THE ETUDE JULY 1920 Page J+51 The Best Remedy I Have Ever Found for Nervous-ness in Public Performance JAMES H. ROGERS MATERIA medica contains no remedy for either sea-sickness or stage fright. A fortune awaits the discoverer of nostrums that will alleviate or prevent these ills. Now, having to do with the latter ailment—for nervousness in pub-lic performance, concerning which I have been asked by the Editor of THE ETUDE to discourse briefly, is stage-fright, pure and simple—the question is, what causes it? The symptoms are sufficiently obvious. The performer, proficient enough in whatever he essays to do so long as he has no listeners, loses his head directly he is confronted by a sea of faces below his uneasy point of vantage. He falters, he stumbles. If he is a pianist (we will speak more particularly of pianists) his fingers all become thumbs; his wrist and forearm have about as much suppleness as Mr. Babe Ruth's home-run-getting baseball bat. The mind refuses to concentrate. By sheer luck the final chord may be reached without actual stop-page, but it has been a bad quarter of an hour for player and hearers. What's the matter? Nerves, self-consciousness. It is easy enough to diagnose the case. What's to be done about it? Well, I'll submit a couple of suggestions for what-ever they may be worth. In the first place, it must be borne in mind that repose is an absolute essential. Just in proportion that there is fear of failure repose will be absent. All great artists have repose in action. Many of them will tell you that they are always nervous just before a public performance. I think "nervousness" is not the word that suits the case. They are stimulated, maybe excited, but they know very well what they can do. They are, as we say, "keyed up;" that's all. The nervousness of amateurs is another matter, and that is what we are talking about. As first aid, I recommend playing only music that is well within the powers of the performer. Of course, you say; no sensible person would think of doing otherwise. Wait a minute. It is all a question of margin. How far within your power does this music lie? (I am addressing now the party of the first part, to wit, the nervous young pianist). Let me suppose a case: The last time you played in public you tackled, let us say, the Chopin A flat polonaise, entailing thereby serious discomfort to yourself and to your audience, and with artistic results less than negligible—if such a thing were possible. Now, you say to yourself, (we will imagine): "I know that piece; every note of it; I can play it; this I know, for I have played it time and again without a slip. The only trouble is that I can't do it as well when people are around. All I need is to get rid of this nervousness.'" Quite so. Put it this way: you are handicapped when you play the A flat polonaise by having a lot of people listening to you. Very good. Now turn that around. You are handicapped when you are playing for a lot of people by having to play the A flat polonaise. Revolve that proposition in your mind a while. What's the answer Play something easier; a whole lot easier. Until you do this you will not get anywhere. But you want people to think that you are a whirl-wind of a player, and that can't be done with little pieces of Grieg or MacDowell. This brings me to my secondly, which shall be my lastly. It is quite true that people like to be dazzled now and then by virtuosity. But in the main, if so be they are music lovers, music is what they want to hear. Don't exploit yourself so much, Mr. or Miss Terrified Amateur (as W. S. Gilbert has it); exploit the music. Play clearly, expressively, round off your phrases, and mind your step—by which I mean your touch. Listen to what you are doing. How does it sound? That's what music is—sound. That it should also be agreeable sound is something pianists are prone to forget. And—here is where the mental exercise comes in—put your mind on the music, and forget about your-self. That will take a bit of practice, but it can be done. But it can't be done, and here is the crux of the whole matter, unless you allow a margin liberal to the point of munificence to cover the difference between what you can do, usually, when you are alone, and what you can do, always, in public. JOHN ORTH Do I know anything about nervousness? Well, I should say that I did. I wonder if I am not about the worst case on record. Just think of a young fellow eighteen years of age going into a music store to buy Chopin's Fantasy Impromptu in C Minor (sic), Opus 66, and breaking out into a cold sweat all over while standing at the counter. This is one of the times, you see, which made a lasting impression upon me, so much so that I not only remember the occa-sion but the very piece I ordered on that day. Self-consciousness, you say. Yes, I knew that, and heard it lots of times, but what good did it do. Big words don't help you when you're in trouble. So I went on, year after year, haunted by this miserable thing, and all that saved me was my determination to conquer, if possible. I always had an idea that some way, somehow, I would be able to win out—that I would be victorious in the end—that I would gain the strength to conquer the enemy. I remember what a condition I was in on my way to the Pruefung, or commencement exercises, in Stuttgart, a few years after the Chopin episode. Such distress! I thought every minute would be the last—and the next minute I wished it had been! I pulled through alive because I practiced my concerto so much that my fingers knew what to do, even if I had no real control either over them or over myself. They knew the road so well, had traveled it so often that they went along like any good horse that will find its way home even if the driver, for some reason or other, is not master of the situation. On my way to this Pruefung, or commencement, I stopped at a grocery store, thinking that some raw eggs would brace me up for the occasion, but it was all the same—no use; they did no good. I did not realize at the time, though, what good company I was in, for just think of such musical giants as Chopin, Henselt, Kullak and Moszkowski, not to men-tion a host of lesser lights, being the victims of nerves, the slaves of the same old bugbear—fear. Kullak told me once that he played in public until he was about thirty, but then he had to give it up. The strain was too great. How well I remember Moszkowski playing the last movement of Chopin's F Minor Concerto to Kullak. You know what a speedy movement it is. Moszkowski began mod-erately enough, but soon got to going faster and faster, so that about the middle of the movement Kullak called out, "Hey, there, Moszkowski! Hold your horses, or you'll go to smash!" He was nerv-ous, you see. Henselt was the shyest of any of these four, for the others did not infrequently appear in private before their friends, but Henselt was almost never heard. From all accounts one would think that most of those who heard Henselt play did so on the sly by hanging about his house until the spirit moved him to the piano, when he had no idea anyone was listening. Chopin said an audience appeared to him like a monster before which the ordeal was too great for him to attempt to appear. Doesn't it seem too bad that so much that was in-spiring and uplifting should have been lost to the world in this way? But such is the case. Now—I hear you say—what is the antidote? Well, I'll tell you right straight out. I owe my deliverance, THE ETUDE invited a group of well-known teachers to give us their opinions upon this subject. Of course, every teacher encounters nervousness in some form. Senor Alberto Jonas recounts, in "Great Pianists Upon Piano Playing," a method he uses with many of his virtuoso pupils in Europe. The best modern physicians know that the real nerve remedies are not tonics, or medicines, but fresh air, abundant rest, regular habits and the right food.
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