With an hour and a half to go...

...I'm remembering when, years ago, I'd have piano recitals in the Performing Arts building and how nervous it made me, having to sit in the back room until it was my turn, having to walk on-stage under the lights with everyone and their parents watching in the seats, worrying if I'd make any mistakes while running through what I'd been practicing for weeks. I like to think I've gotten better about nervousness before a performance, though. Granted, every time I'm thrown into an unfamiliar performing situation, like playing with a new band, or especially improvising, I still get those fight-or-flight sensations.

Generally humor's gotten me through a great deal of those situations. One time while I was in a band playing at the Varsity Theater, I definitely felt strange being up on the stage with all of that space and all of those people out in the crowd. Luckily, the icebreaker occurred when the guy who booked the show got a hold of the smoke machines that were mounted on the ceiling and rained down ridiculous amounts of it down on us as a kind of B.S. grand entrance during our first song. I had to laugh inside, though maybe I did scowl slightly at the over-the-top nature of his gesture. I have a feeling when I step foot in the recital hall after over a decade of being away from it that things will seem smaller than as I once remembered them, and this is a little funny to me.

One other thing that helps get me through is the struggle against the adversity of other people's negative perceptions of what you're doing. Nothing makes things easier for me than a good old-fashioned showdown mentality of "Hey, I'm on the stage and doing this, so if you like it, great, and if not..." As the nature of the pieces that will be performed within the next two hours is decidedly avant-garde, especially given the context of this being Saint Cloud and all, I'd thrive if people got nervous or reacted negatively...but what would also make my day would be if people enjoyed it and even joined in the dialog, so to speak. And so I continue to wait...