Getting
Control of the Drunken Monkey:
The Mental Aspects of Performance
By Jeffrey Agrell
Both internal mental processes and external physical
appearance and gestures are extremely important factors in
the success of a musical performance, yet both are seldom
given the attention they deserve in the course of
traditional studies.
We spend countless hours in the practice room working on
mastering our instrument. But finally the day of the
performance arrives. Like an evil magic spell, we step on
stage and face the audience – and in an instant the world
changes – we become different people. The horn now feels
like an unfamiliar clumsy lump of metal. Our vision clouds,
our fingers cramp, our mouth goes dry, and as we struggle
to cope with these awful conditions, everything we worked
so hard for goes right out the window.
We feel cheated – all those hours! We may not, in fact,
have practiced the other half of performing – learning how
to feel comfortable on stage (known as stage presence) and
learning how to give the audience a good show both with the
instrument and with various nonverbal cues.
The usual practice has been to consider performing a single
activity. It is in fact two activities, one of which we
practice – the technical process of learning the solo – and
one of which we practice very little – standing up on stage
facing the audience. If the latter is not practice to the
level of the former, it will always drag the level of the
solo down regardless of how well it is learned. This
article is an attempt to aid our understanding and practice
of the second – and most neglected – the extra-musical part
of the performance: stage presence and control of the
physical and psychological processes responsible for it.
Two Aspects of Performance
To begin, it is useful to break down further the
extra-musical effects of performance into two categories:
1. What you feel
2. What the audience feels
Let’s take up the second one first. Performers sometimes
have the misconception that the audience’s perception of
the performance mirrors that of the performer. The fact is,
that the two perceptions can be vastly different. The
player knows the piece in infinitely greater detail, and
every tiny error seems magnified. In most cases, the
majority of the audience may not even hear the errors that
seem as about as inconspicuous as elephants on motorcycles
to the player. The player is flooded with a potent blend of
pleasant and terrifying sensations that may accompany
standing up in front of a crowd of people and trying to
deliver a convincing performance of challenging material.
The audience is to varying degrees aware of the sounds, but
has other personal distractions with none of the intense
and magnified sensations of performing (concerning mental
distractions: the audience has to deal with the same
problem that we as performers do: the little chattering
voice in our heads, the mental radio that plays incessantly
in our heads. We sometimes mistake this chatterbox for
ourselves – but it is not us. It is “the drunken monkey” –
very hard to control; it is just something we can do, not
our personal identity. This voice is not your friend. It
has one value: continuing to chatter. Later we will
consider how we as performers can quiet this mental radio.)
So the two perceptions can be very different. With this in
mind, the player is in a position to take stock of how to
deliver the best performance, i.e. to enhance the
audience’s perception of the event regardless of the
performance. A good share of the listener’s impression
is in fact visual. Audition committees
know this – and that is why most auditions take place
behind screens. It is a fact that aural perception is
heavily influenced by other factors than what is actually
played. A great deal of what people think that they ‘hear’
is in fact composed of a visual impression mixed with their
personal prejudice and expectations – and they are seldom
even aware of this (that’s why one music critic or one
audition committee member can have a completely different
overall impression than another). As a performer you can’t
do anything about audience prejudices – but you
can influence their visual impression.
Thus, it is extremely important to acquire the skill of
being a good actor, which unfortunately is not often
touched upon in traditional music study.
Acting 101
The audience begins to form an opinion of the performer the
instant he or she comes into view. The performer may have
practiced the piece to be performed hundreds of times, but
may have only practiced walking on and off stage only a
couple times in passing at dress rehearsals. The player
must be highly aware of the visual impression he is making
at all times. Movements should be done in what feels like a
little slower than usual – on stage this means they’ll
appear about right. Quick, fidgety movements make the
audience unconsciously uncomfortable, since they make the
performer appear uncertain and nervous. Consider the movie
scene where the mafia boss is addressing an underling. The
boss may barely move a muscle, while the underling twists
his cap and shuffles and fidgets and bites his lip. Actors
and directors know exactly how to manipulate your
perception of how you feel about the characters – with or
without dialogue.
How you actually feel should not carry over to your
performance – that’s why they call it acting. An actor
must portray anger or love or impatience or joy – it is not
necessary to be in that state. We must do the same. Music
is not about right notes – it is about drama, about giving
a good show. Be an actor! A good actor! Practice walking on
and off stage. Have friends closely watch your face, your
manner, your movements and give you feedback. For instance,
do your eyebrows add editorial comments to every scratch?
Videotape yourself (or have a coach watch you) and check
your expressions – which, along with
posture and movement, influence audience
impressions. Be aware and be in control.
Acting Drills
Some tips on how to create the impression you want through
acting on stage:
•Move ‘slowly’; don’t fidget. Hold still, stand easy.
•Have a pleasant, but not strained smile. Remember you want
to let everyone know that you are enjoying playing – this
is vital to help them enjoy listening.
•Oral program notes (i.e. talking) are useful for breaking
the “fourth wall” and engaging the sympathy of the
audience. Caveat: practice your remarks well first. Don’t
read them from a piece a paper and don’t memorize them
(which is just reading from a mental piece of paper). Do
improvise them just as you would a conversation with a
friend. Practice until the effect is smooth – fumbling for
words or saying, ‘Um…’ may have the opposite effect that
you want.
•At the end of the piece, don’t pull the horn down
instantly at the last note – freeze! Hold it for ca. 3
seconds – let the magic continue a bit. Then: slowly bring
the horn down, smile, bow, acknowledge accompanist, smile
and nod in acknowledgement of the applause, and depart.
Remember that you are still ‘on’ until you are
completely out of view off stage.
•Act! Regardless of inner feeling, act calm, in control. If
something goes awry, let it go, and continue with the same
appearance of calm. Always look like you’re enjoying it –
you may (as that old song from “The King and I”) even end
up fooling yourself!
•After the concert, avoid the urge to confess your sins to
the first person you meet. Continue smiling. When someone
says, “Nice job!” say “Thank you,” not “Man, I wish I
hadn’t chipped the first note of the last movement.“ There
will be a time to go over the ‘game film’ and analyze and
learn. Post-concert is not it.
The audience forms 30% of its opinion about how they feel
about you before you play a note. If you look calm and
confident, they will feel the same and enjoy it, no matter
if you miss a few. If you look nervous and distracted, they
will be uncomfortable with your performance even before you
play a note and no matter how many right notes you hit.
The audience will form another 30% of its opinion from how
you look immediately after you play –
happy? Proud? Delighted? Ready to do it all again? Angry?
Embarrassed? Confused? Still nervous?
That leaves only 40% -tops- of their opinion based on what
you actually played, and a good bit of that will come from
how you looked while playing it.
•Learn from the best. Post- and pre-concert, you can engage
in ongoing study of how the greats do it: Frank, Frøydis,
Doug, Radovan, Arkady, all those folks; but also top
performers on any other instrument, in fact, learn from any
professional standing up on stage. Then take that image and
use it when you act: become that person, act just like
them. Actors in fact develop stage characters and
mannerisms from observations of other people.
So: practice acting and you will have a great advantage in
delivering a good performance (which has little to do with
a scorecard of ‘right notes’). Remember what that great
philosopher Vince Lombardi once said: “Confidence is
contagious. So is lack of confidence.”
One last and very important tip for making the best
impression with the audience is musical: use a lot of
expression in your playing – don’t play dry and
colorlessly. It may feel risky to play with a broad range
of dynamics and subtle rhythmic nuances, but as Charles
Young says, if you put emotion in your playing will engage
the audience and they won’t care about a few scratches. If
you play it ‘safe’ - without emotion, without drama,
without risk – you will lose their attention and good will,
and that won’t have anything to do while your play but
count your misses.
How you feel
So we have some ideas on how to influence the way the
audience feels about your performance. Now let’s move from
the external to the internal. Acting aside, we want to
avoid as many symptoms of nervousness as possible in
performance. Our most powerful weapon here is the
preparation itself – we need to practice every detail of
the piece until we can perform it automatically – ‘in our
sleep’, as the saying goes. It helps to memorize all tricky
passages, if not the entire piece – playing by memory
automatically elevates the level of mastery. Go the extra
mile – be able to play every passage 10, 20, 30 and more
times in a row accurately; if you really want to cement it,
then go back again and play all the sticky bits again with
different rhythms and dynamics. This last bit of
‘improvisation’ with the material will increase your
flexibility. This brings a very significant measure of
confidence to the performance. You are also prepared for
the unexpected (orchestra plays too loud or too fast or
slow, your accompanist gets sick at the last minute and you
have to play with a replacement, and so on).
What are the characteristics of the optimum state of mind
and body for performing? We want to be:
1. Relaxed (calm)
2. Alert
3. Focused
4. Detached from any ego involvement in what we do.
Separate self- worth from performance result.
We want to be relaxed so that pairs of
muscles do not fight each other so we can play with maximum
efficiency and ease. We want to be calm, with no elevated
heart rate, no flight or fight syndrome.
Relaxed does not mean sleepy – we want to be totally
alert so that our mind is here, now, not
speculating on the future or worrying about the past –
especially while we are playing.
We want to be concentrated so that we are
entirely focused on the task at hand without distractions.
Practicing Detachment
Detaching our ego from performance results is another
neglected be all-important personal skill that affects how
we play. There are two basic frames of musical mind:
1. Practice mind – analyzing, looking for
flaws, finding
solutions and problem solving.
2. Performance mind. Here you don’t stop
to correct or even think about any mistake, small or large.
You turn off the internal critic and stand back and watch
the performance happen. You don’t feel disappointed or sad
or frustrated if (i.e. when) something “unplanned” happens,
and likewise you do not feel pride if you have played
flawlessly so far. Both are distractions from the task at
hand while it happens. As the Kipling poem “If” says, you
must “meet Triumph and Defeat and treat these two imposters
just the same.”
How Do You Feel About Mistakes?
When something happens that is not as you
planned either in performance or practice (and something,
somewhere most certainly will), treat it as
information. When you clam a note, don’t curse or
fret about it; if you react you will lose calm and focus.
Remain detached and use the information to adjust something
to achieve the desired result next time. There is a lot of
information in a big juicy mistake, information that you
can use to guide your practice. If you get mad about it or
deny that it happens, you are missing the value – yes,
value – of the mistake. By the same token, if you hit that
high note perfectly, save the feeling in kinesthetic memory
– i.e. the settings of breath and embouchure - so that you
can duplicate them next time. But don’t feel either bad or
good about either happening. If you want to rejoice or
grieve sometime later after the performance, go right
ahead. But during the performance, you need to remain
detached; Dave Krehbiel calls it “creative not caring”.
Achieving relaxation, focus, and detachment, the player can
experience what psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi calls
“flow,” and enjoy the process as it unfolds. Achieving flow
is also something that never gets touched in instrumental
lessons.
What can we do to achieve it?
•Get control of the drunken monkey -
Practice meditation – formally (ideal is two twenty-minutes
sessions a day, but any amount of time is beneficial)
and/or informally – quiet the monkey mind by doing breath
and focus exercises at every opportunity. Control of the
mind needs to be practiced as much as – and along with –
practicing the instrument. Simply closing your eyes and
watching your breath go in and out slowly is a powerful
calming exercise.
•Practice detachment in everyday
situations. If you are in a line at the
supermarket (for example) and other lines seem to move
faster, observe yourself. If you become frustrated, move to
the back of the line. If you are in a traffic jam and the
cars in the other lane seem to advance faster and your
blood pressure starts rising, take a moment to take a deep
breath, have a laugh at yourself, and remind yourself to
practice detachment. If you are playing tennis and double
fault, instead of cursing, smile and accept the gift of
information and use it to tweak your serve the next time.
•Kill your fears with familiarity.
Basketball teams have games two or three times a week.
Football every week. We have one recital… every 6 months,
or a year, or two years. It’s not enough! We need to
perform in front of people at least as much as the football
team. Jazz players are up on the stand all the time – have
you ever seen a nervous jazz player? What can classical
players do to greatly increase the quantity of
performances?
Modest Proposals to Acquire More Performance
Experiences
We make it difficult for ourselves to learn
stage presence when we only combine it with performing
difficult material. If we practice working on the two
separately, we can acquire a higher level of comfort on
stage much more quickly.
1. Redefine where you can play. If you
wait for Carnegie Hall or even your school’s recital hall,
you will fall way short of the quantity needed to acquire
the feeling of being at home on the stage. See “Venues”
below.
2. Redefine what you can play in
performances. You don’t have to only play the most
difficult literature (a.k.a. pieces you ‘wish you could
play’). Consider vastly broadening your repertoire and
lessening the stress of performance by learning a passel of
Grade 1 and Grade 2 solos – stuff that you can sight-read
nearly perfectly and perform it anywhere you can
(suggestions to follow) to acquire a large quantity of
comfortable performing experiences (instead of a low
quantity of uncomfortable performing experiences as happens
when we only play one recital of difficult material a
year). You can also play familiar tunes, such as folk
songs, holiday music, children’s songs, etc. – which are
fun to play and more appropriate to some audiences anyway.
As you amass experience, gradually add Grade 3 and higher
pieces. You can also use parts of longer solos – just the
slow movement from a concerto, for example. To feel good
about performing you need to have a string of successes,
and for this it is important to choose pieces that you can
playing consistently highly successfully.
3. Redefine how you play.
You can also make up the music as you go:
improvise performances (or portions of
them)! Improvisation doesn’t mean you have to be Dizzy
Gillespie and turn out blizzards of sixteenth notes – you
can improvise a beautiful long tone solo in minor at a
church service. Or be a giraffe or a turtle in music for
kindergartners. Or play some Stephen Foster tunes with
variations at the Senior Center. You can also use material
from the solos or etudes you are studying as source
material for improvisation. Improvisation can be a huge
help in our quest to amass sufficient quantities of
performances.
In either of the above, you will not be using (at least
right away) material of the level of, say, a junior recital
(until you’re ready for that recital). But you will be
doing something highly useful that you can use for every
performance you ever do – you are making the performing
experience familiar (invite those demons home for dinner!)
and thus friendly, not threatening.
Venues
We don’t perform enough. We need to perform more – lots
more. Time to brainstorm some possibilities. Below is a
quick list to start – add more on your own:
•Play for any/all of your friends
•Ditto your family, including and especially those old
aunts and uncles who used to bug you years ago to play
something and you didn’t want to but your mother/father
made you anyway? It’s Payback Time!
•Shopping Malls
•Hospitals
•Schools (especially elementary schools)
•Churches
•Dorms
•Art and other museums
•Office buildings
•Video cameras
•Audio recordings
•Prisons. A captive audience, but they enjoy the break in
the routine
•Each other! Search out other musicians who want to work on
this aspect of performing. Bring food. Trade off. Make it a
marathon. Repeat!
Other Aids to Peak Performance
•Do practice performances and/or dress
rehearsals under less-than-ideal circumstances. Play for
friends who are under instructions to behave badly during
your performance (sit too close, talk or whisper while you
play, take flash pictures, take cell phone calls, suck on
lemons, shoot spitballs, change seats, have coughing
attacks, etc.) – then if something happens you won’t be
particularly disturbed by it.
•Affirmations. Keep your mind free of any and all negative
thoughts (“What if I miss the high notes???!!!!). Repeat to
yourself over and over positive statements about the
performance. “I feel relaxed and calm at all times.” “I
enjoy the chance to make music for friends.” “My hands feel
heavy and warm.”
•Use Humor. Fear and laughing can’t co-exist. Keep things
in perspective – don’t take yourself or performing too
seriously – and laugh and have fun whenever you can. Enjoy
the process!
•Diet and exercise. It’s the oldest advice in the world,
but nonetheless very true: to mitigate the negative effects
of stress and to feel your best, exercise regularly and eat
sensibly. And make sure you get enough sleep.
•Visualization/Auralization. Rehearse the piece in great
detail in your mind – perfectly! Repeat! As you do, remain
aware of the optimum state points: relaxed, alert, focused,
detached. Roger von Oech, in his book A Whack on the
Side of the Head relates the story of a champion
swimmer who was examining why he won so many races. He said
that he worked very hard, ate properly, and took good care
of himself. But his competitors did this as well. What made
the difference for him was his pre-game mental preparation.
He would visualize every detail of the race, including
himself winning – and do this forty times before each meet.
“When it comes time to swim,” he said, “I just get in and
win.” Von Oech sums up: “Thinking… can have an enormous
impact on… action.”
•Frame the event. Rather than casting it as an ‘ordeal
where you try to deliver a performance and survive the
criticism of inevitable flaws afterwards (especially from
yourself), re-cast it as a chance to share some beautiful
music with others.
This article was presented in slightly different form
at Kendall Betts Horn Camp and at the 38th
Workshop of the International Horn Society in Cape
Town, South Africa.
Peak
Performance Bibliography
By Jeffrey Agrell
This bibliography is a supplement to the “Getting Control
of the Drunken Monkey” article, and has taken shape over
time, building on the contributions of others, including
Randy Gardner, Douglas Hill, Lin Foulk, and others. Like
all such lists, it is out of date the day it appears, but I
hope it will form a useful resource to all those interested
in deepening their study of this vital area of performance.
Berger, Dorita, Toward the Zen of Performance
[using free improvisation to develop self-confidence in the
performer]
Benson, Herbert, The Relaxation Response
[meditation]
Brown, Barbara, Stress and the Art of
Biofeedback
Christensen, Loren, The Mental Edge
Dorfman & Kuehl, The Mental Game of
Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance
Dunkel, Stuart Edward, The Audition Process: Anxiety
Management and Coping Strategies
Farnbach, Rod & Eversley, Overcoming Performance
Anxiety
Feldenkrais,
Moshe, Awareness Through Movement [Feldenkrais
method]
Freymuth, Malva, Mental Practice and Imagery for
Musicians
Gallwey, Timothy, The Inner Game of Tennis
Gawain, Shakti, Creative Visualization
Goode, Michael I., Stage Fright in Music
Performance and Its Relationship to the Unconscious
Greene, Barry, and Gallwey, Timothy, The Inner Game of
Music
Greene, Don, Audition Success
Greene, Don, Fight Your Fear and Win
Greene, Don, Performance Success: Performing
Your Best Under Pressure
Herrigel, Eugen, Zen and the Art of Archery
Hill, Douglas, Collected Thoughts, Ch. 6,
“Relaxation and the Performing Musician” p. 54-58
Jeffers, Susan, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
Johnston, W.W., Take Charge: A Guide to Feeling Good;
Self-Esteem or Self-Abuse: Where Do You Stand?
Jones, Frank Pierce, Body Awareness in Action
[Alexander Technique]
Kaslow, David, Living Dangerously with the Horn:
Thoughts on Life and Art
Kauss, David, Mastering Your Inner Game
Kruger, Dr. Irmtraud Tarr, Performance Power:
Transforming Stress into Creative Energy
LGE Performance Systems: Love the Battle; Wired Right - 2
audiocassettes
Lieberman, Julie, You Are Your Instrument: The
Definitive Musician’s Guide to Practice and
Performance
Loehr, James, The New Toughness Training for
Sports
Loehr, James, Stress for Success
Maltz, Maxwell, Psycho-Cybernetics [self-image
psychology]
Mason, L. John, Guide to Stress Reduction
Orlick, Terry, In Pursuit of Excellence
Pelletier, Kenneth, Mind as Healer, Mind as Slayer, A
Holistic Approach to Preventing Stress Disorders
Ristad, Eloise, A Soprano on Her Head
Salmon, Paul, and Meyer, Robert, Notes from
the Green Room: Coping With Stress and Anxiety in Musical
Performance
Samuels, Mike and Nancy, Seeing with the
Mind’s Eye [visualization]
Severson, Paul and McDunn, Mark, Brass Wind
Artistry
Sibley, Charlotte Whitaker and Tanner, Donald
Ray, But I Played It Perfectly in the Practice
Room! (incl. 2 relaxation tapes)
Simonton, O. Carl, Getting Well Again [Ch. 11
& 12 are on relaxation technique and visualization]
Triplett, Robert, Stage-Fright: Letting it Work for
You
Tubesing, Donald, Kicking Your Stress Habits, a
Do-It-Yourself Guide for Coping with Stress
Ungerleider, Steven, Mental Training for Peak
Performance
Werner, Kenny, Effortless Mastery (includes CD)
Zi, Nancy, The Art of Breathing (book + video)