guitarboy2828 wrote:
Be careful hey, people out there aren't usually to forgiving, we are because we are all guitarists.. But if you suck, even just slightly and you're busking or whatever, people WILL be horrible to you and you will get put down. Not worth the embarrassment and de-motivation if you ask me. I think your time would be better spent practicing in your bedroom.
If you want to perform to people then at some point you have to take the plunge and perform to people.
I'd agree that you should be prepared in terms of knowing what you will play etc etc, but that's only part of performing live.
However it need not be a matter of dying a death. If you've done your preparation, if you control all the things that you can control, if your guitar is in tune, if your timing is good and so on then you've a good chance of coming out the other side in one piece ?
Keira has already mentioned TJs open mic nights (there's on this week Thursday). Now I go to a lot of those and have played at a lot of those and you can see the guys who have enough respect for themselves and the audience (even though it's an open mic night) to do their homework and generally they go down OK. You get other guys who come along and sing in a key they don't have a chance in, or haven't learned the words and that can get embarassing.
The first time I played in front of an audience I was nervous for all kinds of reasons BUT I had practiced what I was about to play, and I my timing was OK and I got through it OK.
I emphasise timing a lot because in my experience timing mistakes are the most noticable mistakes of all. If you play a bum note (the one next to the right one) then you may well get away with it, but miss a beat or let your tempo wonder and you can be sure the audience will notice that. Even if they don't actually know that it's an issue with a missed beat or the tempo is all over the place they WILL notice.
But when it all comes together it's really lekker. One aspect of music is communication. Communicate musically with an audience and that feels real good for everybody involved.
