I’ve been subbing for organist John Renke for Wednesday Evensong services which are held at 5:30 pm every week, and after last night’s service I must have looked like a drowned rat, because it is so incredibly hot in St. Andrew’s Cathedral at that time of day.
Those of you who have experienced summer in Hawaii this year probably agree with me that this seems to be the hottest and most humid summer ever — I don’t ever remember such a prolonged time when the heat and humidity was this brutal. It may have to do with the fact that we’ve had a bunch of hurricanes come our way.
Here’s a satellite image from Saturday showing Hurricanes Kilo (Category 3 with 125 mph winds), Ignacio (Category 4, 140 mph) and Jimena (Category 4, 140 mph). Forecasters say it’s the first time they can recall having three major hurricanes simultaneously in the Central and East Pacific. One of the TV newscasters said the image reminded him of Van Gogh’s painting, “Starry Nights!”
You can “Google” anything! so I did a Google search on “sweating musicians” and found there was even a question asked on Yahoo Answers: Why do musicians sweat so much? The best answer was shown: “because it takes an enormous amount of energy to perform. it’s not because of the stage lights, that is a common myth, and if you were a musician, you’d know what I’m talking about. I also use it to lose a couple of pounds because it works for me. when I do concerts, and I perform, it is exhausting. being a musician isn’t easy. you have to give it your all, every time.
Wow! No need to buy a gym membership to go to a sauna — just perform music!
Years ago, I attended a summer workshop by the late Robert Shaw on Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, in Princeton, NJ where the summers are also hot and humid. Something that was hard to ignore was that he perspired heavily. He always wore a blue shirt with a white towel around his neck, and as the morning rehearsal transpired, the sweat lines around his collar and underarms got bigger and bigger until finally his entire shirt was drenched. At lunch he must have changed his shirt, so we could see the same sweat marks reappear and get bigger and bigger during the afternoon rehearsal.
Allan Kozinn in the New York Times wrote an article on Robert Shaw’s rehearsal techniques, called Robert Shaw Magic: It’s Based on Sweat. “But it would be wrong to accord inspiration too great a role here. From Tuesday to Saturday, Mr. Shaw led his singers — 145 of them, with 75 auditors — through rehearsals that lasted 6 to 10 hours a day. And it was clear to a visitor at one of the sessions that there is a lot of patience and sweat in the process, too.”
Other people experience performance anxiety, and have to deal with shaky knees, racing heartbeat, and sweaty palms. I remember it was about twenty years ago that I was playing in the Midsummer Night’s Organ Concert at Central Union Church with other organist colleagues, and the jitters hit me. I somehow had to prevail though I felt sick to my stomach, and my fingers were slipsliding all over the keyboard!
One of the more interesting “hits” on the Google search for “why do musicians sweat on stage” was an excerpt from Rodney Clapp’s book, Tortured Wonders: Christian Spirituality for People, Not Angels in which he discusses “low culture” vs. “high culture” as defined by Matthew Arnold.
“Symphonic musicians dress in tuxedoes, and their audience does not typically wear jeans or other everyday clothing. Listeners participate in the performance only on a highly intellectual, unemotional plane—they do not respond to the music with their entire bodies (as in dancing, for example) but by polite applause at the end of each composition. This is high culture, meant to elevate its listeners spiritually, to take them out of the everyday into the transcendent. We do not pay to see classical musicians sweat.”
Hah! You try playing the organ in a building without air-conditioning!
2 things I particularly remember about St Andrew’s building. When I was in Honolulu in the USAF I went to the cathedral on a Sunday morning and there were wooden ducts running along the walls just above the windows. It was there a couple of weeks and then gone – the plan was to install a/c but people didn’t like how the ducting looked, so the project was dropped. And summers could be miserable, particularly in late afternoon because of the sun coming through the West window – all that glass. When I was there in late 70s we did install louver vents in many of the high clerestory windows which helped let the heat out. The other time the cathedral was unbearably hot was Christmas Eve – the ring of candles around each of the pillars kept the heat in the central area. Not the time for copes and heavy vestments. Memories!
Curt, it seems like the temperatures in Honolulu have gotten hotter and hotter! You can go to the Bishop Museum and seeing the people wearing wool! No way! I think with all the concrete high-rises and buildings with air conditioning (and the heat coming out of all those A/C units), it is definitely warmer here than when you were here in the 70s. Also could be global warming, too. So you can imagine how hot the Cathedral is — like a furnace.
Today’s paper said this horrible heat and humidity might last all the way to December because of El Nino! It is just unbearable — I’m glad I have central air conditioning in my apartment.
Sweating in the orchestra pit is another problem as well. They’re usually painted black and if the stage is extended, have very low ceilings. Then there is the added hazard of all those stand lights. The cords alone are an OSHA nightmare with extension cords snaking everywhere and all the receptacles being used. I finally went to a 9 LED battery powered light and my stand was brighter and even better, no cord! Thanks for googling Sweaty Musicians, Kathy. ??
This is an interesting one… I have experienced the most horrible incidents of sweating under stage lights, even in the outdoors and it has an awful effect on one’s ability to perform…I also have found myself completely at ease in the hottest of rooms under the brightest of lights and hence I have found a way to overcome this problem that works for me…I have discovered that most of the excess sweating originates entirely from my mental state while performing and there is an ideal condition of balance where I feel comfortable that the amount of sweating is completely balanced by the amount of evaporation of sweat from the skin… For this to happen I find I need to be completely comfortable with the audience and my playing and enjoying the experience of performing to the audience. When this is attained I feel this balance, I am still sweating but I feel the sweat is not staying on my skin and I feel great, because I feel in a stable state, still sweating but totally under control, no excessive sweating at all.
Where it goes wrong is the emotional input of fear. Fear of the audience, fear of being trapped under the lights with no escape, fear that the audience is hearing my sounds and not liking them. This fear increases my sweating and causes another fear- fear the audience sees my sweating and that pushes me into a loop of more and more sweating.. the sweat produced is more than can evaporate and the anxiety loop continues until I either run off the stage to escape the embarrassment( I have done this in a folk club..) or I try damage limitation to “get through” the awful experience and leave as soon as I can… What I do to prevent the anxiety level that triggers this damaging fear is to request I don’t have a solo at the beginning of a show but allow myself to play myself into the venue..I try to engage with the audience as much as possible and get as much feedback as I can from them, if I can see them… After a period of adaptation I find my sweat levels balance out and I feel aclimatised to the venue and the audience and for the rest of the show I can start to show off and enjoy the performing experience….