How do i keep my stress/nervous level down when i'm performing on stage?(details inside)?

Question

so i've been doing piano competitions since i was 7. i'm fine the week before and i know my music pretty well, but the day of the competition i get really nervous and when i am sitting in the seat i need to concentrate so i don't forget my music. how can i keep from getting so nervous so that it doesn't affect my music.(i was at a little recital last time and for the first time out of nerves i forgot my music except that i know it so well that i can tell u every note of the song) please help me. i want to do my best :)

Answer 1

When I perform, I live in my music and the moment of creating those lovely sounds and interpretive nuances that makes my music my own. I am not aware of the audience, the room, who's out there. I am in a zone. I focus on what I want to say musically, the piano is my voice.

If I start thinking about what comes next, I am not focused on the music, I am worrying. If I am sweating the sounds or people out there, I am also unfocused on the music.

To get around it, nerves and all, I sing the melodic line or I count if it's a fast piece, or feel the beat as I go. When I am busy singing the melody in my mind, other thoughts about what people will think, or I hope I don't s***w up, are all banished. Impossible to think while singing in the mind. Try it.

Most of all, when performing, I see it as a chance to share my love for that music, and a chance to say musically what I hope will affect someone's emotion and lift them for a moment to another plane. This means I have to have more performances before the one performance that matters, so that I am very practiced performing those pieces.

If you want to win a competition, you have to have more than just the right notes and tempo. You have to have an attitude that shows through the music. And the piece you play must be very well-executed on all levels.

All the very best!

Answer 2

start out only preforming for one or two people (people who you are really close to) and as you feel more confident grow the size of your audience. Soon you will be able to preform in front of judges and won't be nervous.

Answer 3

smoke some wacky weed before you go on stage

Answer 4

I think maybe you're thinking about it too much. All you can do is know the music perfectly in the days leading up to the recital, practise lots, but then the day itself don't go near it. At all. And sitting in the seat, concentrate instead on what the other people are performing, whether they have bad taste in clothes, funny haircuts, whether what they're doing is beautiful...a little nervousness is useful but I think you're tying yourself in knots.

Answer 5

yeah nerves can suck...I do some competition things and you just have to really focus for the first may be 8 bars and really think about everything and then just sink into your song so its just like you are playing by yourself