I believe you have forgotten why you play the clarinet. And because of this your opinion of your ability is becoming easily swayed. Without the satisfaction of doing it solely because you love it and taking everything else as it comes, there is nothing to hold you up from the negative views of others. Like an acorn in the wind you must fall to the earth, create a foundation and grow again.

Just for a while forget how good you are, forget what people think or don't think, forget about recognition, forget about fame and forget about how long this sentence is. Think about how you feel when you play the clarinet. Think about how you felt when you first touched one. Remember the smell of the wood, the shine of the joints and the complaints of all the noise you made when you sounded like a wounded elephant and didn't really care. Do you still feel these things now? Or do you instead feel only anxiety from all the other things you mentioned? Somewhere along the lines anxiety got in the way and you may have lost sight of the important things.

You may have forgotten why you play the clarinet; why you love it; why you spent all that time perfecting your playing. But you know you love it - otherwise you wouldn't bother posting. So it's important that you get back in touch with what makes you love the clarinet. I believe that you have fallen into the trap of trying to be something for everyone else but have forgotten to be something for yourself. This happens to everyone.

There are always concert pianists and violinists that go through similar times. They get so wrapped up in theory and sounding perfect that they forget the soul of music. They forget the enjoyment and end up being driven by other things... A good remedy is improvisation. We basically sit the player down by their instrument, take all of their sheet music away and tell them to just play. And that music must be completely new. This allows the player to become more familiar with the instrument even at their advanced level and puts them back to that place where they were just playing whatever felt right. There is no one to impress and there are no standards. You just play whatever you feel. Often the player will have something in the background to play with as a guide. I suggest using jazz because of the lax nature of it. You get a lot of "leg room" and you don't need to be perfect with timing.

The point of this is simply to allow you to do what makes you feel good. That is what's really important. And hopefully this will help you to feel happy again and you may be able to have this feeling when you play at big events.

What's most important is that you do this because you love it. It may be that some people simply aren't able appreciate the beauty of what you do. But you know what you do is amazing and you believe in what you do. That's all that matters.