Interview with Professor Agrell

How many years have you been playing?

53 years

How did you deal with performance anxiety as a young player?

Badly. In high school got lots of solos and always got a waver in his tone. You never know whats going to come out of your horn which was frightening for him.

How do you handle it now?

Still gets nervous but he doesn’t get that kind of nervous. When improvising he never gets nervous cause he has no idea what he’s going to be playing. Improving feels good at the time, and enjoys every second of it because you don’t have to be focusing on whats on the page. Classical solos not so much because its harder to get through since you can’t lose yourself in it.

Do you know of any certain excercises that can help dealing with performance anxiety?

Practice focusing by siting upright in a chair or in the lotus chair. Some call it meditation some call it focusing. Practice sitting up straight and use the spine as supporting weight and using deep breaths. Do at least one minute of it. Pick one thing and focus on it for example a word without corners or one that is smooth. Take the word one for instant or pick out a note or anything really without a connotation. Watching your breath going up and down can help your focus. You want your hands to feel heavy and warm. Make sure every body part is relaxed from toes to your head. The radio in your head is a distraction, and your head is not your friend. Get the voice to shut up.

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Performance has two different main aspects

1. How well you know the piece

2. Standing up on stage

If you have discomfort it’ll drag you down.

There’s no substitute for knowing the piece inside and out.

You need to practice performing as much as possible, whether its for kids or a nursing home. Sports for example get to practice performing every week but musicians only get to perform occasionally, so we need all the practice we can get.

You typically focus on

1.     What you feel

2.     What the audience experiences

    You need to learn not to care about what they think when you make a mistake, because most of the time they don’t even catch it if you don’t have a reaction to it.

Use the voice in your head when practicing to critique yourself, however silence that voice when performing.

 Culture

The culture works against as keeping our focus(for example, technology). Be able to do one thing without doing anything else.

Mindset

Shouldn’t be there when performing. Different mindset. Performance mind is no words, just awareness of what you are doing and releasing what you had. Ads tension when thinking too much. Focusing, no tension(use only specific muscles you need), ego detachment. Not attached to the results. Performing is not about your ego, its about what just happened. You are almost expected to have a reaction when you do something wrong, however you shouldn’t let it phase you. What happens, happens. Always think of what you need to adjust, don’t be focusing on how you’re doing. Keep thinking about communication and less about perfecting.

Tips

We want to be good on stage, but we don’t have much stage time. Play a lot of easy pieces and go play for people. Do it as many times as you can so you get used to that environment. Selective creative not caring. You are not connecting their opinion with you to their ego. If you don’t care, you are calm and you let mistakes go. Welcoming the first mistake. Nothing is at steak if you mess up. Play it before you have the real hearing.

Relating musicians to acting

Thinks we should have to take an acting course to be comfortable on stage. Acting and musicians are a lot a like. This is acting and controlling the audience. Audience is immediately deciding on how they feel about you. Come out and look pleasant and your body language/how you carry yourself, because the audience immediately is analyzing what you do.

Recital Notes/how you carry yourself

Practice video of performance and how you carry yourself. Practice the recital notes. Make it conversational. Practice it to everyone you can. Move slowly because time and space warps when you go on stage. When speaking don’t talk too fast, let it go and stay in the moment. Put on an illusionand play as if you’re the best. First impressions matter so teach them and show them how to feel. Use lots of expression and convince them of something. Be a Story teller, illusionist.

Ego

Its hard to keep your ego out of it. They won’t catch everything you miss. Carry yourself well around people too even after the performance. If someone compliments a section you messed up on, thank them. Don’t bring up mistakes, because more than likely they missed it. Fight all of the culture and the training. Let mistakes be opportunities to learn something.

What is your scale jam about?

Just doing scales in a bunch of different ways. Making sense of small parts of scales. Learn different ways around music. Communication is key. Learning units of the scale. Automated so where you don’t have to think.