Nerves!!!!! Help!!! How do I make them go away?

Question:I have to play a flute in front of my class and soon in front a hundreds of people. How do I make it easier to play in front of people?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I have to play a flute in front of my class and soon in front a hundreds of people. How do I make it easier to play in front of people?

I am a professional flutist and teacher, and competition judge in NY. But since 1971, I also teach Voice Class in a public school (MS and HS). A great portion of what I do there is to help uncertain singers learn to present themselves in front of an audience.

Each day, set your self a small goal. Play in front to ANYONE who will sit still - siblings, parents, friends, people who LOVE you and people who will be snotty or bored. BTW - cats will stretch, and walk out on you, looking st you as if to say *I've heard better!*, while dogs will look at you in rapt attention, or sleep at you feet - as if to say *you are a musical genius! Feed me a treat, ok?" Record yourself - a LOT - even if you do not listen to all of the recordings. The mere act of putting a mike in front of yourself is stressful enough!

After you do this enough, you will find that it does not bother you AS MUCH. You do not want to become cold-hearted about this; a colleague of mine once said that you do not want your butterflies to completely go away - you just want to train them to *fly in formation*.

If you expect the hundredth time to be easy, then there have to be 99 times leading up to that one! Figure out how many times you have to do something until it is easy - then make each time up to that a STEP - and tell yourself "That was better - and easier!" I have played HUNDREDS of solo performances as a flutist, and probably thousands in ensembles. It gets easier - much easier - but you never want to become jaded, like you could *phone it in*.

Congratulations on your perseverance and hard work that GOT you to this point! I judge hundreds of students each year in NYSSMA competitions, and really have compassion for them!

Take deep breaths. Don't over study your notes. And think to yourself that you are going to be just fine after you play.

its hard to play in front of people but just tell your self that you know how to play the flute and your going to do great because i am sure you will. take deep breaths and just relax your body. good luck!

This takes work, but you can do it. You have to convince yourself that you are somewhere else. Like on top of a mountain, beside a river, near a waterfall, all alone. If you work on this you can convince your mind that you are. I have been doing public speaking for several years now and sometimes I feel my pulse rate start to increase, so I have to put myself somewhere that I have enjoyed by myself in the past until I settle down. I used to run marathon es and would pretend that I was an eagle and I would look way off in the distance and in my mind I would fly toward an object instead of running toward it. I would forget about how much pain I was in and how much trouble I was having breathing. Try it.

when im singing and i get nervis i do breathing excersises. breath in for 5 seconds hold for 5 seconds then let it out for 5 seconds (it also helps if you dont want to cry in public :)...

In the performance world, it's called "putting up the forth wall." What this means is that you have a wall to the left, right, and behind you. Those are the easy directions to ignore, however it's seeing people in front of you that cause you to freak out. Simply close your eyes, take a deep breath, and visualize a solid wall directly in front of you that noone can see through. It'll take time to perfect it, but you can do it if you just focus on what you're trying to do.

the thing is to just play like there is no one listening. if u just focus on playing, it'll eventually come to u. in 6th grade, i had to a solo in chorus, and i was so nervous. but now, since i've sung in front of ppl so many times, it just comes to me. i used to shake through the whole song! now, i'm just so omfortable with singing. even so, if ur playing an instarument and u mess up, u can blame it on the instrument. if ur singing it's a whole different thing!

think of it this way, theres no way that any of them are going to know if your playing the right notes and theres no way anyone else can play as good as you! rock on flutist!

just pretend you are by yourself playing your flute and pretend that your just doing one of your practices.