Stage Fright
One of the oddities of stage fright is that it usually induces students who sing beautifully in the studio to revert to their old, incorrect habits of singing directly they perform away from the studio. Nor is this true merely of beginners. On the contrary, the more experienced a singer has been before he adopts a newer, better method of singing, the more he seems to revert to his original methods of voice production when under stress, no matter how poor or useless they may have proved themselves in the past.
The inexperienced beginner, whether just because he is not facing his teacher or because of nervous excitement at the ordeal of facing an audience, seems to lose all semblance of breath control, and along with this very disturbing phenomenon feels that his voice is not loud enough and begins to force. Thus the last vestige of control leaves him, and since the effect is far from satisfactory, the student feels badly put back; he knows he can sing in the studio, but feels he will never make a success because he cannot sing for the public.
If the beginner finds himself nervous at the start of a performance, three deep breaths before nodding to the accompanist to begin, or before walking out on cue in opera, will aid him in regaining composure. The deep breathing relaxes the diaphragm, and facilitates consequent breathing and tone support.
Once on the stage, the business at hand must be uppermost in mind. And if all thought of self is ignored in favor of the job to be done, mental calm is sure to follow. The artist must confront his auditors so that as many as possible can see his face. The head should be turned occasionally to one side of the audience and then to the other. This, of course, gives everyone a chance to see the singer’s facial expressions, and tends to hold the interest of all sections of an audience. These changes, however, must be smooth. Any jerkiness of movement is distracting.
There are times when some one person in an audience will catch the inexperienced performer’s eye and the nervous beginner will oftentimes find himself staring intently in one direction. It is true that the idea of talking or singing to only one person may help overcome nervousness in some cases, but the whole audience is there to be entertained and the beginner will do well to shift his gaze from time to time. A blank gaze that seems to go directly over the heads of the audience is unattractive. From the very beginning the artist should train himself to appear to look directly at his audience. Doing so, he is able to gauge reactions or at least imply that he is striving to please all.