Up close and personal with Anthony Parce (viola): a conversation about audition nerves and beta blockers
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When did you first hear about beta blockers and what they do?
I probably first heard about them in high school. I was definitely aware of other people using them both at Rice and NEC but I never personally had access to them and didn’t really mind. I did, however, have major struggles with nerves and energy regulation while I was in school, at some points becoming debilitating. I remember working diligently on a Brahms Sonata for many weeks while at Domaine Forget; I was proud of the progress I had made and what seemed like breakthroughs in my technique. A chance to show the progress I was so proud of came as I got to play a masterclass for James Dunham (my teacher at Rice, who hadn’t heard me all summer). When it was my turn I had built that moment up so much in my head, I got thoroughly excited and ended up having so much energy that the auto-vibrato shakes kicked in, my bow control was a joke, and I probably sounded like I hadn’t practiced all summer. I felt utterly defeated, if practicing to the peak of my abilities wasn’t enough to give me the confidence to be able to execute as I wanted to, then I clearly had no business being a musician.
But what was I practicing? Sure, I was working on technique, accuracy, and musicality, but at what point in my process did I practice performance, energy regulation, and all of the mental aspects of being able to control myself? I was lucky enough to attend a bass masterclass taught by Francois Rabbath right after my own disappointing performance earlier that day. At one point in the class a student was noticeably nervous and made some bloopers. When Rabbath later asked him about that particular section of the piece, the student said something to the effect of “I know when I work on this section that it’s the hardest for me, it makes me uncomfortable, and I get nervous whenever I play it for anyone.” Rabbath’s stunning answer was “Well that sucks…. You have told yourself repeatedly that this section will go poorly, that you will get nervous. Why should it go any differently when you have essentially practiced getting nervous? That sucks.”
Talking with some of the other bass faculty after this class, they explained to me that what Rabbath was really referring to is what psychologists call Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). It is essentially the idea that you are in control of your mental responses to any situation and there are active exercises and practices you can adopt to “program” your brain as it will serve you best. This began a many year journey of me working through these issues in a targeted, intentional way.
When did you first use them? What brought you to you them?
By the time I was at the New World Symphony I had made great strides through NLP in controlling my energy in performance. I had an experience where I was principal for a big piece (Esa Pekka Salonen was conducting!) and I had a very exposed solo that immediately followed a very fast and physically taxing passage. I did all the NLP exercises I knew to make sure I was controlled, collected, and confident in rehearsals, and I genuinely felt good in those respects (I wasn’t nervous), however this was a different kind of challenge. The physical exertion of the previous passage was enough to get my heart rate racing as any heavy activity should, deep breathing and confidence couldn’t slow my pulse quickly enough. I complained to my stand partner and she recommended that I take one of her beta blockers, explaining that after all the function of a beta blocker was simply to cause your heart to beat more slowly and with less force. This targeted the precise issue I was having, and I used them in the performance successfully.
There's a variety ways to use beta blockers. How do you use them currently?
Knowing that beta blockers only targeted a very small response of the overall energy regulation picture, I treat them as icing on the cake. The truth is through my NLP work I am able to control the majority of energy regulation issues I would normally experience in an average chamber music or orchestral performance, so I don’t find beta blockers necessary for these. For the occasional orchestral solo, very difficult chamber piece, or audition that takes the utmost of my physical energy, a small dosage of a beta blocker helps me complete the picture. I would generally use one 5 mg pill 45 mins before the performance and I don’t take a second dose in a day (for example if there are multiple rounds of an audition in a day). In the last two years the only occasions I used beta blockers were major auditions.
You just won a position with Nashville!! That's incredible. What did you do this time?! How did you feel? How did you use the Beta Blocker in a way that help you?
Nashville was interesting for me because I chose not to use a beta blocker for the prelims. I decided to do this because I was feeling very confident in my preparation, I just didn’t think I needed them anymore. During the prelim round I didn’t get nervous per se, my NLP training was working for me, however, I was having to spend a lot of time and mental bandwidth centering, controlling breathing, and consciously relaxing my abdomen and deltoids (responses I have programmed to keep my energy in check). It wasn’t the best round I’ve played and was expecting to be cut. Fortunately I advanced (perhaps confirming a totally unrelated theory of mine that the majority of the time we feel good or bad about a round of an audition it’s actually just marginally better or worse than what we are normally capable of, the quality of your preparation shows through even when you think you’ve bombed). I decided to use the betas again for semis for two reasons:
1. I didn’t want to be using so much mental bandwidth on controlling my energy (would rather refocus that on the musicality of the excerpts).
2. I broke one of my biggest rules for auditions: nothing new on race day. This is the idea that you shouldn’t try to do anything drastically different on the day of (or day preceding) an important performance, even if you think it will help you. For example, I tend to have a beer most nights before I go to bed. If I chose not to do that the night before an audition I might be changing the chemicals in my system, which might cause me to be to be more alert going to bed, I might have trouble sleeping…etc. This was my 31st professional audition and I had used betas for the last 26 of them, they were part of my routine and a variable I had accounted for. Fortunately, the semis and finals went well for me and I was lucky enough to win the gig.
While it might sound like beta blockers made the difference, I would contend that difference was nothing compared to having a rare full month before the audition to practice without regular work obligations, ample time to record and analyze my excerpts, a decade of arduous intentional practice focused on auditions, and being back on the instrument that I had advanced on in the last 11 auditions I took. That being said, they helped and I couldn’t be more grateful to have finally accomplished what has been one of my biggest life goals!
What tools do you use?
There are a lot of resources in the realm of NLP that the modern musician has at their disposal, ranging for the self-help section to sports psychology to actual hypnosis. It’s important to find the methods that feel genuine to you, some things that work for me might feel hokey to others. There are many simple ticks that can have far reaching effects, such as cutting out ever saying you will get or do get nervous and replacing those statements with something like “this will be hard but I am going to prepare in such a way that I will be able to rely on my preparation and expect confidence." My first exposure was through Michael Colgrass’ book My lessons with Kumi, a collection of exercises written with a fictional narrative. This opened up my eyes to guided meditation and visualization, two essential skills of NLP. From here I moved on to Don Greene’s Performance Success, and Inner Game of Music. I have gotten so much out of Noa Kageyama’s Bulletproof Musician online course and working with him in Miami. I find his blog to be a great wealth of knowledge, especially as it relates to getting more out of your practice. The single tool that I’ve gotten the most benefit from is an app called “Musician’s Hypnosis” which I swear by for audition preparation. While I wouldn’t really call it hypnosis as much as guided visualization, this app allows me to practice every aspect of the audition experience, from unpacking in the warm up room to imagining the reaction of the committee members on the other side of the panel, all the while injecting these images with confidence and the expectation of success. I even visualize myself practicing the way I would ideally like to, I would highly recommend it!
As we wrap up this conversation, I remember you mentioned you had an interesting story about bananas…
I routinely am filled with joy and confidence walking out onto an audition stage because I have programmed my subconscious to elicit this reaction. This subconscious work is always at play in our lives, and it can backfire quite spectacularly when it goes unchecked. An example would be that when I was in college I knew bananas had naturally occurring beta blockers so whenever I had to perform for something important I would go to the smoothie king and get an all-banana smoothie. This obviously wasn’t a cure-all for nerves (and the sugar probably just got me way over energized) so I would still have energy problems and since the common denominator was the banana smoothie I classically-conditioned myself to associate bananas with being nervous. It took me years to enjoy bananas again without feeling a bit flighty!
