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I like this approach too, starting with problem solving so you don't get into performance mode, especially right at the start.

Another thing is that, even when there are things you can do well at home, a bit of nervousness will expose the weakest links. Of course, if the nerves are so bad that they mess up everything, it's not helpful. But feeling them a little at lessons is not bad, because it helps you learn where you need to reinforce the playing with more or better practice.

I am all for training one thing at the time, and not two. So, you can either train to play for your teacher in a relaxed way, or train to play the piano as well as you can. For now, you're trying to do both simultaneously, and it is too taxing for your brain.
If you want to focus on learning to play for your teacher, you should not play difficult pieces. Start with the easiest possible pieces, so easy it's almost impossible to make a mistake, and have a good laugh if you manage to make a mess out of them. Do them again, and again.
And if you want to focus on learning to play the piano, continue in the way that you did, record your playing and show your teacher.
Don't try to do both!
Good luck, however you decide to deal with this problem.

(I'm not a piano teacher either...)

Yes, RyanThePianist, I do so get this! I have a Russian pianist friend, who explained that she places herself into a musical piano bubble when she performs. She says that it does not matter to her who or how many people are listening, what she cares about is how well she can interpret the piece and how musical it will sound. Before playing the first note, she will hear the piece in her head and she knows exactly at what speed she is going to play and how this first note should sound. Needless to say that she is a most wonderful pianist. (I am trying to do my best to be as calm as possible before performing, but to be honest, I am usually already in bits when I sit down to play...!)

Iaroslav Vasiliev, I have heard of this method before, but I would find it quite difficult to make a mistake on purpose? I shall try it out, though!

Thank you all so, so much for your help and time taken to reply! I will take all of your ideas and comments on board and will try to apply what I can. I will be in touch and let you know how I am getting on with it! 🙂

Hi SylvieC,
I have had the same issue for many years- extreme anxiety during lessons. Some people’s focus and physical abilities improves during stress, some deteriorates. There is science and personal neurophysiology behind this, but it’s very frustrating as you waste lesson time on errors that are generally not a problem. I tried many approaches including a session of hypnosis ( made it worse!) and propranolol ( dizzy spell), deep breathing and visualization ( inconsistent). A year ago I tried taking Bach’s rescue remedy pastilles - not drops- 1 or 2 about 15 minutes before a lesson. It took the edge off enough that I felt my errors in lessons were more consistent with my practices . The more lessons I had where I felt calm, the less anxious I became. Now it’s an infrequent occurance. You can check out the product on Amazon. It may work more the way aromatherapy does, a natural substance that calms the nervous system. Anyway, it may not work for everyone, nothing does, buts its inexpensive to try. Good luck!

Hi Silvie,

I too get the jitters when playing for my teacher. I hope it will fade with time, as I get more comfortable with her. She recently gave me the advice to mentally count through the first two measures of the piece before beginning - she said it will feel like forever, but it will get me mentally focused. I've done it since and that seemed to help a lot. Also be careful not to start off too fast, when we get nervous we often tend to choose a tempo that will land us in trouble.

Years ago when I was studying singing, I found this book very helpful in dealing with the many challenges of performing live. The Performer Prepares by Robert Caldwell. (In fact, I should read it again - thanks for making me think of it!)

https://www.amazon.com/Performer-Pr...keywords=the+performer+prepares+caldwell

Good luck!

Part of the "I played it better at home" issue could be that you're playing on a different piano than you practiced on. Try getting a little time here and there on pianos other than your own, with nobody listening, to see how much of a problem that is.

Silvi,

I'm not a teacher but I disagree with your statement about the instructor can only critique what they see. You played the tape for your'e instructor and they noticed a difference. Your instructor should be able to help by giving relaxation tips such as making sure your posture is correct, your hands are flowing and feel almost weightless, and imagining the music before starting. Another very important tip is to never ever ever play anything too fast, stay in tempo. Your instructor should have the ability to help you with this. If not, maybe seek another instructor.

I had recitals twice a year for several years when I was a child. I was always nervous but played just fine and realized I was in a different place while playing. Later in life I'm not the least bit nervous before or during recitals or playing in front of people. I think it just takes getting used to and it can definitely be done if I could do it.

Steve

I more than disagree with this. It is flat out wrong. If I hear something right, coming from home, then I know it worked at home. This is not always true, by the way. I've challenged adult students to prove to me that it really goes right at home, because if it goes right for the student, in the mind of the student, when no one is there to hear it, how do we know that it's really right?

But if a student brings in a section, and it's right, I know it IS right. And the student knows that *I* know it. So that's double success. It tells me that the student is on the right track, and for the nervous student it is vindication. That's win-win.

Then the only thing we have to do is discover what is different in the lesson, but that's doable. It really is. If the student is physically a mess in lessons, tight, stiff, and the whole physical apparatus is wrong, we know something had to be right at home, because it worked. So now the thing is to get the student more relaxed and disregard mistakes, because we already know it can work. You let everything in the world go wrong in a lesson and just work for relaxation. Because we know it was working at home, and we have to get BACK to what was already right.

Over the Christmas holidays, I had a few friends in the house. Played some Christmas tunes for them and asked them to sing along. You don't need to be in a recital or outside your home to get an audience. You can get family members to listen while you play so you get used to performing in front of others.

A lot have to do with how confidence you are with your music. Some people like myself have a tendency to play from memory a lot. Once our city hosted a "Play Me" event. Some 30+ public pianos were placed in different places in the city and anybody who knows a tune can sit down and play. Anybody who is at an intermediate level can get an audience easily. You don't anticipate giving a performance like a planned event. You walk by a piano, sit and play something. No preparation whatsoever. A young man walked by a piano and played "Maple Leaf" rag from memory while a few passerby watched.

This totally makes sense to me!

Thinking out loud: Is this partly due to the way the student has structured the relationship to the teacher? The teacher is there to assist you with your successes, rather than punish you for your failures. Can you adjust your attitude to build more trust and less fear?

As children learning anything, academic or not, part of the early motivation is simply to please the authority figure. Later, hopefully, we add more and better motivations.

Let's take this back to the start. Why do you play piano and why do you want to play in front of others?

If you are learning to be able to play for other people, how you are playing now, in front of others, is how well that you can actually play. Continue to play publicly at every opportunity. The first time I did, I was shaking so bad, I missed half of the notes. However, I want to share songs that move me with people. I want to play those songs for them to share the experience of the song. Pick an easy one. I just keep playing. One has to do to improve. I play every broken airport or street piano that I can find. I am improving.

If you are learning to be able to play to other people, you are probably learning for the wrong reason and should re-evaluate your instrument. The wording dictates the purpose. If you want to play to them it is about you and how you can do it for you to please yourself. This is harder to overcome because it is a constant battle for selfishness.

If you are learning to play for you, I wouldn't focus too much on how you play in front of others. As for your teacher, go down a few levels and pick an easy piece that you can pick up in a week or two with little effort. Play that first. It is easy, remember? A warm up piece; a confidence booster. Heck, go in and play a level 2 piece. Just to get you going!

Dear elenmirie, so sorry for the late reply! I am on holiday in Austria at the moment (visiting Mozart’s birthplace, Salzburg!). I got your personal message and will definitely get a copy of the book, you suggested! Thank you for your advice. 🙂

Thank you, sotto*voce, I tried hypnosis, as well, which did not work (I had a horrible experience when I was around nine years old, playing the recorder at a school concert. I had a complete black-out and could not even play through half of my piece, whilst my older brother played his guitar beautifully, of course. Our choir conductor told me off in front of everybody and my parents were so embarrassed about me that they never spoke to me on the long car journey home. I sometimes think this experience might have something to do with my problems, but surely at the age of 48, I should have gotten over it...?!)

I tried herbal remedies as well, but found that they did not work (probably because I was too sceptical about them in the first place.)

Dear SilentQ, why do I want to play the piano? I love the sound of a piano. I admire listening to people playing the piano (I have always enjoyed listening to someone playing the piano more than playing in front of people myself). I love it how I forget the time when playing the piano (you know when you have a really good and productive practising session and time flies and suddenly hours have passed without you even noticing? I even love practising scales - I find playing them comforting and I know what I am doing and I really, really enjoy it. There is also nothing better than working on a tricky bit in the piece and after a lot of time spent on it, it suddenly clicks into place and all the hard work feels worth it! Why do I want to play in front of people? Hmmm... I don’t know really. I would like to share my passion of a certain piece and my love of the piano with fellow pianists. I can absolutely accept my limitations and I will probably only ever be a mediocre pianist, but it would be lovely if I could every once in a while manage to play a piece half-decently all the way through to the end, when people are listening...

Dear Lakeviewsteve and GaryD, yes, I can see your point and you are right. Although, may I please defend my current piano teacher, as he really is brilliant and patient as a saint!!! He even supported me going through and passing the ABRSM piano grades 5 and 6 (...admittedly so, after walking out of both exams the first time round! What am I like?! 🙄). He does not even want me to do exams and thinks I should just be playing for fun, but somehow I want to push myself to do them.

Dear JohnSprung and thepianoplayer416, yes, I agree with you both, I meet once a month with a few of my piano friends and also I take part in one or two little piano holidays each year, which means I get to play loads of different pianos and I try to play as much as possible in front of people and playing easy piano duets together, however nerves are still a huge obstacle for me...

Please forgive me for not replying to each post, however I really, really appreciate all of your support and help greatly! 🙂

This part really struck me in particular:

The freedom to make mistakes and disregard them; the relaxation at home in and of itself being a "right" thing - it feels like a significant idea that could make a major difference, and a think one doesn't think of.

The way to disregard mistakes is to cut down on the length of what you are trying to play without mistakes. If you can play a page at home, and it turns out pretty well, in lessons you cut that page into tiny sections, then nail it a section at a time. Start at the end of the page, make sure the end works, then add a bit more, and soon you are playing the whole page in a lesson, and then you have confidence.

Yes, Gary, you make great sense to me, too! Thank you so much for that! 🙂

What Gary says is true...I mainly have trouble if I try to play the whole piece for my teacher as a "performance" (to show how well I have learned/memorized the whole piece). As long as I know I can play in sections or stop when I start feeling too anxious it's ok. I often do this, I just stop for a moment and ask something just to take a small break and then keep on playing. It's paradoxical that I only start to feel anxious when I feel I am playing well, not when I try to play something I know is not well polished.

The problem of course is that sometimes the teacher would like to evaluate the whole piece as a musical performance and that can be difficult. Since I am even more anxcious about recording, I will need to try every now and then to play through on my lessons. On the other hand, maybe it really doesn't matter, since I do trust my own judgement on musical matters more, what I need from my teacher is technixal help and help noticing details that can be improved. I think this is the reason I still want to continue lessons despite the occasional frustration.

What has helped me a little to tolerate mistakes is to do this at home: Play a short piece (short enough to be secure with memory) continuously a bit too fast and just keep going with the same tempo even when the fingers get tangled or notes missed. Recovery from mistakes has always been my weakness, because my memory and concentration relies so much on the auditory feedback and just gets confused when something does not sound right. I often don't even know where I was when this happened, the short term/working memory gets completely erased.

No worries, glad you got the book. I'm no expert, but I think the techniques it offers are a bit like cognitive behavioural therapy, but made specific for musical performance.

That sounds like an absolutely horrid experience you had as a child, that could mess anyone up. Don't feel bad that you haven't "got over it", I think that's the kind of stuff that sets up housekeeping in the psyche and you have to work on overcoming, whatever your age.

Once when I was about that age (9 or so) I froze up reciting a poem in front of an assembly. I managed to get through the words, but all the drama I wanted to put into it went out the window and I just stood there and recited in a monotone. I was pretty convinced from that point that I'd never be a performer (and so were my parents). That turned out not to be the case.

All the best!