Page 85 - How to Shine on Stage

the fear of being evaluated by an audience. The presence of an audience
and fellow performers can dramatically increase the heart rate, cause ex-
cessive sweating, breathing disturbances, tremors, destructive, and cat-
astrophic thoughts. The demands or expectations of others—parents,
teachers, friends, critics, audiences—and, on the other hand, the de-
mands of each individual, which become internalized over time, are a
frequent source of tension and feelings of inadequacy. Louise Montel-
lo (1992) found that the “inner critic” stems from harsh parental, teach-
er, or peer judgements and that it is one of the most frequently identified 83
components of performance anxiety. Performance anxiety is at its high-
est when playing in front of peers or critics, and higher when playing solo
compared to when playing in a group (Brotons, 1994; Fishbein et al.,
1988). The level of the performer’s excitement depends on the size and
status of the audience. In contrast, a number of fellow performers reduc-
es anxiety (Jackson & Latané, 1981)
Facilitation effects of audience presence are often overlooked. The
audience and co-performers can help a performer reach the optimal lev-
el of excitement. Indeed, the illustrious tenor Caruso himself commented
that he could not reach an adequate level of excitement to properly sing Direct Factors of Musical Performance Success
the high c without an audience.

2.2.2 Physical Symptoms
Before walking on stage, most musicians, beginners and experts alike,
experience certain physical symptoms such as stomach and muscle
tension, hand tremor, rapid heartbeat, and shallow breathing (Ken-
ny, 2011). These can be accompanied by additional symptoms like dry
mouth, flushing of the face and neck, sweating of the hands, more fre-
quent need to urinate, dizziness, etc. (Brugués, 2018). The performer’s
body spontaneously adapts to the performance demands. Physiological-
ly, it requires greater alertness and organism activation, which enables
better attention, concentration, and memory recall, while simultaneous-
ly facilitating the transmission of the music’s emotional messages and
the performer’s flow. The key to regulating pre-performance excitement
at the physical level is for the musician to recognize that the body’s ac-
tivation is helping them to perform optimally, since the body adapts to
the performance setting by elevating its energy levels to meet the opti-
mal performance demands. It is obviously imperative that the intensity
of these physical responses does not exceed the limits of the performer’s
control. Physiological arousal and performance success exhibit an in-
verted U-curve relationship, known in psychology as the Yerks-Dodson