of things are out of our control when it
comes to our psychology when we get into that performance environment right our brain starts
racing our head is racing we start getting sweaty palms like we can't control those things they're
just kind of automatic so what physically can we control so first of all let's talk about equipment
if you're a saxophone player make sure that you're showing up to that jam session with your best read
right the last thing you want to do is play with not your best read we all know that reads are not
perfect right or if you're a guitar player a great example would be come with your amp where you're
used to what the sounds like as a guitar player myself i can relate to going to a jam session
and just being completely bewildered when i hear the sound coming back at me from my amplifier and
the reason that is because i'm actually not used to that sound it is a foreign sound to me but i
want to be playing from the sound that i'm used to so if i can bring my own amp that's a great
idea and also if you can mess around with the settings with the amp that is already existing
at the jam session or gig if it's not yours that's really helpful to get that sound dialed in that
you really like this goes for any instrument any instrument has their variation of these things
now another thing you can do is to go to the venue early ahead of time right so get there like half
an hour early and just go ahead and see what it sounds like to play your horn or your bass or your
guitar your piano there it might sound different than what you're used to in your practice room so
just getting that feeling down of what it is going to sound like or just even how the environment
feels like what it's like to see other people out there at the bar or whatever it happens to be
just getting familiar with your setting can be really helpful and sort of diffuse some of those
nerves as well you know another thing that could be just so simple as wearing clothes that make
you feel comfortable and confident right even just little psychological tricks we can play on
ourself like feeling really good about how we look how we feel that can really go a long way
when it comes to just feeling comfortable and better and and diffusing some of that tension
around that performance anxiety tip number four is to relax your body as much as possible
now you can do this before the gig or the jam session and you can do this during so
for example be mindful of your posture like are you tensing up your shoulders like this is your
stomach tight are you flexing areas of your mouth all these things are actually physical reactions
to something that you're actually feeling emotionally but if you can relax your physical
body so that it just feels better that way even though you can't control what's going on in your
mind that's an aspect that you can take control over and start relaxing those different muscles
now another thing you can do is before the performance spend some time breathing
slowly so one great exercise is to breathe in for three or four seconds through your nose then
breathe out longer than you breathed in okay so this will kind of send the signal to your central
nervous system to start relaxing and calming down it's a very subtle way to do things and even if it
doesn't actually completely take away your anxiety it's at least a tool that you have that you can do
ahead of time to start trying to relax yourself a little bit especially if you're in a state of high
anxiety now one mental challenge you can do is actually to focus on what the best case scenario
could be of this performance oftentimes we're in this state of anxiety we're just going to
what the worst case scenarios are i'm going to mess up i'm going to get lost i'm going to get
embarrassed i'm not like the notes i'm going to play but take a second just to intentionally go
well what would happen if i actually did play the way i wanted to play or what would happen if
i grew this much more i got just a little bit better that's a good mental exercise as well
that you can actually control your doing by being intentional about it which kind of leads me in
to tip number five now tip number five is more of a long-term process so this isn't something
that's going to solve your performance anxiety in the moment but it's more something to work on
over long term to start overcoming it and that would be to start developing a growth mindset
versus a fixed mindset i took this from carol dweck's book called mindset she talks about the
fixed mindset being a mindset that says i can only be so good i'm limited to this if i messed up and
i screwed up i'll never get it right i'll never be able to accomplish what i want to do musically
the other player in the room was way better than me i'll never be as good as that person and that's
kind of the fixed mindset there's a limitation there whereas the growth mindset says hey even
though i got lost in the jazz solo i got lost in the form or i wasn't as good as that other person
this is an opportunity for me to improve from that situation so that the next time
i show up to the jam session i'm going to be that much better so this is something that you
really have to intentionally do and you have to like really resist that urge to constantly
tell yourself why everything sucked and why everything didn't go very well so really try to
hone in to that growth mindset over a long term period and this could really be helpful for you
now ultimately to get rid of performance anxiety it really comes down to just long term doing it
over and over and over again and you more and more get comfortable not only with yourself
but with your environment around you and that can dispel performance anxiety over time so just stick
in there for the long term and things will just get better and better now hey by the way we do
have a really supportive awesome community of jazz musicians in our inner circle membership where
we do record ourselves all the time and it's a really judgment free zone where you can just play
you know show your recordings to other people you know work on jazz standard studies with us
we have a great time and we grow as jazz musicians every single month so check out
the inner circle membership i'll leave that on the screen right here or you can go to
ljs innercircle.com and sign up we'd love to have you join us make sure you like this video
if you found it helpful please subscribe and look forward to seeing you in the next video