Today I watched Joe Kowan’s Ted Talk on how he beat stage
fright.
Stage fright is a big problem that many artists have to deal
with. They become so tense and nervous that it’s nearly impossible for them to
perform. Most people don’t realize how hard it is to get on a stage and perform
in front of a bunch of people. Stage fright only becomes worse when you’re
performing original material. No matter if it’s a room with 50 people or a
concert with 5,000 people in attendance when stage fright manifests itself the
artist’s ability to perform and enjoy the performance is almost nonexistent.
Joe had a great way of bringing awareness of stage fright to
people who may not know what it feels like. He did this by walking them through
his stage fright. He explained how he feels when he knows he needs to be on
stage and also what it feels like while trying to perform. He also made it
clear that it’s not something that just goes away easily. He explained how he
forced himself to be on stage week after week at an open mic show but still
wasn’t able to get over his stage fright.
His break through was when he wrote a song about his stage
fright and started his set with the song about his stage fright. I found this
brilliant; he effectively created a connection with his audience based on his
fear of performing in front of them. Sometimes artists need to realize that the
people audiences are humans. All humans have feelings and addressing feelings
puts everyone on the same page. By understanding knowing that his audience now
understands how he feels being on stage he became more comfortable on stage.
We can all find these situations in our lives, we all have
fears in life and letting people know allows for us to get help and be more
comfortable at the same time.
