Music performance confidence and consistency

kungfumonk007

So - Some may not believe me - but when I am just playing and no one is listening, and there is no mic on me, I sound like Gonzalo Bergara Robin Nolan and J.S. Bach got together and had some wonderful time traveling music baby!!! Seriously!!! When there is a mic on me, it goes down to maybe if Gonzalo Bergara and the Back Street Boys had a baby. When I am playing in front of real people it goes down to if Gonzalo, Fiona Apple, and Bob Dylan had a baby. . . and can't even travel through time.

So all kidding aside I can practice about 6 hours straight no problem, no tension, no soreness, at any tempo. When I start playing with people after 2 hours my entire body is tense, my arm is sore, it is horrible - I can feel the difference in my body distinctly. So what mental skills have ya'all found to help you play consistently no matter what the situation. I'm fine in rhythm situations - it is only when I have to do any kind of improv.

Buco

Dude you have Gonzalo coming after you, you know that right??!!

kungfumonk007

:0) I wasn't implying he gets around - he is just the player I most identify with!

Charles Meadows

If you find out let me know! My best playing is always is my room alone!

Bluegrass picker (and GJ dabbler) Bryan Sutton said that the book "The inner game of music" changed his ability to play relaxed and play past the tensions that come when you're performing for others.

Matt Mitchell

it's a paradox but you need to find a way to care less about what you play, maybe read Effortless Mastery

Buco

To give you something meaningful, I wrote to myself a bullet points from the book "Choke", here's some:

reaffirm your self worth before a performance, think about your prior accomplishments, focus on your credentials.

Think of these accomplishments as something that will more likely make you succeed in your performance.

All these previous accomplishments make you a multifaceted individual, this one performance doesn't define you as a whole, this way of thinking will take some of the pressure off.

Meditation, it can free up your RAM memory or cognitive power to focus at the task at hand instead of focusing on your worries.

Verbalize your worries and label them as stereotypes and think that's all they are, a stereotypes.

Re-interpret your body reactions as something that will more likely make you succeed, like sweaty palms or racing hart can be a signal of excitement just prior to your success.

Focus on something other than the task at hand: Jack Nicklaus supposedly will focus on one of his toes as he's making an important put. A ball kicker might focus on a person behind the net instead the net itself. Skiers focus on at least a couple of gates ahead and this will take their mind off the task at hand, opera singer might focus on the melody instead the high note that's coming up.

Think of strategy rather than technique: in the experiment with soccer players dribbling the ball around the cone, those who thought "keep knees loose" performed better than those who thought "keep ball close to the cones".


It's been a while since I reminded myself of these, so that was cool.

Bones

Hey Kung, I'm a rhythm player not a lead player but if I am anxious about a performance I just try to focus on my job making music and everything else drops away. It sounds simplistic but it works for me. Music takes a lot of concentration for me so I try not to be too distracted by other stuff that might be going on off stage. If you want to interact with the audience do it between songs. If you focus 100% on the music you won't have any bandwidth left for anything else. I hope that helps.

Phil

Dude: once you realize the following it'll all come easy:
1) you're playing guitar 100x better than anyone in the audience!
2) most folk aren't listening anyway;
3 lastly....as you play 100x better than your audience...they all think you're a maestro...so rule of thumb is just to go out, relax and have fun!

cheers!

Matteo

Efortless Mastery is an interesting book. Well worth reading. I agree with Matt Mitchell's suggestion above; it might be a good idea to read it.

Scoredog

Gigs for me gradually get better as the night goes on for some reason. The start is always the roughest. A trick I have used to get going is to concentrate on something simple out of the gate like focusing on rest strokes and long tones just to feel my way in.
Most issues with playing tense are ego related as mentioned above and after many years of playing I am still not totally immune, but not caring what others think and just playing what you want really helps.

Lango-Django

Oh, yeah, I hear you, KFM007!

My anxieties center around the rhythm... I play in a group with just a bass and one horn, so when I stop playing rhythm, suddenly there's no rhythm... I find that off-putting, and it takes away my confidence.

I've gotten to the point where I can usually manage to keep things happening at slow and medium tempos, but fast tempos are still a pain... I usually just play chord melody style.

I get a couple of gigs a year as a solo guitarist/singer, and for those I use backing tracks. I find that to be conducive to truly playing at the same level I play at at home, or sometimes even higher when I can tell the audience is really into it.

Plus I think that being able to play several choruses of a tune, instead of just one, is definitely helpful to reaching the top of your form.

Good luck!

Will

PS And yes, "Effortless Mastery" is indeed a great book.