Yesterday marked an occasion for me. It was the first time I ever sang in my husband’s church. And I don’t mean from a pew or with a choir – I mean by myself, with only a piano to hide me. Nerve-wracking? Yes, slightly.But yet I’m not sure I can say exactly what I was so nervous about. You see, a church is such a safe place for a musician, and I‘ve sung dozens and dozens of times in my own church. A church is the only place, actually, where you can mess up as much as you want, and as long as your performance is for God, nobody can say anything or throw anything at you or cane you off the stage. It’s actually very acceptable to be less than perfect in church. If I were at The Apollo, for example, I can definitely say that I would not have been so comfortable with the idea of the performance. Those people can, and will, rip you apart. No thank you.So why was I nervous? I knew the song backwards and forward – it’s one of my favorites, a sweet, sad song by Sara Groves called “What Do I Know?” – and I even had the words right in front of me just in case I faltered under those proverbial bright lights. The rehearsal the week before went off without a hitch, and I knew that people would identify with and appreciate the song’s message.Then WHY? Why the nerves? Well, for one thing, I knew that my name carried a stigma. My husband is a brilliant singer and guitar player who has been attending that church his whole life and is beloved by all, so for me to get up there with a microphone instead of him probably raised some eyebrows. I guess I had to prove myself? Even though I knew they wouldn’t judge me – it is a church, remember – I wanted to leave that stage knowing that I had left my best work with them. I wanted to do the song justice, I wanted to do my name justice, and I wanted to leap out from the shadows and let them know that Erik and I have a lot in common.Once I realized the origin of my jitters, they were easier to control. I took a breath, remembered the great rehearsal, thought about how my family would be there to support me, and just knew that there was nothing to be afraid of.
Stage fright is abominably common. It is neither new nor scarce, and if there was a pill for it, I can bet that its bottles would line the cabinets of the world. For whatever reason – whether you’re playing The Apollo, singing lullabies to your kids, giving a speech in your office meeting, auditioning for a place in an orchestra, a choir, or a dance company, it’s important to identify where the jitters are coming from in order to most effectively conquer them.
