My first Gypsy Jazz gig

Jazzaferri

As Stephane put it "Begin well and end well. The middle will look after itself"

crookedpinky

Well said Lango !

Chiefbigeasy

Thanks, guys, for all the great feedback.

To be clear, I did enjoy the gig. It was like a small concert: quiet coffeehouse, supportive friends and audience. Great venue for a first gig.

Also, I’ve got a lot of confidence in my ability, especially when soloing. I’m grateful for that. It’s when I try to quote or replicate the solos of our heroes that I can get in trouble. I’m trying to set the table to make it easier. Imbalance of sound on stage and/or volume dynamics are the regular culprits; those are things I need to think through a little better.

Right now, I’m avoiding the whole amplification wormhole in favor of a simple setup—stage mics. I’ll have to consider it for other venues like a restaurant or bar setting. I’m looking at the Carlos sensor set up—a little stick-on sensor. I’d like to run It through a nice small tube amp I already own. Anyone have any experience with that device? (I used to use a Bacaus Berry (spelling?) on my old Gibson decades ago.)

Otherwise, I’m putting in the woodshed time to gain more confidence for those technically challenging pieces, but never at the expense of soulful, melodic soloing. Judging from audience response, so far, so good.

Scoredog

I do use a Carlos Sensor and really like it. I use it as the front end to a Tone Dexter or just on it's own into an AER 60...no issues except for bar gigs where it won't be loud enough without feedback. That said outside of a magnetic pickup it is as feedback resistant as they come. Highly recommended here.

Bones

Oh ok, yes it's very tough to stick to quoting a transcribed solo or straight written melody on the spot in a gig and not really necessary anyway. If you are confident with improv that is much more freeing and relaxing.

Buco

Stephane Wrembel had a great advice in one of his workshops: when you get stuck, get in a bind, run out of the ideas and so on, make things as simple as possible and play very, very basic for a while until you feel you're relaxed again. You can hear him doing exactly that sometimes, he'll take a first chorus playing very few notes, super basic and unleash the second time through.

Playing at home is different than playing during a band practice is different than playing a gig. You bring the same skills to each but yet things you can execute in one environment, fall flat in different.
I'm not quite sure what exactly happens. But I think one of the culprits is all the different sensory inputs from different environments that take your focus away just a tiny bit but enough to mess with your performance. Now that I'm writing this, I'm thinking that's gotta be one of the reasons why sports teams generally do better at home games, can't be only because of the home crowd support.
Of course during the actual gig there's some anxiety too and that will mess up your performance because then you're overthinking what you're doing, using the "wrong" part of the brain.
What I don' understand is then what happens during band practice when I'm equally relaxed (I think) as when playing at home but sometimes I flub the parts I seem to never flub at home. That's why I think the environment plays a role as well. Anything that's different from what you're comfortable with the most, which is at home, will affect you.
Of course the more you do it the better it gets. Still the mental game is what separates the good from the great and it's maybe harder to achieve the mastery of that, than the actual act of playing.

There's a great book that talks about a lot of this. Called Choke by Sian Beilock, she's a psychology professor at University of Chicago. They did a lot of interesting studies that show how people buckle under the stress of performance. One sort of hilarious thing I read in it says that Jack Niclaus would focus on his little toe during the golf swing.
https://www.amazon.com/Choke-Secrets-Brain-Reveal-Getting/dp/1416596186

Chiefbigeasy

Thanks, Buco. A very thoughtful and experienced analysis, as always. I think you nailed for me.

BillDaCostaWilliams

Thanks Buco,
Thats very useful for me, too.
I’m over 70 and decided to give up live gigs last year after many decades gigging on and off, thinking they were too stressy compared with playing at home. But after reading Chiefbigeasy’s post and these comments I’m thinking I should reconsider.
Guess it's a question of finding the right context.

Buco

@BillDaCostaWilliams I was searching for something else, came back to this thread and read your comment.

I sure am happy you decided against stopping gigging.