Menisha M., Centerville High School
Lights
A musician’s worst enemy is anxiety.
Our quartet, the four of us violas, were set to perform in front of a crowded audience. I listened to the performance of the groups before ours, making me feel more nervous than before. I looked out to the warm, dimly lit performing arts theater. Our families sat there, excited to hear the long-awaited performance.
We spent several classes practicing until our arms were too exhausted to hold our instruments. Fingers were hurting due to the deep indents caused by our strings. We beat ourselves up over the slightest mistake.
The time started ticking down. Soon, it went from thirty minutes to fifteen, fifteen to five, and then, it was our time to get on stage. We were beyond anxious. The four of us nervous and frightened violists made our way towards the dreaded stage.
We got on stage and sent each other a knowing glance, which we all knew meant that we could do this. The beginning sounded like a disaster, especially to my ears. I felt anxious and hot under the blinding stage lights.
Although we messed up bad, we went on.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I could tell that our quartet members were feeling discouraged due to our rocky start.
Suddenly, as if a light bulb had switched on, I remembered some things our group said during our rehearsals. Nobody will know if you mess up unless you let them. It means that even if you mess up, as long as you stay confident in yourself, nobody will know.
After remembering that thought, things became much better. I straightened myself out and took a deep breath. Mistakes are allowed to be made, but instead of hiding from them, learn to accept them.
Instead of cowering in fear and playing at the lowest volume possible, I embraced it. Soon, we all decided to play confidently and louder so everybody followed. Towards the end of the song, we heard ourselves get notes and techniques wrong, but we stayed confident and the show went on.
Afterward, we criticized ourselves a lot, but we showed what self-confidence and leadership could do.
That was horrible, I thought as we ended the song. The crowd was silent for five seconds before clapping for us. We thought we had sounded terrible, but parents came and congratulated us on our performance.
This performance taught me many things about performing. If you believe in yourself, things will go much more smoothly. We decided to put all of our insecurities to the side and to embrace our playing. As long as we looked like we were having fun, the audience would believe it.
We learned a lot about the power of having self-confidence and the things that you can achieve with it. If we didn''t show leadership and self-confidence, the show would have been horrendous.
In the end, things turned out better than alright. We managed to survive our performance while having a great time.
