Stage Fright

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
— Victor Hugo

My mother had this electronic keyboard that was set up next to her real piano, and for some strange reason, I was drawn to these instruments like a moth to flames, ever since I was a baby. I had putzed around a little bit on the piano, but playing seemed beyond my grasp. My mother played her piano with what seemed to me such grace and beauty, the way children think everything their parents do is perfect, but I still knew when she played the wrong notes, because it sounded "different" in my head.

Keep in mind that I was four, but I remember this bit really very clearly: I had made the connection between the pages that had this strange language on it and what it was she was playing, and could follow along, because the higher notes were higher on the bars on the page and the lower ones were lower on the bars on the page. One day, I noticed that the keyboard had the same language, spelled out in the "letters" of this language, above certain keys. There was also a translation, a Rosetta Stone as it were, above the letters of this language, C, D, E, F, G, A, B.

I had learned how to read in English by this time, thanks to my preschool teachers, so I knew the process of learning how to read. All I had to do was take that knowledge and apply it to this strange language. So I pressed those keys on that electronic keyboard, and listened to each of the notes. Since the keys were laid out in the same pattern above and below where these notes were written, I made the connection that they were the same note names. They also sounded similar, and when I pressed the same keys in the same place they made this wonderful "same" sound in my head.

OK, so this is my roundabout way of telling you that I taught myself how to read music. I remember it taking about a week to make these connections, and then another week to find a piece of music that was simple enough to read and learn, and then I was off to the races.

When we started going to church, I think I was around the age of six, I further learned how these notes worked. I learned how to make these notes into vocal song. I learned little harmonies, and how those notes worked together in those little harmonies. We did music in school, and the teacher there saw how I lit up when we sang in class. I think she knew what it meant to me — it was an escape. I continued singing in choirs throughout college, to the consternation of some, and the relief of others.

When I was nine, I started playing the violin. My little hands just weren't big enough for anything else. They still really aren't. I can't play a Corelli piece to save my life; I just don't have the stretch. It isn't a lack of talent, I'm sure my teachers would tell you that. I'll come back to the violin a little later in this blog.

I write all this to tell you about how anxiety has kept me back from fully enjoying the experience of making music. Anxiety will insinuate itself into the deepest corners of your mind, and try to destroy anything you hold most close to your soul. I love music so much because it is an escape, but it is also a trap for anxiety, my anxiety, to snare me.

To perform, you have to play and sing to an audience, and to advance your musical career, you have to play and perform alone or in a small group. I have had terrible stage-fright my entire life. I have blamed it on a fear of microphones in the past, but that isn't really true.

I can get up on stage and speak from no notes whatsoever on my other interests and passions, but playing or singing alone? I need encouragement beyond anyone's wildest beliefs. Why is it that I am so afraid of this, that I even have difficulty singing in karaoke?

This is what I've come to understand about myself: I am terrified, absolutely and unequivocally petrified, of being judged. I have always had what I think is an intense knowledge of what is going on around me at all times, and judgement by others. I'm hyper-aware of microexpressions in people's faces, and how they are responding to stimuli. My mother says she recognized this in me from a very young age, possibly back before I was even toddling around.

Singing or playing in a group is not an issue for me, but by myself is... I pour everything I have into music. Yes, it depends on the piece, but it is all about the expression of that music, the emotion behind the notes and the words and the dynamics, and it strips my soul bare for everyone with eyes to see it. It has to be perfect whether I'm singing melody or harmony, but it also shows my barest self, my naked self, my beautiful side and my ugly, my pain and my frustration. It shows me as I cannot hide, and leaves me vulnerable to those judging looks and staring eyes.

I confronted a part of that fright this weekend. I was a junior in high school, and I was singing in the choir then, but wasn't playing my violin much, just at home. After a performance, my mother gave me a proud-of-you-hug, and then she cut me to my core with one little statement: "You look like you're in pain when you sing." Then she turned and walked to the car.

This almost made me give up music for good. It stopped me in my tracks, and made me doubt every time I had ever sung, ever played, ever thought I was good at making music. I stopped thinking that I could possibly make a living at music, which many of my music directors thought I should pursue at college. I stopped thinking it was viable that I could help direct the children's choirs at church; I stopped thinking about advancing my talents and maybe sharing them with others. What was the point, when apparently all I conveyed was that I was in pain?

It took me 15 years to confront her about this little statement, and that it still makes me cry. I'm crying now, just writing about it. Her response was, "I thought it would help you. It helped a vocalist I once knew a long time ago, before I said it to you."

No, Mom, it didn't help. It hurt. It sliced into the one thing I knew I was good at, the one thing I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I could do, could work hard at without failing, could escape into and find solace in and curl up into and release at the same time. It chopped up my heart into little tiny pieces and left them scattered the gym floor like bits of confetti left over from prom night. It shattered me.

I'm not blaming her entirely, because I could have just picked up the pieces and soldiered on. I did, after a fashion. I continued singing in choirs (I even got asked by the choir director in college to be a "ringer" my senior year, where I didn't get class credit for singing in his choir, and to move around from alto to soprano depending on where he needed an extra voice or to keep others on-key), and I participated in some remarkable ensemble pieces, and even minored in violin performance in college... but I didn't major in it. I didn't play or sing outside of school, beyond some drunken attempts to sing karaoke.

I sing in the car now. I've never been one to sing in the shower, but I could. I sing when no one's around to see my face. I want to sing in a choir again... I want to SING again... I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I'm good enough. But this time, I really am in pain.