Frederic Chopin Persuasive Speech

All eyes were on me, judging me and peering into my soul. I had two left hands with cold, concrete fingers. Heart beating rapidly, I began the walk to my demise. No, I was not about to be executed. But I was just about to play Frederic Chopin’s Heroic Polonaise in front of a large audience. The Polonaise is a piece riddled with treacherous passages that either make the pianist leap across the keyboard or tie his fingers into mini Gordian’s knots. I found myself wishing I wouldn’t mess up as badly as I did in previous recitals . . . I could have played better. Yes, I had stage fright. Unfortunately, I seemingly could not shake off this mental affliction, as the Chopin recital showed. I had previously tried to combat stage fright with brute force: …show more content…
I felt the familiar symptoms kick in as I entered the exam room. Surprisingly, when I started playing, I found myself distracted- not by my surroundings or the judge or even the sensation at the bottom of my stomach- but by the music itself. The piano’s sound was magnificent: the upper registers sounded like the stars twinkling; the rich bass notes created a sense of grandeur. I found myself playing well despite the high-stakes environment that would have normally frozen my fingers solid. I finished with a strange feeling of contentment. It was a novel sensation. Conquering stage fright was a gradual process. While I enjoyed success at the examination, my next few public performances were hit-and-miss. But, I was aware of my mental state during these performances and I knew what had occurred at the examination. I noticed that recitals in which I played pieces I really enjoyed were, for the most part, excellent. Paradoxically, those were the pieces that I had set the highest standards for, performance-wise. Thus, I deeply cared about satisfying my own standards for those