A musician’s confidence

Dear Musicians,

I think it’s safe to say that most musicians are naturally driven to play as best they can. No one in their right mind would go on stage and embarrass themselves on purpose. We thus practice individually and rehearse in groups, to get the overall music to sound as good as possible.
However, tangible factors such as amount of practice or talent, and the experience of the individual are not the only ones affecting a musician’s performance. A much more unlikely factor may have a much bigger impact on a performance than we would like to acknowledge sometimes. The musician’s confidence level.

A lack of confidence can be a horrible feeling. You feel unprepared, unsure of yourself, you can feel inferior and out of place, nervous, anxious etc. In other words, it’s not much fun and it certainly doesn’t do any good to the overall level of performance.

It is thus imperative that we, ourselves, work on our confidence level. Fortunately, there are a number of things we can do. For one, try to put yourself in situations that are well-suited for you. In other words, ask yourself if you’re the right person for a gig before you accept or decline it. Ask yourself if you truly master the skills required for the particular gig, if you like the people you’ll be working with, and if you believe this would be a situation that you would feel comfortable in.

Next, practice, practice, practice! I believe that the better you are as a musician, the more unlikely it is that you’ll be totally overwhelmed by what you’ll have to play at the gig. By practice, I mean of course, to fine tune all aspects of music including all technical, theoretical and musicianship skills.

Ask questions about the gig, show up early, be in a healthy physical and mental condition, and have a positive attitude.

But there is only so much you can do to be reasonably sure that you’ll have some confidence going into the gig. By far the more important point of this article is that we need to make sure that we don’t squash a musician’s confidence through poor communication.

It is all too often that a newcomer’s confidence is destroyed the minute a musical director or bandmate makes a negative comment. It is amazing how quickly this can happen and in most cases it will be very difficult if not impossible for the musician to gain back the confidence that took him months, even years, to build up.

I, thus, believe it is absolutely necessary for any musician who works in ensembles to practice proper communication skills. If you believe that the band only sounds as good as its weakest member, that you will inevitably sound better if the others in your band sound better, then it goes without saying that you should work with them, not against them.

A bandmember that has difficulty with a particular part needs help and support, not ostracizing and ridicule. Besides, if you’re trying to help, you’ll feel better about yourself in the end. Of course, this is especially true for anyone in a supervising role such as the Musical Director. As the Musical Director, you’re supposed to be a role model, you’re supposed to handle difficult situations professionally and in a way that maximizes the chance for a positive outcome. You’re supposed to get the best out of your band and that’s much easier if everyone’s confidence level is up.

So the bottom line is that I believe it is to everyone’s benefit if we consider confidence. Try to get your own confidence up and try not to destroy other’s confidence levels through poor judgement and/or communication.