Overcoming nervousness and trembling hands

[littlepolaritons]

I noticed that I get very nervous when I perform or when I have audience listening to my playing, my hands will start to tremble. Even if there is no audience and I am practicing on my own, sometimes when I encounter a hard passage or when I'm trying hard to sight read a passage and my playing is falling behind what I'm reading, again my hands start to tremble. It happens unconsciously that sometimes I only noticed it when I look at my hands trembling.

I want to be able to perform and enjoy performing one day. This is so far my biggest obstacle to performing. I can't truly enjoy performing and appreciate the musicality of the piece if I spend most of time being nervous. I remember the last time I performed my hands were shaking badly I even heard an audience remarked about it. I became conscious of it and tried to relax.

Anyone has similar problems? Any pointers on how I can overcome it or at least make progress in overcoming it? I am amazed that when concert pianist plays, there are so much attention from the audience and the whole orchestra is depending on the pianist playing, with that much pressure, I still don't see them feeling nervous or their hands trembling.

[larapool]

It could be because a lot of those concert pianists have been playing in front of audiences their entire lives -- since their were small children -- and have done a lot of performances, allowing them years to cope with the pressure of having all eyes and ears focused only on them.

A good way to cope with it is to record yourself playing.  Whether it's just audio recording or audio/video, recording helps, because you know you're being "watched" in a sense and when you listen to the recording you can also listen for any mistakes you've made -- 2 birds with 1 stone, in a sense.

Also playing for very small audiences may help you out.  Have a friend or a family member sit down and listen to you, and go from there.  Ask them to help you out because you need to work on performing nerves!  Everybody has nerves, it's totally natural, even the big-time pianists who play in front of everybody have some amount of nerves.

Just work on creating a mock audience, like the recording or a family member, and slowly over time you'll get used to it. 

[nyiregyhazi]

I noticed that I get very nervous when I perform or when I have audience listening to my playing, my hands will start to tremble. Even if there is no audience and I am practicing on my own, sometimes when I encounter a hard passage or when I'm trying hard to sight read a passage and my playing is falling behind what I'm reading, again my hands start to tremble. It happens unconsciously that sometimes I only noticed it when I look at my hands trembling.

I want to be able to perform and enjoy performing one day. This is so far my biggest obstacle to performing. I can't truly enjoy performing and appreciate the musicality of the piece if I spend most of time being nervous. I remember the last time I performed my hands were shaking badly I even heard an audience remarked about it. I became conscious of it and tried to relax.

Anyone has similar problems? Any pointers on how I can overcome it or at least make progress in overcoming it? I am amazed that when concert pianist plays, there are so much attention from the audience and the whole orchestra is depending on the pianist playing, with that much pressure, I still don't see them feeling nervous or their hands trembling.

I used to have massive problems with this. in virtually all cases, I sincerely believe that the main issues are technical. Proper sense of connection between finger and keybed (without the arm bearing down on top of it, for needlessly high pressure) makes for easy stability and absorbs trembling. In the past, my style of technique exaggerated any slight trembling- which made me more nervous and caused it to get worse still. This used to cause phenomenal physical tension.

I'm currently working on a post that explains how to get maximum stability with minimum effort. I believe that mastery of this state is the single most important issue in dealing with nerves. Everyone gets nervous, but the difference is whether you have a simple way to deal with it and make any trembling go away. Most people fight it- which makes it worse. If you perform the right style of actions with the hand, you don't need to fight it- because it naturally gets absorbed.

[littlepolaritons]

Thank you for your advises .

@larapool - You are right. I actually do occasionally record my own playing in video and I noticed that I become more conscious of my own playing during the recording process and actually make more mistakes than usual. Also, yeah you are right about learning the mistakes. I actually found some mistakes I couldn't hear while playing from the recording. I think it will be good practice to imagine myself performing even if I'm just practicing. Thanks, I shall record more often of my recording and perform to friends/family when I have the chance .

@nyiregyhazi - I know that wrong technique do lead to tension in muscle. And I think I really need someone to watch me playing to see the mistakes in my techniques. My teacher wasn't exactly helping in this aspect. Whenever I start trembling, she make me aware of it and just asked me try not to tremble but I didn't really know how. I look forward to reading your article about maximum stability with minimum effort.

[pianowolfi]

It's a learning process, like practicing pieces. Different individuals (re-)act differently in a performance situation. First of all it's important to perform as often as you can and observe diligently how you react to the performance situation. How do your fingers behave, how do your legs behave (a student of mine was completely shattered after a recital because her legs were shaking uncontrollably while she tried to use the pedal!), how does everything else feel? So you can find out what fingerings work best for you, what seating position works best for you, and so on. Shaking hands are actually very common, also among very experienced concert pianists!! Some other persons will sweat extensively, but not ever experience shaking hands. People are different.
You will find the optimum.
But there will still remain a rest, even if you find the most suitable position, fingerings, memorizing tactic, practicing technique and so on!
This rest is your individual challenge! I have found it helpful to try to transform this (after all still huge!!) rest of nervous energy into positive energy, for instance: "I will just have fun, fun, fun to play!!" or "I have an important message to communicate". Something like that. Just try to transform it into something very positive!    

[caioramos]

Here in my city there's piano in some subway stations, I'm sometimes passing by and stop to play (or to hear if anyone is there playing), and you know, I'm a person that get really nervous and have trembling hands just thinking about performing in a serious event. But I just noticed that when I go to the subway, or I got to a piano store, and there's people there that will inevitably hear me playing, I don't get nervous. And you know why? I just found out that for me the biggest factor is responsibility.

When you have a recital, or is going to play on an event, there is responsibility, you stress yourself cause you cannot make mistakes, and that creates tension, anxiety and trembling. But when you're playing for fun, even if there's people around, I don't get nervous. If I make a mistake at the subway and there is people watching, so what? I just make fun of myself and continue.

But even then that's a really good practice, I recommend anyone with nervousness to go to many piano stores as possible and play, it's public space, it's a great practice. And also you can play on different piano brands, which is kind cool! And at the end of the day, you are preparing yourself to a serious situation as well!

[littlepolaritons]

@pianowolfi - Thanks for the comforting words, it's good to know that it's not an uncommon problem. Hopefully overtime I'll be able to remedy mine. Next time I'll pay more attention to how I react during performance and try to take it easy while performing.

@caioramos - That's some cool subway you have there! Where do you live if you don't mind me asking? I think I am worse than you. I sometimes practice in the music institution I play. When I know someone even if it's just a person is listening I will become self conscious and start getting nervous. But I like your idea of 'performing' in a more casual environment. Next time I go to a music store, I shall do that .
 

[ajspiano]

one might ask if you are even comfortable standing in front of an audience without having to play the piano as well..

would also ask - if you perform and make an error, what do you think will be the outcome of that? how will the audience react? how will you react? how will it effect the 'flow' of your playing?

when you practice at home and make an error, how do you handle it? do you practice continuing on by just pushing through regardless of error? or do you practice stopping and starting again?

[caioramos]

one might ask if you are even comfortable standing in front of an audience without having to play the piano as well..

would also ask - if you perform and make an error, what do you think will be the outcome of that? how will the audience react? how will you react? how will it effect the 'flow' of your playing?

when you practice at home and make an error, how do you handle it? do you practice continuing on by just pushing through regardless of error? or do you practice stopping and starting again?

These questions are of utmost importance, and have to be worked on.
I guess we all have to practice in an event of making an error to handle it properly if it happens live.

[pianoyutube]

I think that practising slowly, 3/4 tempo or so, the day before the audition or concert, can improve your confidence in your playing. If you can play without any mistake, that fact gives you a plus of confidence. If you get nervous, you can remember that flawless session.