Performing without Fear: Exploring techniques to cope with musical performance anxiety 01/06/11

A performance anxiety course for musicians at the University of Chichester is being run for a second year following its successful debut in 2010.

The one-day course, run by the music department, offers musicians the chance to conquer their fears of performing. The course, which attracted participants from as far as Gloucester, Bournemouth and London last year, will be running twice during the summer period at the University’s Bishop Otter Campus in Chichester.

Performance anxiety in music is a subject that is often ignored, but it affects many musicians at various stages of their career. The course has been developed as a result of course tutor Nick Reynolds’ experience of teaching and research into the subject.

The course is part of a programme of summer schools and explores introductory approaches for developing individual strategies to regain the enjoyment of performing music. Anyone who has a love of music but suffers from nerves is invited to attend.

During the course of the day, attendees can expect to explore the ‘whys’ of getting nervous before playing, survey different approaches to learning and playing music that may help beat the nerves, and take part in a practical explorations of techniques.

Louise Jackson, Senior Lecturer of Music at the University of Chichester, who organises Summer School events for the music department said: “The buzz from last year’s day course demonstrated this was an issue that many musicians wanted to tackle. Nerves can be a real problem, one that can damage people’s enjoyment of music. We are pleased to be able to continue to support musicians in dealing with this particular issue.”

The courses will be run on Tuesday 19 July and Tuesday 9 August between 10am-3pm. Places cost £30. For more information, contact the music department by calling 01243 816205 or email music@chi.ac.uk.