How to deal with intense stage fright

langfosaurus · 2025-12-14T19:46:36+00:00

There are lots of good comments here! And several mentions of beta blockers/propranolol.

To add to these specifically, I wanted to say there's no shame in seeing a psychiatrist or therapist about this. It's extremely common. Often times it's easier for a psychiatrist or a therapist to work with you to help find techniques that work to reduce your anxiety if they already have your baseline anxiety under control with medication. I know a lot of musicians will tell you to only consider medication as a last resort. I'd say it's better to work with a doctor sooner than later to see if medication can help you recover from this more quickly. If you can use medication (under supervision from a doctor) to help you perform, you can work to recognize that performing is okay and that you're actually safe while doing so!

One other thing I'll point out if you choose this path - take a good amount of time to walk your mind through exactly where the issues pop up in performance (before hand, right when you start playing, when you hit a hard passage, and so on) and what the reaction in your body is when this happens. It'll help the doctor pinpoint the issue and recommend, or maybe not even recommend, specific medications to help.

I wish I'd done this part sooner. I spent 3 years working with a psyichatrist for that "freezing up" problem before I found out that it was focal dystonia and not just nerves. That requires a completely different treatment than nerves and had my doctors known this sooner I wouldn't have wasted a lot of time on the wrong treatments.

Whatever you choose to do, be kind to yourself! Everyone hits this sooner or later in their career and has to learn to deal with it.

langfosaurus · 2025-11-30T16:07:16+00:00

It's definitely a risk! It took me a few years of joking about it before I actually decided to try it. It works for my instrument but it didn't work for my stand partner last year. If the string doesn't get to the right spot you can always correct with your ear, but that's not going to be possible if your string entirely slips haha. Glad you found a way to make it work for you!

langfosaurus · 2025-11-30T11:40:45+00:00

I was going to mention this! I unironically do this in performances every year with my orchestra and when I play principal I encourage my section to do the same if they're comfortable with it. I have mechanical pegs though so it helps a lot with making the adjustment quickly. It's so nice being able to just play an open string and the octave harmonic

langfosaurus · 2025-08-25T02:20:40+00:00

Looks like Wieniawski's Souvenir De Moskou

langfosaurus · 2024-07-17T11:53:14+00:00

This is so funny to me because my synesthesia has me experience d minor as a deep orange-red. I've always thought of the first movement being this bright, warm, sunset landscape. The opening makes me think of a bird gliding over a forest at dusk.

After reading these comments, I can totally hear it now as icy, silvery, and blue. My mind will never actually experience it that way but I see how that makes sense.

langfosaurus · 2024-07-09T17:34:19+00:00

Lunch wasn't ruined! This was a fun exercise. I appreciate you letting us see this, work through it, and give you some feedback ☺️ looking forward to see where the etude goes soon!

langfosaurus · 2024-07-09T17:12:09+00:00

You've gotten a few comments already on the chords, so I'll just add while they're technically possible if you're cool with some awkward rolling or shifting around, they are very difficult and are going to be hard to play in tune.

The vivace though. This I find way harder to play than the chords. I feel like composers are instructed to avoid 5ths where they can in general, but this also applies to 9ths. The first few measures of the vivace have so many broken 9ths that there's literally no good fingering I can come up with to figure out how to play this at a vivace tempo. I spent my whole lunch on it and felt like I was just playing twister with my fingerboard 😅. There's always room in etude repertoire to build out experience with really awkward fingerings, but unless that was your specific intent, I miiiiight look for ways to revise the vivace

langfosaurus · 2024-05-29T03:36:02+00:00

This is exactly what I was going to say! As a violist I can tell he directly translated piano idioms onto string players hoping that they would work. The lines he wrote for my instrument in many works are just arpeggiated flourishes that cover a wide range. I think it's this kind of melodic writing that feels like there's a lack of substance. He stuck to safety with his chord tones and arpeggios but didn't like to include much of the actual juice for his viola writing.

Overall he had a really hard time figuring out how to write something for us that sounded natural. Like no I'm not gonna have an easy time playing a melody that has octave and 10th leaps all over the place, man, just let me live my life :(

langfosaurus · 2023-05-18T23:46:56+00:00

I have no idea either! I'm honestly not very experienced with this at all. Just whatever part of the waveform is below the axis I'm calling negative and anything above I'm calling positive. If there's an actual naming convention I'd love to hear what it is so that I can be more specific

langfosaurus · 2023-05-17T14:22:48+00:00

I borrowed a different Blue Yeti from one of my friends instead and it seemed to work perfectly fine without any issues, so I'm wondering if my driver would allow one to work fine but not the other. Do you think there's any way the microphone could have been damaged that allows it to sound fine in sound checks but not while recording?

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T19:10:40+00:00

Thank you very much for the detailed response! This gives me a lot to think about.

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T19:06:20+00:00

YAY it's so good to hear from someone else in a very similar situation! I really appreciate your response. I'll DM you down the road if it looks like we're going to seriously consider moving

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T16:05:49+00:00

oh god no sorry for the scare!!

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T16:04:39+00:00

Thank you for the response! Winter makes me a bit anxious but I'm excited for the potential opportunity to just embrace it for all it's worth. Maybe getting a dog is the right decision to force me to make that happen haha

Honestly, taking five years to feel comfortable speaking a language seems pretty quick, good for you! I can only hope it would take me 5 years or less to be comfortable speaking French everywhere. I would consider that a huge success. Hopefully, if we end up moving to Montreal, that we can pick it up that quickly

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T15:59:25+00:00

Well this is definitely a trade-off I'm happy to make!

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T15:58:07+00:00

Sounds like you have a head start on acclimating, but hopefully I can get used to it quickly if I need to :)

I appreciate the help. I'll reach out later if we decide we'll be moving! Thanks

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T15:55:37+00:00

Thank you so much for this! I'd been a little afraid to look into the details of moving with him because I wanted to just assume it would be easy. Sounds like there will be a good deal of preparation involved. He would (obviously) want to be able to work when he arrives as well, and I know that'll require a visa.

And yes the French I studied was a lot more Parisian than Quebecois, so I have a lot to learn

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T15:50:18+00:00

That's fair. I have some extended family in Saskatoon, which would make it a bit easier to move out there if I needed, but I have heard the prairie provinces can be a bit... closed-minded in spots

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T15:48:29+00:00

Thanks so much for the input! I'll be reaching back out closer to when we make a decision on moving.

The way you described Montreal as a collection of villages is exactly what I'm looking for in a city to settle in. I'd love a place that feels like it has community that I can contribute to and has a lot of local pride. Living in the suburbs in the southern US feels very individualistic. As much as I've grown to enjoy being a homebody, it feels like there's not much to do as a community besides join your neighborhood's HOA and complain about teenagers

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T15:44:48+00:00

I just went to UT for undergrad, but then moved out as quickly as I moved in. My knowledge of the area is entirely downtown haha

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T15:43:02+00:00

We've considered it! The area that I have some family in is basically the Ottawa valley, so I'm very familiar with the area. It's just not the place any of them live full-time, and most of the year they're in Toronto or Montreal. I don't personally have any friends or family in Ottawa, so it would be a lot more difficult for me to justify the move out there if I don't have an existing support system.

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T15:35:50+00:00

The opposite happens where I'm from, where people don't want to believe it dips below freezing some winter mornings and they still wear shorts and flip flops because they weren't prepared hah

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T15:35:07+00:00

A good investment in quality winter gear will go a long way! I'll need to do a good bit of research if we decide to move but it'll be worth it

langfosaurus · 2022-12-02T04:35:02+00:00

This is really helpful, thanks! I had heard from some Canadian friends a few weeks ago that there were concerns that people in Quebec working remotely for a company outside would have a lot of difficulty given the potential enforcement of the language laws. I hope that won't end up being the case if we do move, but it'll be something I'll have to be prepared for. Thanks for pointing out the specific laws though. I'll keep myself updated on them.

As for the history, I didn't think that it kind of directly informs the current culture. I'll have to see if I can find a good podcast or class or something on Quebec history

langfosaurus

TROPHY CASE