Better Playing Through Chemistry

[windshieldbug]

Adam,
One alternative that has been used to great success with actors is the Alexander Technique.

[Leto Cruise]

no...no...

Your winning-horns thread was *not* presumptuous, and *nor* was it ***-ish.

It was just dumb.

As to "doing without the sarcasm", that's like asking a sack of **** to show up without the ****.

Eh. Works for me.

Since it's not personal then feel free to post mocking things on my thread, I won't take it to heart next time. Just go easy on me

[hbcrandy]

Gentlemen:

I think that this thread is an interesting bit of knowledge. It does show how the Amreican tuba sound has evolved over the years. I am not going out and change tubas as a result of the outcome of this poll.

As I said on a preious thread that may have been an insipration for this current one, "Tubas don't win auditions. Musicians do." Every tuba player has his or her own voice as the instrument is concerned. Some are capable of adapting to several different voices as the music dictates. When I first went to Philadelphia, many of my friends asked me, "How does Paul Krzywicki sound?" My answer to them was, "However he has to sound to best serve the music he is performing that week." Paul owned a variety of tubas and used them all as he saw fit to best match the composition or composer. I, personally, have tried many 5/4 York copies over the years. They have never worked for me. I, therefore, stick to tubas that best suit me and allow me to serve the music I am tasked to perform.

I got a bit off track. So, Joe and Leto, let us agree to repectfully disagree and move on. Both of you offer much to this discussion forum. I look forward to your contributions in the future.

[MaryAnn]

Just throwing in my experience, which is different from any I have read here. I tried Inderol; any dose sufficient to calm the stage fright was more than sufficient to make me so unable to keep track of myself that I literally had difficulty keeping my place in the music. That is, 5mg would make me brain dead. So....whatever biochemical path that stuff follows, does not work on me.

But I found, years later, something else. 500mg of L Tyrosine completely and reliably gets entirely rid of my stage fright; it doesn't "damp" it, and it doesn't make me fell drugged. It's just plain not there. It turns out I have a genetic variation that makes me have less dopamine than I should. The L Tyrosine circumvents the genetic problem and supplies the precursor I need to fix the biochemical path. I gave up on a performance degree long long ago because of impossible levels of stage fright, that were apparently caused by this genetic biochemical path problem. If i had found both the tyrosine and the right instrument at the age when it would have mattered, the course of life events would have been dramatically different.

[pecktime]

Someone once asked Zoot Sims (the great jazz tenor saxophonist) how he managed to play so well when he was literally falling off his chair drunk.

His reply? ,"you gotta practice drunk too man..."

[Leto Cruise]

Thanks Randy, I really enjoyed that post regarding your story of instruments, so I think I'll pass that along to my thread if you don't mind.

Joe - I apologize if I offended you in any way. Let's let bygones be bygones?

[chronolith]

I think a couple of clarifications are still needed as they seem to persist.

First, I don't think anyone is advocating that the drug in question actually enhances anything. I liken it to the difference between running a good solid 4 minute mile as opposed to running a mile (in any period of time just hoping to finish the damn race) while also constantly punching yourself in the stomach. Self sabotage. The magic fix-it drug I don't think makes you run faster, it just stops you from punching yourself in the stomach (assuming you do not scoop it in dangerous amounts).

Second, I think there needs to be more clarity from those responding whether they just have the jitters (and can feed off of them positively) and those who are actually suffering from debilitation. I personally get a good surge out of the jitters in performance and can generally make good use of it. In auditions though I can barely hear myself for the heart pounding, I dry up very quickly, I get an unintentional vibrato that only gets worse as my opinion of myself. I start clutching my horn and controlling my air production too much and it gets worse and worse. It is all I can do just to get through the thing and not toss my horn off the front of the stage and give it up forever. I know it is happening and I understand the mechanisms at fault, but it does not mean I can switch it off (yet).

For the record I have never tried beta blockers in auditions. I have won more than lost, but I often wonder if not seeking chemical assistance has held me back in some way. Playing tuba is not my day job either. Even so, audition anxiety is terrible for me no matter how many times I tell myself there is no pressure. Also, I tried the banana trick with little or no success. My last audition two years ago was a crash and burn from my POV. I got through it. I don't think I actually missed a note, but it was not a sound I wanted people to hear. Often I hope that people on audition committees will understand those kinds of nerves (the debilitating ones, not the jitters), and I try to participate in audition committees as often as I can because I do know how it manifests.

I have been through the due diligence as well. I know that proper preparation is the biggest win. Having spent a few years in auditions it is hard not to go in unprepared (same old excerpts). I went through a major transformation last year in which I lost 20% of my body mass and took on a lot of heart healthy habits (better diet, more activity). Hasn't really helped though.

I am very interested in this thread, the parts about the legit discussion that is. Less so the drama.

[Biggs]

Is it ok for me to keep taking Preparation H? Otherwise I'll have to limit myself to strolling gigs...

[eupher61]

if you're "taking" Preparation H, other discussions might be more important .

[SplatterTone]

Preparation cocklebur helps you play the high notes.

[Biggs]

Is it ok for me to keep taking Preparation H? Otherwise I'll have to limit myself to strolling gigs...

Your inquiry is unprofessional.

Besides, don't you want to be yourself ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs7vprxUyfU

Depends. Who else is available to be?

[MaryAnn]

To reply to chronolith, the stage fright I had was the kind where I was shaking so badly that I literally had trouble keeping the mouthpiece on my face. But I was not "frightened;" my body would just decided to do weird things without my consent when I was in a solo position. Back when I was a violin major in college, the shaking was sufficient that I could not keep the bow from bouncing on the strings as I tried to play. With the tyrosine, I get the jitters a little bit, and I can use that to up my performance rather than having it totally ruined by a reaction I have no control over. I assume that beta blockers do the same thing for other people as tyrosine does for me.

[Tubaryan12]

This is a real problem for some - not the medication, this anxiety issue. These jitters, or stage fright, is why I chose not to go into performance. With a group, I am fine - but alone, I sweat, my hands shake, my lips quiver, I am totally debilitated.

This is my problem exactly....and as president of the ESO, I have to give a speech/make announcements at the beginning of each concert and after intermission.

When I was out of high school, I played trombone in a big band and found I performed much better if I sat at the bar and had exactly 1 beer before a performance. With the number of alcoholics in my family, I decided I didn't want to chance making it standard procedure. Now that I know that isn't a problem for me, I may give it a shot.....lol (pun intended).

[Donn]

Interesting connection, or lack thereof, between sports and music. Both are about performance, but goal of performance is different - in music, I guess we could say, you score in the listener's ear, and the listener wins along with the performer. In sports, fairness is extremely important; in music, irrelevant. But in both worlds, if anyone cares how you're going to make out in the long run, it's you.
___________________________

While looking for some information on how well Alexander Technique might do with serious performance anxiety, I came across an interesting conjecture, that we instinctively react with alarm when we're out in the open alone with a lot of eyes on us, because over the eons of our existence in small social groups, that meant you're the straggler that's about to be set on by a predator.

Not that this had anything to do with Alexander Technique. I've been lately interested in it, just for the sake of potential general improvement in music performance, and I don't doubt that they can do a lot with anxiety, but of course the serious cases are going to take serious work to resolve.

[Trevor Bjorklund]

In competitive athletics, beta blockers would have a negative effect in exercise sports, such as cycling, but would be "enhancing" in sports like, say, archery or shooting or diving. I do not know which of these sports if any "ban" beta blockers, though most competitive sports are getting around to a granting a bye to people who have legitimate medical need for all sorts of different enhancing medications. This despite the fact that the medical condition allows use of a competitive enhancer. In athletics theres a profound sense of uneasiness about the medicals having that advantage. The Tx for a certain cyclist's cancer, as an example, gave an obvious advantage.

...

If an audition situation is a stress-producing competitive event, beta blockers could probably be seen as enhancing. In addition to those who might take it on the sly, those with a legitimate medical need might also be seen as having an unfair advantage.

I think this is a really good point. DP's post piqued my curiosity so I just did some searching and read that the IOC allows zero beta blockers in the Olympics, and the PGA and LPGA banned them in 2008.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/sport ... .html?_r=0

So do beta blockers give some people an unfair advantage?

[Donn]

As I more or less implied on the preceding page, if they give you an unfair advantage, then as a musician, you should certainly use them. It isn't like sports.

But - it isn't like sports. We have a first hand report or two here, and in the referenced article, where players feel that the drug cost them something, takes something away from what their playing maybe could have been. A biathlon competitor just needs to shoot straight, they don't have the same kind of objective with respect to their innate abilities. An advantage for them isn't so clearly an advantage for you.