Performance Nerves
When a pupil is approaching a public performance (eg exams) there can be an issue with nerves. It tends to be a problem with adults who never had lessons in childhood: I've noticed that if they'd previously had even just a year of lessons in childhood, then nerves are much less of an issue for them as an adult. One book I've read on this is "The Musicians Way" by Prof Gerald Klickstein of North Carolina University. As a guitar teacher and performer he has much experience of this issue. He distinguishes between pre-performance, at-performance and post-performance nerves, and lists some issues as headaches, obsessive practice (I sometimes wish my pupils had that!), stomach upset and even substance abuse! It's enough to put one off even trying!
I recently had an adult pupil who was actually a singing graduate of a British musical institution. She had very few nerves with singing in public, but admitted to struggling with piano playing even in the lesson. I wasn't giving her difficult pieces. She was more comfortable when improvising at the piano, and could play with much greater freedom. It was another matter when she was attempting classical piano music as this requires playing the notes on the page. However: I've known pupils for whom improvising was the problem: they needed the dots and were more relaxed when they did so!
One issue seems to be "what will people think of me?" Our self-image and self-esteem may be very dependent on what others think of us. Therefore if we play badly our response may be to assume that the audience are thinking less of us.
I recently had an adult pupil who was actually a singing graduate of a British musical institution. She had very few nerves with singing in public, but admitted to struggling with piano playing even in the lesson. I wasn't giving her difficult pieces. She was more comfortable when improvising at the piano, and could play with much greater freedom. It was another matter when she was attempting classical piano music as this requires playing the notes on the page. However: I've known pupils for whom improvising was the problem: they needed the dots and were more relaxed when they did so!
One issue seems to be "what will people think of me?" Our self-image and self-esteem may be very dependent on what others think of us. Therefore if we play badly our response may be to assume that the audience are thinking less of us.