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How do most of you feel before and after a performance? (During it also!) I am usually nervous and I try to avoid talking too much or overworrying. The only thing that scares me is if I forget something in the piece I am playing, even after a lot of preparation that feeling is always there. When I start to play, I am still nervous at first (Fingers shaking a bit, does this happen to others as well?) But soon I start to connect with the audience (I hope) and the nerves go away, then kind of turns into inspiration! Afterwards, I am full of joy and have a feeling of tremendous self-accomplishment. It truly is worth it after working hard and finally reaching my goals!

Thats exactly how I am, I try not to talk to anyone and just relax and focus!
I don't think my fingers shake though.

Getting up to the piano is the hardest part.

My worst problem in performance is having my leg shake uncontrollably!
After i play, i am usually pretty hard on myself, though i don't really show it to my audiece, i just say my gracious "thank yous" after the performance. i then usually get nitty-gritty with my piano friends who also played, when we all moan and wail about how horrible our playing was. I think we are own worst critics, because i always think everyone else sounds fine but they insist they played horribly.

I have some rituals before every performance, but the one thing I make sure of is that no matter what, I don't make a big deal out of it. That way, I don't overfocus. I just imagine I'm a major concert pianist and this is just another performance. That way, I feel less nervous and I don't let the idea that I'm actually expected to hit 1000 notes accurately and on time in a 5 minute interval in front of 500, people get to me. If you think about it, that's a huge task.

24 hours before each concert, I don't have any coffee or soda and try to stay away from anything else that has caffeine and/or sugar in it. I believe this secretes your adrenaline, but whatever it does, it helps keep me calm before the performance. I make sure I'm well rested and in the morning, I run my hands through warm water, stretch, and then do all the major and minor scales at a really fast tempo. Finally, as close to the performance as possible, I play the piece at about 1/3 tempo, preferrably on the piano I'm supposed to perform on.

During the performance, I don't feel very confident until I'm well in there. Then I just try to listen to the beauty of the music and not overfocus or think about the audience.

At the end, I bow with confidence (even if I screwed up), take a deep breath, and then I don't touch the piano for the rest of the day.

Mike

The last few performances I have not gotten nervous at all and during the performance I don't get nervous unless I start to forget my piece!! I flip out after every performance and shake and everything.

Before the recital, you don't want to do it. After the recital, you want to do it again.

I can never sleep the night after a performance. After I play with an orchestra, I normally can't sleep for two days.

I usually just lay in bed with a horribile, throbbing headache telling myself how awful it was and how I should have gotten a computer science degree instead. Several Coronas usually feed the downtrodden mood. Then, I listen to the recording and start to realize that maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

Usually, I am more nervous after a performance is over. It's such a tremendous release of energy (maybe that's why I get the headache...there's too much energy left and it all just gets absorbed into my system instead of being released). My hands never shake, but my mind sometimes wanders and I can't concentrate.

Depending on the piece, I either want to practice the next morning or just stop for a few weeks altogether. When I played the Liszt Sonata, I felt empty for almost a month, having achieved my primary inspiration for beginning the piano. It seriously felt like there was nowhere else to go, when, in fact, there was everywhere to go.