What's Behind Stagefright? - The New Yorker
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/.../i-cant-go-o...
Aug 3, 2015 - I Can't Go On! What's behind ... The key thought accompanying the physical response seems to be a feeling of exposure. Credit Illustration by ...
The New Yorker
Stagefright (and a Modern Music Cure?)
whose creativity fickle
is difficult and that is the main thesis
of this article.
To get the most of every note
while an audience overhears
can't simply be done by rote--
one must also conquer one's fears.
What great composers like the three B's
could simply hear in their head
may at times make fingers freeze
and errantly wobble instead.
Though you've started to play
before you were three
there can still come a day
when you feel such anxiety
that you are struck numb
and need either a beta blocker or drinkie
to help distinguish your thumb
from your pinkie.
So give a cheer for modern atonality
as well as that advanced jazz rush
where many who listen can't tell which key
you are trying to push.
HZL
7/31/15
Emanuel Ax says............: “Playing the piano, it’s not brain surgery. If I don’t do well, nobody’s going to die.” And he feels that stagefright is a betrayal of what should be the spirit of concertizing. “What you’re trying to do is share music with people who want to hear music.” So why all the fuss? “It’s a terrible waste of time.”
Still, he has stagefright. He doesn’t throw up, he says, but his hands go icy cold. “It happens every time, in varying degrees.” He thinks he’s getting over it, though. Or, “I’m working on it.” He’s sixty-six. 
(From the article above) .
