Workshop: Practice Away from the Flute: Self-Awareness for Performance! With Heidi Kay Begay

Do you suffer from performance anxiety? Do you find it challenging to find and boost your musical voice and ideas? Or perhaps you’d like to be more confident on stage when performing in front of audiences?

These are continuous pain points that we often hear throughout our music community. Today’s workshop brings a fresh perspective from someone who’s been podcasting for five successive years. 

The lessons podcasting has taught the presenter are unsurmountable for the modern-day musician, especially when applying public speaking skills to the practice room and on stage. 

Since a podcaster is typically in front of recording equipment through audio and video means, the content creator begins to have a heightened awareness of self, added confidence in their voice and abilities, and continually practices being present in conversation. 

These lessons and benefits are easily transferred into the musician’s practicing and performing spaces. The workshop hopes to create an engaging setup where musicians can bring a small portion of podcasting into their world to reap the benefits of their music-making. 

We are told as musicians to record ourselves on a device and listen back objectively to our playing. However, most musicians have difficulty completing this task because it feels incredibly exposing. Instead, the presenter proposes that if one can record their spoken voice (through storytelling), one will gain incredible insights about their body language, facial expressions, and communicative style, which can only benefit their music-making.

By recording one’s spoken voice and watching back the file (three separate times), the musician will have increased awareness of self. Not only that, but practicing recording invites a new practice activity to one’s space, helps reduce practice injury, increases intentional practicing, and adds humanness to their performance.