I'd like to share a story told by a participant in Banjo Camp North a couple of years ago.

Yo Yo Ma, the great classical cellist, was performing for some occasion (I forget what), and he played the Bach unaccompanied cello sonatas, six of them--three in the morning, then three in the afternoon.

Now here's a man with a good sized audience, playing solo the most difficult long pieces there are on his instrument. He's going to be watched (and listened to) like a hawk, all day, in the most difficult circumstances.

In the evening, at a dinner or something, someone asked him if that gave him any stagefright, or maybe the question was how he avoided stagefright. The answer was, no, he didn't have stagefright "because I have something to share and nothing to prove."

Get that. Run it through your mind. You're there because of the music, not because of yourself. You have something to share, but nothing to prove.

Dave Oesterreich