blog post Live on CBC Radio 3: Stage Fright w/ Hey Ocean!

For much of my life I had a problem with this. I couldn't for the life of me get through any public presentation without coming off as a complete spaz. I wasn't really until my last year of university that I for some reason snapped out of it and could get a sentence out. To this day I am not really sure what changed things for me. 

It's funny how it works, I was a bit nervous the first time I was on the radio, hosting with Craig, but every time after that, it's been no problem.  I think you may have even commented something to that effect while I was in Vancouver Tariq. 

However, public speaking still gets me.  Even speaking up at a meeting of more than a few people is hard to do.  Luckily I'm opinionated enough that I push through the fear, cause if I don't say something, it often goes unsaid.

Performing music in front of people I still have yet to experience, but I'm worried I'll be completely terrified and blank.  I think I need to just work through that as well, cause when I'm just playing with friends it's totally ok!

So my tips are, know your material, be it a speech, music you're performing, or specifics of the topic during a meeting.  I find that the best speaking I do is off the cuff, where I know my material back to front.  Hopefully that works for music as well. 

Martin

Dry mouth.  Need water. 

Anytime I teach in my second language. I get red-faced and sweaty.

I was a pretty shy kid. I loved performing for my family and stuff, but when it came to the public I had a hard go. In grade 10 I was somewhat roughed into being on the Improv team on my high school. Nothing is more frightening than being pushed on stage with absolutely no script or idea what you are going to do, then having an audience expect you to be funny/entertaining. Nevertheless once you start to get into a groove and do it frequently enough it can become as easy as putting on your pants in the morning (arguably still a bit difficult).

My understanding is that the fear associated with performance comes out of lack of practice. Just like any skill, it needs to develop, and you need exposure. Once you realize you're not going to make an ass of yourself it gets easier and easier, unless of course you do make an ass of yourself.

Now I play quite a number of shows with my band and I've been away from Improv for some time. I find being behind the drum kit really offers me some protection and I don't get the slightest bit worried, however I'm out of improv practice and if I was asked to do some improv the stage jitters start coming back.

When I get them I usually diffuse the situation by peeing my pants and then running out of the room crying.

I start to talk faster.. which can be misleading because I often speak fast when not nervous. Alas, I have no tricks to combat this yet.

But it's a step up from my quiet, nervous, shy childhood when my coping method was to say nothing.

I'm always somewhat nervous before speaking in front of a group of people, but once I get rolling I'm pretty good.

In highschool some friends and I formed a 'band' to play in band wars. We just played covers. I completely forgot a verse to No One Else (track 2 off of Weezer's 'Blue' Album) and just sang the first verse again..it was only an epic fail in my mind. Getting to play Silverfuck made it all worth it

 I still vividly remember in grade 3, having to get up in front of the class and talk about a picture from a magazine. I was bright red and rocking back and forth and twisting the skin on my arm, which left quite a mark, and giggling. Nervous giggling is something I still do, just can't help it. hehe. Public speaking has gotten a little easier for me but I still am nervous.

is notorious for his stage fright.  The first 2 paragraphs of this section explain it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Morrison#Live_performances

which is ironic because :

"[the] Band that had their problems when it came to touring, because Robbie Robertson had such stage fright. He was fine when they were a backing band, but when they were on their own, he was just paralyzed. It was 1969, they were supporting the release of their album The Band, and Robbie was hypnotized to help him deal with his fear. It did not work. In fact, it's a performance they would all like to forget"

Stagefright!!

and since matt just mentioned Van Morrison and the Band together I have to go listen to this. If you've never seen the Last Waltz do yourself a favour and go check it out too.

(sorry to keep spamming the blog.  I'm really out of things to say)

I fully agree that you should see the Last Waltz.  They should teach it in public schools.  Pretty much the epitome of music and Canadiana all rolled into one.

you ARE pretty! and we ARE a force.

whoops...was supposed to be pretty SURE..but I am pretty! (my mom (and grandmother) say so..It's not weird for a mother to call her 26 year old son 'pretty', is it?)

-when i was in grade 3 i went to an after school program. at christmas time we put on a play. i didn't want to be in it because i knew my parents had to work. day of the play came, and a kid was home sick. i had to fill in. i found out just before the play started but it was just two lines, and i knew them by heart after 5 minutes. everyone kept asking me "do you know your lines? repeat them! say them again! don't forget your lines!!"

i though pshaw, this is a walk in the park! it's two lines. what could possibly go wrong?!

stage fright. that's what. it came time to say my lines and all i could do was sit there and stare out at all of those expectant parents. the kid sitting beside me tried to coach me, but i couldn't do it. i think i eventually choked them out. i don't even remember.

then because i was so embarrassed and convinced i ruined the whole play for everyone, i took my time changing out of my costume. this made me late getting back for gingerbread cookie decorating. which because of this, i got my picture in the paper because the reporter from the paper was also late, and everyone else already had their cookie. i tried to talk them out of using me, even offering my cookie to someone else, but no dice.

-i came very close to fainting on stage when my grade 6 class had to sing in front of everyone. by the time grade 6 hit, i was the shortest in my class, so had to be up front. every other time i could hide behind people.

-in junior high band, i always picked 2nd or 3rd clarinet so i'd never be in the front row. one time i had no choice and got 1st for a really important recital. i totally blanked on how to even play the clarinet.

-co-hosting with craig had me ridiculously nervous, but once i got into the swing of things i was mostly ok. i had no idea just how many people were listening until after, though.

It features a "ruler": click start, click finish, and you get the distance in miles, kilometres, furlongs, nanometers, and I exaggerate.

Darned easy. Want the current daylight to show? There's an option for that. And I'm talking about the free Google Earth too (previous version though, 4.3; current one asks you to marry your 'puter with Google or something.)

In any case, G.E.'s fun to play with too. For instance, I found that there's "clear" ocean between Canada's Maritimes and Australia, if you go under Africa. You know, going some three quarters of the way around the world and avoiding Antarctica...

And then there's StreetView. Real fun, so easy to use, so occasionally useful. (One of my friends actually got caught by the roving photo car, and I too. But in my case my location and body position were so unusual that you can tell. Him, he's obvious. Face pixellated out, of course.)

Matt says, re: The Last Waltz "They should teach it in public schools.  Pretty much the epitome of music and Canadiana all rolled into one."

any parents out there with kids in the public system currently have a gauging of what music/art's education is like these days? When I was younger it was much better (I remember gang singing through Gr.3 as all my teachers played piano) and in Gr. 5 we learned the recorder (my Gr. 5 teacher ranks as one of my best ever...we also learned photography and developed our own pictures in his portable dark room, made rockets...read from a book everyday after lunch..if Mr. Grieve has turned into a Canadian Indie fan in his later years and is on this blog, thank you very much)

In Grade 6 my class learned ukulele from one the most hilarious teachers to ever grace this earth...he taught syncopation through beating a metre stick against the chalkboard...good times....after that year though any music/art's dropped completely off. It's something I always hear about ephemerally, "music teaching has been cut out" but not really sure what that amounts to in practice..

I read the link you posted Matty J, and thought wow, if Van Morrison could get stage fright, then I can deal with it... then I was reading further, and thought, huh, he seems to be alive later in this article than I thought he would be... scroll up to the top... hmmmm irish?  still alive?  Is it possible I am confusing him with someone? 

So it seems in my head Jim Morrison and Van Morrison have been the same person until today.  Thank you for learning me my music history!

if you haven't ever seen Van Morrison perform Caravan with The Band go to the link I put above...You can see him getting over his stagefright and getting into the groove of things a bit even..

I was in a speed metal band.  Never got stage fright.  In fact, any nervousness was easy to channel cause we were playing so fast.

and @Benoit from Ottawa - Funny thing I saw was Street View of the CBC Centre in Toronto and the pedestrians' faces weren't blurred but the ones on posters on the building were.

My musical knowledge dates back to... choir singing in grades K-2, followed by recorder lessons in grade 3 & 4.  Grade 5 is when Band started up, and I sucked at the Sax so I gave up.  I've never played anything since.

We had to do "music education", which  kind of sucked.  I really feel the education system let me down in that department.

My love of the arts is something that just happened, probably through my parents.  bless their hearts.

No! You didn't just admit that did you?! (I'm kidding, I can't expect everyone to know everything about anything).

A year or two ago, my buddy seriously confused Neil Young with Neil Diamond.  That's much more criminal, so don't feel too bad!

Van Morrison played the Ottawa Bluesfest 2-3 years ago. And whereas in Montreal, the night before, he'd played almost only cuts from his then most recent album, sort of cowboy music, at the Fest he sang "all the hits" plus many others.

I'm not one to much care for old classic bands, but Van Morrison, now there's something else.

He was magnificent.

1) Public speak as often as you can

2) Know that you'll never be perfect

3) Practice your speech at 4am - if you can do it then, you can do it at anytime

Off topic, but as always great to have you on air when we can. How's the back been? Also...the Sessions promo still runs "every week, Host Tariq..". Does this mean eventually will get you back? Whenever Lana/Craig et al do the sessions now they are the "guest hosts"..this means I'm still holding out hope for your return. I'll pay to watch the sessions get recorded! Tell the CBC big dawgs....PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me give the CBC my $'s

Am I the only one who flashes back to the Billy Bob inspired R3TV Episode Nelkens Awkward Rage whenever Tariq begins an interview?

1) Public speak as often as you can <--- how does one go about this?

I've been reflecting on my earlier school days lately (see [33]) and one thing I've thought about is how at the time I didn't really like doing a speech every year starting in Grade 4, but looking back I really enjoyed the experience. Since I've been doing some blog writing on a regular basis I've thought that it would be fun to do some public speaking too. Over the weekend at the anti-prorogue rally a pair of students from Langara College covering the event asked me to do an interview (they said I was colourful, as I was in my full R3 regalia). It was pretty fun. Afterwards they said I was a good subject, who was able to speak coherently about things and not just colourful..so that's a good thing, right?

Check out this week's Session featuring Women.  It's one we did in the spring of last year but hadn't released yet.  It's most excellent!

you are articulate. (pronounced articulet, right?)

Perhaps look at it this way, they would possibly provide an air freshener to every client that they see, so perhaps overlook it? If that is not the case, I would say they owe you an explanation.

reading up on Van M. in Wiki, I came across the mention of James Morrison. Don't know if he was part of your confusion or not.

[[I'm here... oh photoshoots that overlap with my radio 3 listening...]]

I used to get nervous doing things in high school... saxophone solos even when I had them memorized...speeches were bad. I don't know where that went. Now I can talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime...(except Ed Burtynsky).

No idea why the switch to social butterfly happened.

By the way, I am SOOOO excited to see Ash sing tonight (she knows that)...keep an eye out for me on the TV with my temporary switch to Canucks fan-ness tonight (I still bleed blue, dont worry...)(and I wont be in Canucks garb, I'll actually be dressed for the Zola's CD release party RIGHT after the game).

COME TO THE SHOW IF YOU ARE IN VANCOUVER.

(ps hey tariq :)  )

I hope you end up playing the release show! Are we allowed to know who the trumpet was for?

ummmm no, I think the confusion doesn't have much of an excuse!  Just lack of musical history knowledge!

Ok, so funny story:I went to my cousin's hockey game and they had a carpet laid out on the ice so the air cadets could march out on the rink. (I forget why they needed cadets at the game but I digress.) The leader stopped marching by doing this dramatic foot-stomp and the whole squadron fell over like domino toy soldiers. The arena exploded with laughter, it was a riot!Luckily for Ashleigh, I doubt she will be marching.

Hi

I get so afraid when I am performing - I play flute - so one thing I do is not look at the audience at all...just my music so then I imagine I am just playing at home. I also got very afraid when I called in for the Canada Day sing for your song. I practiced so much my family was sick of me. But then when I phoned I could hardly breathe...and my song was not picked which made me sure I did a bad job.. oh well next year.

funny I also teach sex ed classes alot with my job and I have absolutely no anxiety about that. But I think it is the look of the teens faces as I talk about penis and vagina and condoms - they can't believe I can do it. so then that makes it ok for me. so maybe I need audience to look shocked as I play my flute...no actually that would be worse now that I think of it

Sue

nice stuff! any band that features this about themselves: "..and epic garage excitement in a do-or-die struggle with the banalities of everyday life" is a group I can get behind. Good horn work too!

How come no R3 page folks? Lets get going, eh?

And it's quite common.

Running water helps.

The blog was pretty quiet on Friday afternoon during Lana's thread dedicated to talking about Haiti relief donations. I'll toss in another reminder to donate here. In this morning's Word On The Street feature in the Metro there was someone responded to the question "Are you satisfied with Canada's level of aid for Haiti in its time of need?" by saying:

"No, I don't think so. So much of it goes to administration costs, so everyone in Canada is donating all this money for relief, but a large percentage of it is no even making it to Haiti."

I really don't have any idea on the administrative costs of running large NGO's, but there is going to be some $'s associated with it. I don't how you can get away from that problem. By donating at the link above, your money will be spread amongst large NGO's that have been on the ground in Haiti since before the quake and who are experienced in coordinating these kinds of efforts.

I'll also toss in again that Haiti doesn't need your old shoes...they need money.

I have an insane amount of respect for anyone drumming and singing at the same time..

It was part of my job for a while to get to conferences and speak to try and convince the IT world our company was a thought leader in our particular niche, so I got over stage fright pretty quickly. I'm always more nervous when there are co-workers in the room when I'm presenting at a conference because I'm never sure what they're going to say. The last thing you really need is someone "clarifying" a point for you and saying something completely contradictory in front of a room full of people.

some of what I've gleaned through the years:

be prepared - the boys scouts are right. You need to talk to the audience, not turn your back on them to read slides (they can read the slides themselves!)

use stories - stories and analogies work well. They often give people something to relate to. I sometimes worry that I've gotten too good at this and do nothing but tell stories and analogies to my staff and co-workers (instead of actual content :)

lighten up - humour works well. Getting a chuckle out of everyone near the start puts them (and you) more at ease. Stephen Lewis is a master at this. He starts out dropping names and telling jokes and then has you just about in tears as he tells of grandmothers raising their grandkids in Africa because the parents have died of AIDS. There is almost no subject to dark and dreary that you can't "break the ice" first

Haiti, the person's comment "No, I don't think so. So much of it goes to administration costs, so everyone in Canada is donating all this money for relief, but a large percentage of it is no even making it to Haiti."

I don't think that's true (and the person has no basis upon which to believe this) for this reason: the organisations getting the donations exist already, meaning they're already funded generally: they didn't wait for money to get into it. I thnk the money provided will indeed much mostly go to actual purchasing of supplies.

"Life's like Canadian football, lots of to room to move around.

It's not always televised.

Farking brilliant.

life's like canadian football. seriously?

totally off topic, but here is a nice timelapse videorgasm of Vancouver

Why was Ashley Ball not up for the "hottest" bucky?  Who's in charge of these things? - clearly such an oversite should be a fireable offence.

Lovely, depressing song by The Burning Hell. Recently mentioned by me.

Lyrics (better read slowly, best sung like they do, as a dirge):

"It Happens In Florida

Love, it’s like a hurricane: it happens in Florida, it gets into everything.

Love, it’s like a monster truck: it fills up whole stadiums, but it crushes smaller trucks

Love, it’s like a marmoset: it may be small and cute, but sometimes it eats its young

Love, it’s like a trailer park: ugly but functional, the rent is cheap enough

Love, it’s like a garbage man: it collects waste and filth, it smells like rotting flesh

Love, it’s like an interstate: it gets you from place to place, but it’s littered with dead raccoons

Love, it’s like a newborn child: seems interesting when it’s young, gets pedestrian after a while

Love, it’s like a hurricane: it happens in Florida, it destroys everything."

Of course it sings better than it reads!

I think the problem was with the slight number of nominations. There could have been more. Were only we listeners asked, and did we perhaps drop the ball a bit?

I think you've mentioned before that you have a tablet already, but, any plans to buy an iPad? or anyone else for that matter? It is criminal the data rates that Canadian cellphone carriers are able to charge...and NO unlimited option as far I can tell. BS.

pick one of my friends and stick to them..haha first hannah, now ashleigh. :) [she's mine anyways...I fell in love June 9th 2007]

and for reference she was DEFINITELY nominated, just didnt make the long list for whatever reason

This title should come before the last oparagraph, for sense: "But, they must have a theory for this..."

Link to Cracked

You, Sir, have just blown my mind (#96).

I will informally study cattle now, and make a mental note as to which direction they face.

contrary to what early bloggers have said - choosing beautiful rock star women is not like Canadian Football.  Faced with your particular dilemma, I think they are more like dessert - sweet, tempting, and when in doubt - get both!