Ehwmatt wrote:PTSD from performing? Holllllllyyyy fuckin shit. That's an embarrassment that sells short the unfortunate ones who suffer real PTSD from watching friends' legs get blown off by land mines and having to kill people. I assume you're being figurative, but my god, that's not even an appropriate figure of speech there. It's one step removed from equating a relatively light event to the fuckin Holocaust.
The bottom line is the guy quit. I love SP, don't care much for Arnel, but the guy flat out quit and continues to tease people. Maybe it's laziness, perfectionism, an inability to do it anymore, a combination of things, who knows, but the guy flat out quit. His refusal to contribute anything to his profession other than a remix of one concert in 15 years and one backing vocal is really pretty fuckin sad and indefensible. The guy was too damn good to just quit like he did and leave us high and dry when nearly all of his contemporaries and even those performers who are older than him and much more road-weary have mostly continued to go out there. Hell, look at Lou fuckin Gramm.
I'm sorry, but I just can't ever respect a quitter.
Matt, you don't have to be a jerk about it, but for the sake of argument, how about Stage Fright instead of PTSD??? (And I did say '
a form of 'PTSD related to performing - it seemed pretty self-explanatory to me, but perhaps I'm wrong. Either way, stage fright is a better description).
Read this and tell me if it could possibly be true given what we know about SP...
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERFORMING ARTS:
STAGE FRIGHT AND OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE
Stage fright or 'performance anxiety' is an exaggerated and more or less debilitating fear of public appearance. It ranges from mild distress to total panic and frequently impedes career development in the performing arts and professions that require public speaking. Like other phobias it is not amenable to reason. Exhorting a sufferer to 'pull themselves together', like a pair of curtains, is unlikely to help.
Stage fright is felt by most amateurs to some degree but is not correlated with talent or ability. Nor does it necessarily diminish with experience or accomplishment. Some top pros have been troubled by it well into their careers. At the height of his fame, Laurence Olivier suffered from almost incapacitating stage fright. During a run of Othello he was so terrified of his soliloquies that he asked another actor to stand just offstage so he 'would not feel so alone'. Richard Burton shook and sweated before going on stage for Equus, fearing that he had 'lost the ability to command'. Barbra Streisand was unable to sing live concerts for 27 years after once forgetting her words during a concert at New York's Central Park. Carly Simon used to stick pins in her hand before a performance to distract herself from her anxiety and once asked the entire brass section of the band to spank her just before the curtain rose.
Perhaps the problem faced by famous performers is that expectations, both their own and those of their audiences, are raised so high that they doubt their ability to live up to them. Once on the top of the pedestal the only way left to go is down. There may also be awareness of failing faculties and youngsters snapping at their heels.
Stage fright is characterised by an intense feeling of being subject to public scrutiny combined with a belief that one is likely to fail to deliver. All the adrenaline effects that accompany fear are experienced, including 'butterflies' in the stomach, dry mouth, palpitation, sweaty palms, dizziness, shortness of breath, stammering, and inability to think clearly. These are due to activation of the general fight/flight emergency system that is part of our evolutionary heritage and which would have survival value if fighting or running away from an audience were appropriate. It is as though, in the human world, social isolation has such serious consequences that fear of sabre tooth tigers has given way to a dread of public humiliation.
Harvard sociobiologist E.O. Wilson says that, for our ancestors, being intently scrutinised and singled out was often a prelude to being eaten by a predator, hence our dread of losing the protection of the group. It is therefore important to keep a sense of proportion. The audience are not predators - they may kill us but they almost certainly won't eat us.
The problems associated with stage fright are widespread. A study of students and staff at the University of Iowa School of Music yielded the following percentages:
21% 'experienced marked distress'
40% 'moderate distress'
17% 'marked impairment'
30% 'moderate impairment'
9% 'often avoided performance opportunities'
13% 'interrupted a performance at least once'
15% 'sought professional help'
Musicians seem particularly vulnerable. My own research found that nearly half of musicians suffered from stage fright at one time or another compared with about a third of actors, singers and dancers. This may be because the requirements of musical performance are more exacting than those of other performers; mistakes are likely to be conspicuous. I was in the audience at the Hollywood Bowl one night when, unforgettably, the pianist hit the wrong chord in the opening of the Tchaikovsky piano Concerto. This, of course, stood out like a sore thumb (perhaps it was because he had one).
Solos are worse than group performances because the level of felt scrutiny and self-consciousness is much higher. It has been shown that anxiety diminishes logarithmically with the number of fellow performers that are available to hide among. Auditions and competitions are more stressful than performance itself, even opening night. This is because the evaluation factor is substantially higher; by the time of the performance you at least have the reassurance that somebody has picked you for the part.
The effects of stress or arousal on performance quality are described in the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Performance improves with increases in arousal up to a certain point, after which there is a decline, yielding an inverted-U function relating arousal and performance. The optimal point is reached more rapidly when the task is cognitively complex (needing a clear head) rather than energy expenditure. Something it may help performers to know is that the best performances (objectively assessed) occur at a level of arousal that is felt as uncomfortable to themselves.
The Yerkes-Dodson Law may be extended to a three-dimensional model, in which three major groups of variables are considered in predicting when anxiety is likely to go 'over the top'. (1) the trait anxiety of the performer - the constitutional and learned tendency for certain individuals, more than others, to become anxious under conditions of social stress. (2) the degree of task mastery that has been achieved - works that are intrinsically simple or so well-prepared that they have become so are less susceptible to disruption by anxiety than those that are complex or under-rehearsed. (3) the situational stress prevailing, e.g., special pressures like solos, auditions, competitions or important public performances.
Hardy & Parfitt (1991) argue that a catastrophe model fits best both in sport and performing arts. Once anxiety goes 'over the top' and disaster is sensed there may be a precipitous downturn in the performance with little chance of retrieval. This is most likely to occur when cognitive anxiety is high as opposed to bodily agitation. Clearly, worries about whether the performance will be successful and fears of the consequences of failure, are more likely to lead to a collapse of concentration and memory than increased bodily arousal due to exercise or coffee. Mental anxiety may produce a vicious spiral whereby failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, early mistakes leading to an escalating pattern of distraction and worry.
Catastrophe theory fits research on the destructive self-talk of musicians (Steptoe & Fidler, 1987). The most detrimental style of pre-performance thinking they called catastrophising(e.g., I think I am going to faint; I'm sure to make a dreadful mistake and that will ruin everything). The best kind of self-talk was realistic appraisal (I'm bound to make a few mistakes, but so does everyone; the audience wants me to play well and will make allowance for a few slips; I'll concentrate on technical aspects of the music and the interpretation I've prepared). Not surprisingly, performers who catastrophise are most prone to stage fright. Realistic appraisal, showed the classic curvilinear relationship with performance anxiety, being used most by those with moderate (optimal) levels of anxiety.
Performance may be disrupted by many types of irrational, negative thoughts:
Over-generalization: 'I never...' 'I always...'
All-or-nothing thinking: 'I am either a star or a loser...'
Disqualifying the positive: 'They liked my performance, but what do they know?'
Self-reference: 'Whatever is said about my performance is about me'
Superstition:'Without my pre-performance ritual I can't perform well.'
Catastrophising: 'Once I make a mistake I'll never get back on track.'
A potentially harmful strategy of 'hedging bets' that is adopted by some performers is called self-handicapping. It begins with advance excuses along the following lines:
'I have a sore throat at the moment'
'I've never seen this music before.'
'My teacher demands an interpretation that doesn't suit me.'
'I would have done better if I hadn't had a late night.'
Such pessimistic self-talk easily becomes self-fulfilling prophecy, increasing the need for an excuse. The next step is self-sabotage, e.g., failing to attend rehearsals, damaging one's own instrument, or deliberately getting drunk before a performance. Susceptible individuals need to watch for signs of self-handicapping in themselves and insert positive strategies.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/printtranscrip ... ventId=852
(I didn't copy the entire article, but feel free to read it all if you want)
Again, I have no idea if any of this is applicable to SP, it's just one possibility. Maybe he is a 'quitter' and the asshole that some suggest him to be. I personally like to think there's something else going on. It's my rationalization and I'm stickin' to it!!!
When was the Phil Graham concert in relation to his last real live performance? That was the worst of his worst performances I've ever witnessed. Could it have triggered some of these feelings? In all honesty, it probabaly should have. He sang the wrong lines on Faithfully of all songs!!! In some ways I hope he's the asshole you guys say he is. Then at least he would be not performing for his own reasons, not because something beyond his control is keeping him from it.
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