Yes, ya’ll, I’ve been dealing with stage fright for the last five years. It has been a frustrating experience. Whatever progress I make in the studio has zero translation when put in front of an audience, be they auditions or karaoke nights.
Two years ago, I went to see a therapist to help me manage the anxiety of performing. She helped with some coping mechanisms to allay the anxiety in general, but none of it helped the moment my name was called. I could deep breathe myself into a coma. But when my name was called, that’s when the panic struck.
Shaking and sweaty, I’d walk into the fire. All that would have been fine. I can shake like a polaroid and sweat like a rainstorm. None of that affects my singing. No, it’s the closing and raising of my larynx that crippled me. Normally, singing requires a lower larynx and open throat – that is, relaxed muscles, no obstructions, no pressure. You can imagine what it’s like trying to talk when choking – try to sing while being strangled by your own body.
Finally, two years and an audition hiatus later, I asked my GP about beta blockers. For the unfamiliar, beta blockers are typically used to regulate abnormal heart rhythms and high blood pressure. They aren’t narcotics; they aren’t steroids. Some musicians use them specifically to calm the physiological effects of anxiety – the shaking and sweating. Beta blockers prevent adrenaline from reaching their receptors. You know that feeling you get when sprinting too fast or from someone scaring the bejeesus out of you? That’s adrenaline pumping you up. Which makes me wonder…what if I took beta blockers prior to entering a haunted house?? Musicians who take beta blockers sometimes say that the drug takes off too much of the edge – they feel numb.
So I was prescribed a low dose both to make sure my blood pressure didn’t drop too low and to make sure I was alert. Armed with drugs, last Friday, I went to Don’t Tell Mama to squeal out my jam, “Wishing On A Star” by Rose Royce.
Ya’ll…when people talk about miracle drugs, this is what they mean. I was very doubtful it would work because I was still nervous (the edge) and my stomach was gurgling. When Frank called my name, I had a moment of panic. But once I got up there…it was like I entered a world that had been closed to me for so long. It was like seeing to the other side.
I was present. I heard and felt the piano. I saw the bar revelers. I felt the music course through me. I was connected to everything. It was exhilarating. I worked the stage the way I had always envisioned it. It wasn’t my best performance because well, I haven’t been practicing like this very much or at all. Being on stage is its own rehearsal. But man, I will be working that room every week.
My anxiety is like an anchor I keep trying to loosen. I’ve been working at managing and allaying it from all angles and in every corner of my life. This particular knot dragged me down the most; it made me feel unworthy of my dreams to be a full-time professional musician. Getting to this point where I know what it’s like to be present instead of blacked out from anxiety is a giant step in claiming my space.
So for the first time in my life, I feel like nothing is in my way.