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ARCHIVED TOPICS => Performance and technique => Topic started by: Michael R on May 20, 2009, 02:45:27 am



Title: Going blank
Post by: Michael R on May 20, 2009, 02:45:27 am
Have you ever had one of those moments when you can’t place anything? For example I remember quite vividly two situations when asked for my name, - and I went blank.

It has happened to me once in rehearsal - for 39 seconds (I watched the agonizingly slow movement of the wall-clock) I couldn’t locate where I was in time and space, let alone what point in the Schubert 8 movement 1 we had stopped at, let alone why….


Title: Re: Going blank
Post by: smittims on May 20, 2009, 08:57:03 am
This happens to me a lot.

I regard it  as a sort of safety cut-off to prevent my brain being overloaded. I'm a great believer in the truth of WH Davies' famous couplet:

'What is this life, if, full of  care
We have no time to stand and  stare?'

I'm afraid I must annoy  a lot of people who fire questions at me by saying ' sorry, I can't reply to that  just now,'.

I do believe taking one's time is a basic human right. There are  few occasions when it's actually necessary to do something right away (putting out  a fire, driving  a train, making a speech). .


Title: Re: Going blank
Post by: guest2 on May 20, 2009, 02:29:43 pm
Yes it's not the same thing as stage-fright is it. This "going blank" probably happens only at non-crucial times such as rehearsals, when the mind is free to concentrate, but when performance really matters it would not.

I have often noticed this "switching off" effect in persons I engage in conversation.


Title: Re: Going blank
Post by: Tony Watson on May 20, 2009, 04:42:53 pm
I'm very bad at remembering names.

There are few occasions when it's actually necessary to do something right away.

Indeed. How many of us, when the telephone rings, immediately abandon everything and rush to it before the caller can ring off, even though we are not expecting an important call? I know I do and yet, as someone pointed out to me, when it rings, you don't HAVE to answer it.


Title: Re: Going blank
Post by: Paul on May 20, 2009, 05:39:48 pm
I'm very bad at remembering names.

There are few occasions when it's actually necessary to do something right away.

Indeed. How many of us, when the telephone rings, immediately abandon everything and rush to it before the caller can ring off, even though we are not expecting an important call? I know I do and yet, as someone pointed out to me, when it rings, you don't HAVE to answer it.

I only ever answer the telephone when I feel like doing so. In fact, I only ever do anything these days when I feel like it! Perhaps the inadvertent act of 'going blank' to which Michael R refers is simply the result of an overwhelming lack of wish to do anything at that particular moment.

There are times when we all must feel the need for total silence and privacy of thought, even in circumstances where we are supposed to be interactive with others. Perhaps we are at those times viewed as merely 'uncommunicative', 'unhelpful' or downright 'rude'. But we are all human, and this feeling comes to all of us at various times - whether through stress, tiredness, or whatever other personal circumstances may cause it.

But it is surprising how poorly some recognise it in others, and how quick they are to infer negative motives.


Title: Re: Going blank
Post by: Cal on May 20, 2009, 05:44:39 pm

It pleases me now however when I go blank when trying to remember ex colleagues' names. I know I have retired when this happens !!


Title: Re: Going blank
Post by: Prihoda on June 01, 2009, 09:08:29 pm
I'm also very bad in remembering names, but I always forget faces.


Title: Re: Going blank
Post by: Cal on June 04, 2009, 09:35:04 am
On thinking about it I fund I remember the names and faces of those people that mean something to me ! Having spent a life time in work having to remember lots of people I now enjoy being selective .


Title: Re: Going blank
Post by: Reiner Torheit on June 04, 2009, 09:53:23 am
Stage performers - actors mainly, but some theatrically-trained opera performers too - believe in something rather similar,  which is usually termed "going limp" in English.  It refers to a moment in which you try to purge the body of all of your own ideas, assumptions, and habits, before "stepping into" the character one is to play on stage...   who must have his/her set of assumptions and habits, and not yours :)

I recently had to play a character in a film (a modern setting of a Stringberg play) who was very different from me,  and "going limp" was an important step for me into assuming this role...  so that he wouldn't be a two-dimensional thug, but an unpredictable and dangerous man.