Concert Confidence

I recently performed at a concert where I had to actually try to make mistakes. Seriously. It was my first ever stage performance playing the chitraveena, and as an accompanist, I had to shadow the vocalists who were students just like me. Supporting them meant playing every note they sang, and even making all the mistakes they made to make it look like we were a perfect music troupe.

This challenge to me occurred at Sankara Math which hosts an annual Navaratri music festival involving many influential musicians such as Chitraveena Ravikiran. In my troupe, there was a percussionist who played the mridangam, three vocalists and a veena player; the regular kind.

We played five songs called navavarnams composed by Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi. These songs are sung in devotion to the goddess Kamakshi and are notoriously hard to perform. With their meandering, curvy phrases, known as gamakas, and hard to reach notes that test the virtuosity of performers, it is not a surprise that these are considered the most challenging aspect of Carnatic music.

To tell the truth, I had been nervous at the prospect of playing this difficult repertoire on a real stage and before a live audience but after hours of practice, my confidence grew and my nervousness fell. As I stepped foot on the stage, things took a turn for the worse. My nervousness came rushing back and I felt sweat running down my back like a raging river. My fingers were trembling on the chitraveena, I looked around at the other performers. It seemed like we took a collective breath and dived in. As the notes came, my nervousness gradually fell and I began to play louder and clearer as I became more courageous by the second.

The “crowd” of ten made up in thunderous enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers. Displeasing all of ten people is worse than displeasing half of a hundred! Our audience supported us by clapping loud and long after each song. The "crowd" of ten people also helped to ease my nerves as displeasing ten people is worse than displeasing a hundred! Although small in number, the audience's enthusiasm made up for it as the ecstatically clapped for us after each song.

Looking back, I learned that I could become an even better performer by avoiding certain wrong notes I hit when my fingers suddenly turned to jelly, and tuning my instrument more accurately. These are lessons from this performance I will take on to my next one. I also learned that music lovers are devoted to passing this art from to the next generation so much so that they are not too particular about their music.

If you ever find yourself on stage sweating profusely and struggling to speak coherently, just take a deep breath, settle down, and play until you flush the butterflies out and just play to your hearts content.