I have often wondered what Franklin Roosevelt meant when he said “ The greatest thing to fear is fear itself”. As the adage goes “ Experience is the greatest teacher”, in the course of time, experience taught me its true implications.
The days leading to the piano grading exams, especially the practical exams are generally fraught with tension in the academy I went to. The din of the piano, violin and bass is superimposed with the angry and frustrated voices of the instructors. What with high goals and standards to meet, honors and reputations to protect coupled with our degrading performances, the frustration was totally justifiable.
The bright spot was that I had an edge over my contemporaries , being the oldest. During my mock tests, I had trouble with an allegretto while the other two pieces went fine. On D-Day, I walked into the exam hall , totally focused and played the allegretto to perfection. I heaved a sigh of relief- one headache over. I also realized that I was not nervous at all.
Call it reverse psychology or whatever, I suddenly felt the pangs of nervousness begin to engulf me. Butterflies in my stomach coupled with trembling fingers. Hence my diminuendos ended up louder and my staccatos were too prolonged. Result- My cradle song ended up waking the baby. My next piece went equally as bad.
Not to my surprise, when the results were out I had scored the highest for the allegretto while just got enough in the other two pieces to pass the exam with merit. It was then that I realized the magnitude of the call of fear.
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3 comments:
Nervousness can be a huge impediment in the successful completion of many a task. Sometimes I get so nervous, and in the process of focusing on trying to stop the nervousness, I lose the full concentration on the task at hand.
I agree with Buddhist teachings in saying that we must never suppress emotion. We must let them arise into consciousness and let go.
Nervous? No big deal. I let myself feel nervous. And as long as I keep my concentration on the task at hand, the nervousness should eventually go away.
But I'm still learning. Everything is a learning process.
And although I'm sorry to hear that your nervousness got in the way of your exam scores, it's a learning experience. And you'll probably figure out what to fix and be even better for your next one!
Regards,
sydney
nervousness: i am there everywhere
blogger : pls, i dnt wanna see u, feel u or hear u
nervousness: but i am u. i am here bcox u think of me and, u think of me a lot especially during examz :) so i'll always be with u. as along as u want me, im there with u..
to sum it up nervousness is there bcox u concentrate more on ur nervousness.. for example: wen u walk if u concentrate too much on ur walking ur bound to something stupid.
although theres an easy way to get rid of nervousness... distract urself with something else. for me its a chewing gum :)
yup.. i realised that:)
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