Discharging While Making Music
At a recent Musicians’ Workshop led by Heather Hay (International Liberation Reference Person for Musicians), I led a topic group on discharging while making music. There were a dozen of us. We were amateurs and professionals, young adults and elders. I gave some information and counseled each musician.
I’ve found that a performance goes best when I choose to be counselor to the audience, not vice-versa. For me to be able to think flexibly about the audience in the moment, I need to have discharged a lot on fear of being judged, terror of failure, competitive feelings (“better than,” “worse than,” or both), shyness, grief, isolation, and current or old physical injuries. In counseling other musicians, I’ve learned that it’s good to slow everything down and not let them jump to “performing.” It’s about getting to the feelings, not jumping over them to function. The conditioning to perform has been ferocious.
I have discharged terror for many years now and it shows. I used to get up on stage at a music camp I co-founded to perform for my students and the other musicians. I remember that one year I could suddenly see every face in the audience and feel connected to and think about each person. The audience noticed. Afterward many of them came to talk to me about the big change. I had finally discharged enough terror that I could “be in the same room” with my audience and have my heart wide open. I could share my music as my vulnerable and powerful self.
MUSICIANS AND YAWNING
We Co-Counselors know about yawning. Yawning is amazingly useful! And I’ve learned a lot about its usefulness for musicians.
We humans have two autonomic nervous systems, the parasympathetic and the sympathetic. They operate, like our beating hearts, without thought. They are always in balance, one up and one down, like a teeter-totter or seesaw.
When we get scared, the sympathetic system floods the body with adrenaline. The heart beats faster and harder. Dry mouth. Tight muscles. And restricted circulation in the extremities.
During an adrenaline rush, we have more difficulty accessing our flexible intelligence. “Stage fright”! Stomach in a knot. Our mind “frozen.” Shaky hands that can’t make contact. Audience out of focus and disconnected from us. (Many performers take drugs to deal with stage fright.)
When the parasympathetic system swings up, the adrenaline flood subsides. Circulation returns to the extremities. Digestion begins again. Flexible thinking returns. We can trigger the parasympathetic by yawning! Yawning before a performance can derail stage fright. I teach all my students to yawn.
I sometimes yawn on stage. (I’m a folk singer and can get away with more [have more room to try things] than many performers.) When I feel a yawn rising, I let the audience know: “Oops! I need to yawn. Help me by yawning along. You’ll get a better concert that way.”
Bellingham, Washington, USA
(Present Time 206, January 2022)