Do professional musicians get nervous?

Maybe you’ve gone to a concert and the musician on stage looked so confident and sure of themselves you thought, “surely they’re not nervous”.

MYTH BUSTER: even professional musicians get nervous!

Like everyone else, professional musicians also experience:

• a fear of failure (whether that is in their playing not being up to standard, memory lapses, making obvious mistakes)

• a fear of their performance not being well received

So how do they do still perform so well, especially when under such pressure?

Firstly, musicians recognise and accept their performance anxiety. They do not reject it or think badly of it. In fact, they appreciate feeling nervous, because it means that they care deeply about what they do.

Over the years of experience, musicians also develop a ‘toolkit’ which helps them deal with the nerves and stops this nervousness from getting in the way of their performance. This toolkit may include things like relaxation techniques, mindset work, physical exercises/warm up, having a performance routine, and working on self-esteem/confidence.

In essence, they get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.