Having an invisible problem is difficult enough without those days when dyslexia scrambles my thinking, refuses to interpret what I'm seeing. And I don't have a physical reason that explains what's going on, why I can't understand the words or the music I'm trying to read. All I do know is that something other than my brain is filling my skull. In my experience as a musician, only one situation comes close to that scrambled feeling, the feeling that I am totally and completely out of control when I need most to remain in control. I wrote a poem about it in my book, The Well-Tempered Poet: 24 Pictures and Poems.
Stage Fright
My mind is scattered, my courage, exhausted.
I have been deserted on foreign ground.
Nothing appears different, yet everything is strange.
I have not one familiar grain on which to stand.
I must feel my way along this mortifying path,
knowing not how I will live through the performance ahead.
Synapses have short-ciruited, every reserve depleted.
I feel like I will die.
Yet my external visage is consistent.
Physical functions carry on,
bearing the weightless ton of my fear ... and dread ...
because I have no choice.
I step onto the lighted stage.
So if you have a student who consistently tells you that he/she has practiced and could play it just fine at home, remember that even a slight amount of nervousness can short-circuit those synapses until your student can neither see the page nor understand why those notes and symbols aren't making any sense.
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