Topic | How I beat stage fright |
Introduction | I have ________________________. I've always had stage fright, and not just a little bit, it's a big bit. And it didn't even matter until I was 27. That's when I started _____________________, and even then I only played them for myself. Just knowing my roommates were in the same house made me ________________. |
| But after a couple of years, just writing songs wasn't enough. I had all these stories and ideas, and I wanted to ______________________, but ____________, I couldn't do it. I had this _______________ fear. But the more I wrote, and the more I practiced, the more I wanted to ___________________. |
Body | l Decision of going to the local mic So on the week of my 30th birthday, I decided I was going to go to this local open mic, and put this fear behind me. Well, when I got there, it was packed. There were like 20 people there. And they all looked angry. But I took a deep breath, and I signed up to play, and I felt _______________________. |
| l 10 minutes before my turn Pretty good, until about 10 minutes before my turn, when my whole body rebelled, and this wave of anxiety just washed over me. Now, when you experience fear, your sympathetic nervous system kicks in. So you have a rush of adrenaline, your ______________________ increases, your ____________ gets faster. Next your non-essential systems start to shut down, like digestion. So your ________ gets dry, and _____________ is routed away from your extremities, so your ____________ don't work anymore. Your _______________ dilate, your _______________ contract, your Spidey sense tingles, basically your whole body is trigger-happy. That condition is not conducive to performing folk music. I mean, your _____________________ is an idiot. Really? Two hundred thousand years of human evolution, and it still can't tell the difference between a saber tooth tiger and 20 folksingers on a Tuesday night open mic? I have never been more __________________ - until now. |
| l My turn So then it was my turn, and somehow, I get myself onto the stage, I start my song, I open my mouth to sing the first line, and this completely horrible vibrato - you know, when your voice wavers - comes streaming out. And this is not the good kind of vibrato, like an opera singer has, this is my whole body just convulsing with fear. I mean, it's a ______________. I'm ______________, the audience is clearly _______________________, they're focused on my discomfort. It was so bad. But that was my ______________________ as a solo singer-songwriter. |
| l Something good happened And something good did happen - I had the tiniest little _______________ of that audience connection that I was hoping for. And I wanted more. But I knew I had to get past this __________________________. |
| l Going back every week That night I promised myself: I would ______________ every week until I wasn't nervous anymore. And I did. I went back every single week, and sure enough, week after week, it didn't ________________________. The same thing happened every week. I couldn't shake it. |
| l Writing a song about having stage fright And that's when I had an epiphany. And I remember it really well, because I don't have a lot of epiphanies. All I had to do was write a song that exploits my nervousness. That only seems authentic when I have stage fright, and ____________ nervous I was, _______________ the song would be. Easy. So I started writing a song about having stage fright. ____________, fessing up to the problem, the physical manifestations, how I would feel, how the listener might feel. ___________________ accounting for things like my shaky voice, and I knew I would be singing about a half-octave higher than normal, because I was nervous. By having a song that explained what was happening to me, while it was happening, that gave the audience permission to think about it. They didn't have to feel bad for me because I was nervous, they could experience that with me, and we were all one big ___________________________________ family. |
Conclusion | By thinking about my __________________, by embracing and exploiting my ________________________, I was able to take something that was blocking my progress, and turn it into something that was essential for my success. And having ____________________________ let me get past that biggest issue right _____________________. And then I could move on, and play the rest of my songs with just a little bit more ease. And eventually, over time, I didn't have to play the stage fright song at all. Except for when I was really ____________, like now. |