Performance Anxiety

I was invited for a solo recital last week, she was so nice that she gave me three months in advance to practice. Three months ago my impression was I’m going to play with other musicians, sort of a jamming session. The only thing I was told is that it’s going to be a mix of strings, piano and so on and so forth. One week before the event she told me there’s going to be about nine people playing their own pieces of music and she asked me to play a piece that I’m comfortable playing. I didn’t know what to expect and didn’t told her until the day before that I’m going to play Recuerdos dela Alhambra by Francisco Tarrega. She was so happy because she loves that tune. A couple of years back, my whole family, my wife and three children, were invited to participate to sing Christmas carols. We went from house to house to raise funds for our religious organization. She heard me play Recuerdos, not the whole piece, in between practice and that’s what prompted her to call me to participate. I said “ ok, im up for the challenge and it was my pleasure. “ The piece comes naturally to me as if it was an extension of me, my fingers gliding through the fretboard, both my right and left hand coordinating as if they are one. This was in my bedroom. Here’s the kicker, the day we gather, I was surprised to see more than 20 people, and two of them are music teachers at the Cincinnati College of Conservatory Music. I’m the third on the list, still very confident and when it’s my turn, there it was, the moment I sat down my heart just keep pounding and my hands start shaking. I started only to stop after five seconds and told them “ take two, “ I repeated again and this time the shaking was uncontrollable, I just kept going and determine to finish the piece. Before the song ends, I forgot how it goes so I played a different tune after. The whole time, I cannot control the shaking, I keep missing notes, I just keep going and eventually finished. To my surprise they seemed to like what they saw and got a good compliment specially from one of the music teacher. I don’t know the cure, this was not the first time I’d experienced something like that. The other people I played with seems to be doing ok until I spoke to them. They are on the same boat too. I guess it happens to everyone. I really love to get the music across because it was beautiful. Just like anything, practice, practice, practice, not just playing the instrument but practice on how to interact with the audience also.