Turbo boost, activate! FUUUUUL POWAAAAHHHH!

Tomorrow is the first noon-hour concert that the brass studio is putting on at our university.  And I'm second from the end of the programme, playing the Honeggar Intrada.  It's an awesome piece of music, and I really love it, but... IT'S SOOOOO stressful.  I'm really bad at not choking up when I triple tongue, and I freak out in the introduction, even though I KNOW I can play it.  It's probably because I have a trend: I always sound really bad in rep class, and I always sound pretty bad in rehearsals when I have a solo line, but I sound pretty good playing the same thing in an ACTUAL concert.  I've convinced myself that it's because the concert isn't a rehearsal, and I only sound bad in rehearsal.  I doubt that's the case, maybe some psych major can prove me wrong.

I'm kind of excited to hear how people are going to sound this year.  I've gotten a bit of an idea from rep class, but I want to see who gets jittery, who has learned to cope with performance nerves, who won't need to cope because they don't have them, and the like.  I used to have terrible performance anxiety.  How did I get rid of them?  You're not going to like this answer. :P

I'll be brutally honest with anyone who has a similar problem:  I got over fear of failure by failing.  I'd walk up on stage, and freak out, and the piece would be terrible.  Then, after a while, I got used to it, and the piece would still go not great, but I wouldn't freak because I expected that.  Then, the pieces slowly stopped going not great, and starting sounding good.  But I was so used to the worst possible outcome, so I wasn't nervous, as I had experienced the worst already.  It's kind of a lacklustre way to go about solving the problem, but hey, it worked.

Does anyone else get performance tunnel vision when they play?  I've had moments before when I'd realize, about halfway through a concert, "waitwhat... where'd that audience come from?"  I'd be so in the zone, so "we gon' play us a Symphony" that I forgot people were actually there to WATCH it.  Which I should probably consider at one point, but there's a LOT of things I should probably consider at one point, so I'll get there in due time.

Anyways, guess I should run through the piece at least once tonight.  Then bring my Silent Brass (^.^ <3) in tomorrow so I can stay fresh through a barrage of Bordogni/Rochut before I play.  Honeggar, I'll be glad when you're over... I have an easier time pacing myself in Legend. XD

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