Some Opinions, Observations  and Tips on Musical Performance 

1. If the audience feels comfortable with you (not necessarily the same as "liking" you) it can be amazingly forgiving.  This is due largely to the fact that the audience has a vested interest in the success of your performance.  So don't worry, they're pulling for you.  Conversely, if it is uncomfortable with you, it doesn't matter how well you play.  Audience comfort derives in part from a sense of certitude that you won't ask too much of it.  Don't ask them to sing along unless they are kindergartners, drunk, Bavarian or any combination thereof.   Avoid inane solicitations such as "How are you all doing tonight?"  Most people know that 1) you really don't  give a shit and 2)  have no idea of if or how they are expected to respond to this mass query.  In general, make statements but do not ask questions that may be seen to require things of the audience.   And don't buy the conventional line that audience somehow wants to be "included".   Most people come to listen passively - not to be pestered into participation. Respect for their privacy and dignity will be appreciated and increase their comfort level.

2. Breathe.  If you forget to do this for too long .... nothing else really matters.  In addition, failure to breathe properly, raises your pitch and alters the voice placement in your head.  It also tends to increase your playing tempo and screw up your timing.  It is essentially mild suffocation panic induced by stage panic.  On stage you often have to make a conscious effort to do things that otherwise occur naturally.

3. Develop good basic habits and discipline but then, importantly,  take confidence in the fact that, in a pinch, it is usually your basic habits and discipline rather than your improvisational cleverness that will save you.

4. Audience feedback.  I saw a fingerstyle guitarist once, who was not the main act and generally unknown.  After performing some non-remarkable passage in a piece he suddenly stopped, grinned at the audience and wiggled his eyebrows as if to self congratulatorily punctuate just how tricky what he just did was and to elicit applause.   There was none.  Apparently he had no plan for this contingency so what he did was to continue to sit there, in front of a fairly large audience  with a goofy grin.  The fascinating  part though ...was that his eyebrows just kept on wiggling.  It was as if they were on automatic.  But still no response.  Finally, after what seemed a small eternity and with the tick of fear beginning to reveal itself in his grin,   the audience either realized what was expected of it or felt a collective humanitarian duty to render assistance and quickly moved beyond the impasse with a polite clap.   The audience has no obligation to provide you with real time feedback and generally won't.  So don't look for it, don't convince yourself you're receiving it and never ask for it.  Smiles and laughter are not necessarily positive.  Not all music induces toe-tapping.  And the truth is that you don't really know why someone is looking at their watch. At best you will see or hear only what you want and at worst your eyebrows will wiggle uncontrollably.

5. The music never sounds the same to you on stage  as it does when you're playing by yourself.  Trust the sound technician. You might as well. You have no choice.

6. There are few failures, whether they be in business, personal relations, health or music that can't be adequately managed by smiling and dancing.  So if you miss a note... tango left, forget the words...waltz right, screw up the rhythm... just keep smiling and DANCE ON, ...the curse of Fred Astaire.

7. No performances are complete failures.  Even if you think your singing sounds like a combination of Morse Code and barnyard animals, there will always be someone who thinks you sound good.  Embrace this small gift (but then go figure).

8. Don't look "at" the audience.  Instead look through and beyond it.  Sometimes there will be a person who will sit up front, clap wildly, laugh at every joke and hang on every word.  This person is called your "mother".  Resist the temptation to play to that individual or any such individual as it will become obvious to, and may annoy, the rest of the audience.

9. If you're not funny don't try to be.  Other than saying that, I have no idea how you would determine if you're funny.

10. Similarly, if you're not sincere - please don't try to appear to be.  Recognizable faux sincerity has reached epidemic proportions and it's only a matter of time until some sort of fake-a-cide, perhaps dispensed from an aerosl can,  is developed.  'Best not to be on the recieving end of that!

11. Some other guitar players will offer you "left-handed" compliments in an attempt to undermine your confidence.   Receive and respond to these with grace and humility as if they were actual compliments.  They hate that.

12. Avoid  pro forma flattery.  Most  know that you really don't have an oh-so-special emotional bond with them, tonight's audience, and that tonight is magical and  that you will remember it always and will tell all your friends about it.  Listeners regard this as an obsequious attempt to ingratiate yourself to them and  as insulting to their sense of sophistication.

13. Performance anxiety often has its base in the performers perception of the power of the audience.  This can be addressed by exercises  designed to dis-empower the audience in the performer's perception. Here's three:

Imagine the audience as having ridiculous jobs.  The  guy in the back is  the chief whore wrangler at the Classy Skank Brothel and Casino just outside Winnemucca.  The woman in the front row is a crime scene outline artist but is studying to be a nostril hair stylist.  The guy in the third row is a colostomy camera focuser. etc.  If you're in California, they could be.

Clothes are a cultural and symbolic expression of power.  Have you ever noticed how harmless most law enforcement types look without the uniform.  That's why they wear it!  So imagine the audience naked or in its underwear. I've found this works well on audiences of  teenage girls.   'Best though, not to actually alert the audience youre using this technique, unless your goal is to make the audience fear you.

Imagine the audience as French.  It doesn't get any more harmless than that.

14. Avoid long introductions to tunes that presume to explain the "meaning" of the piece or it's inspiration. There is a tune of mine that I have always imagined to be East Indian inspired.  Martha claims it was inspired by a spaghetti western. She could be right. Who's to say?  Meaning is personal. What someone gets out of a piece of artistic expression is not always, if ever,  what you think you put into it.  It should be obvious, but once your performance is inside somebody else's head, it's not yours anymore.  How it is internalized is beyond your ability to affect.  In poetry, meaning is compressed into as few words as possible thus allowing the reader to expand the meaning in his own direction without the restraint of extra words.   In the extreme, this takes a form called Haiku.  Individuals will (and should be allowed to) discover for themselves what the "meaning" is.  And few things are worse than "inspiration" articulated.  

15. Similarly, if the piece, is instrumental why not let it "speak" for itself?  To instruct the audience as to how it is supposed to react to it is essentially a per se admission of artistic failure.

16. Avoid name dropping  and other self-serving suggestions of status.  Everyone has heard the ubiquitous "This will be on my next album", the lovely "The other day while talking to my friend Willie Nelson..." or the ever popular "I learned this from my teacher and inspiration ...Alex Degrassi", etc.  Everybody knows somebody - so what.  Listeners generally regard this as a clumsy status enhancement ploy visa viz. association and an insult to their sophistication that you would attempt it.  Status is the perception of recognition by others, not by yourself.  As such it is less of an asset than it is an illusion - a way we are seduced by what we want to see.    In any case, if you need to suggest your status to others ... you may not have it. Why draw attention to the fact?   People have an acute sense of this.  Entreatments, however subtle, that others recognize your "status" will only serve to subject you to quiet ridicule - and make the audience uncomfortable.

17. Self-deprecation or self-defecation.  One is cute, one is clinical. As in architecture, the important thing is knowing where to draw the line.  The problem with repeatedly telling people how much you suck is that you will finally convince them and then they will be angry that,  knowing this,  you  presented yourself  before them in the first place!

18. A more subtle problem with excessive self-deprecation is that it may actually be perceived as false humility and conceit.

19. If you are participating in an "open mic" or similar event remember that no one in the audience expects professionalism.  Statistically, you probably won't be the worst there and even if you are then you can take comfort in the fact that you're still in better shape than the audience ....who has to sit through the whole thing ...clapping appreciatively.

20. Disasters. Having some contingency plans for disasters can build confidence. Here's four:

   I once saw guitarist John Fahey screw up (I think) one of his tunes. It got progressively worse (I think) until finally he just stopped cold.  He hadn't said another word during the set but now just looked around, the audience looking back and then he announced "I have to pee" and got up and walked off.  I looked at my date who was gazing, star struck at the empty stage and who then said "He is sooooo cool!"  Instinctively seizing the opportunity I said  "I have to pee ....too" and walked off.  Oddly  ...it worked! ...for Fahey too, I think. 

   I don't know this for sure but I believe the Fahey "Pee" ploy doesn't work as well with the other excretory function.  It's probably an acculturation thing but crapping is just not as endearing as peeing.

   You might close your eyes and smile as if you know something the audience doesn't.  Which is probably true - especially if combined with the "I have to pee" ploy.

   I was once told that, if I was walking down the street and stumbled, I could preserve my vanity by simple stumbling several more times so that people wold think that it was my natural gait.  It is a design axiom that what you can't hide you can emphasize.  Roughly akin to hiding in plain sight.  So you might emphasize a mistake by repeating it the next time around.   A repeated mistake is not recognized as such.  People will think you're creative, which is true.  This also doesn't work as well with the "Pee" ploy or if the mistake happened to be that you mis-spoke and said something like "nigger", "kike", "dago", "spic","coon", "homo", "fag", "jungle bunny" etc.

21. Do not over-indulge in "artistic expression" to the disregard of the audience.  This is about as welcome to most  as is the prospect of tissue rejection.

22. In only two days, tomorrow will be yesterday...!  Do not over-inflate the importance of any performance.  It's never critical.   It's only guitar playing and, unlike mountain climbing without a rope,  there is always a next time if you make a mistake.

23. In the end, the difference between the success and  failure of a musical performance is nothing more than the difference between rape and rapture ...salesmanship.  



THE END!