Early on I got two pieces of advice that have stood me in good stead for a long time and through a lot of performances:

In 1957, when I was auditioning before Dr. Stanley Chappell to get into the University of Washington School of Music as a classic guitarist (I knew I would never get in if I said I was a folksonger), I was so nervous my hands were trembling, and I was messing up badly. Dr. Chappell stopped me, and after we chatted for a few minutes, he said, "The reason you're nervous is because you are more concerned with what I'm going to think of you than you are with the music you're playing. Forget that I'm here. Think about the music." He gave me a second chance, and I was accepted.

In 1959, the first time I appeared on televison -- live! -- I was petrified (despite Dr. Chappell's advice two years before). Fortunately everything went exactly as rehearsed, because I was going purely on automatic. And I had five more shows to do! After the first show, I mentioned to Sally Sauerwine, the producer, that I must have looked like a trapped rabbit, because that was how I felt. Sally asked me, "Do you get nervous when you're sitting in someone's living room singing with your friends?" No, not particularly. That's actually very comfortable. "Okay, how many people are usually watching any one television set?" Well, generally one or two. Four or five, maybe. "Does it make you nervous to sing for, say, a half-dozen people?" No, I sing in front of at least that many people almost every weekend. "Well, then, remember that that's exactly what you're doing. You're just coming through the television set, that's all. Sure, maybe you're coming through thousands of television sets all at the same time, but in each household, you're only singing to a few people. Think of someone you know who is watching, and sing for them." By the second show in the series I was keyed up, but I wasn't nervous. By the third, I felt like an old pro.

Actually, a third piece of advice came from my younger sister, who was a world-class figure skater back in the mid-Fifties -- competed in the World Figure Skating Championships in Vienna in '55 (and this ties in with Geordie Broon's comments above): "Practice until you're about thirty percent better than you feel you need to be, because you will never perform under ideal conditions. There will always be something that isn't quite right, and you have to be good enough to overcome it." (guitar string refuses to stay in tune, a little phlegm in the throat. . . .)

In the summer of '63, I sang in the Seattle Center Hootenannies. Several of them were outdoors, in front of the Horiuchi Mural. One evening, the audience was huge. The police estimate said that the crowd sitting and standing on the lawn in front of the mural came to about 6,000. The following week, 15,000! Fifteen thousand people cheering and applauding sounds like surf! It's incredibly exhilarating!

Breath deeply, relax, smile, sing your li'l heart out, and enjoy!

Don Firth