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And I don't mean missing a note here or there. I'm gonna just repost my post from the piano thread:quote:My first public performance was on Tuesday, it went well. So well that one of the people in the audience even got my contact information and recommended me for another thing that was happening tonight. I was going to play the same pieces as I did on Tuesday. Right now I don't feel like there is anyone I can communicate with about this. I really want to talk to my tutor but I don't think that's gonna happen tonight. I'm thinking it will be therapeutic if I could hear some other examples of this sort of thing because right now I feel like I'm the only person this has ever happened to
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Jun 20, 2015 23:33
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A friend of mine who I was kind of into and was going places with decided she wanted to sing "Baby It's Cold Outside" as a duet for an open mic night I regularly went to. I was down for that even though I'd only heard the song for the first time that day, so we played it a few times and then moved on to some other stuff and called it a night. The next day it's like 7 pm and she texts me "Where are you?". Turns out, shes at the open mic; I figured she meant we'd do it next week since that was around Christmas and that would give us time to practice. I call and say "are you sure we're ready", and like a fool get talked into doing a song that I'm sure I'll screw up. I printed out the lyrics and chords to have at my feet, figuring she'll carry it through since I assume she knows the song...bad idea. We get like halfway into the first verse, then she says a line from waaaaaaay later in the song. I blank on the response line, and it's a show stopper, with her doing the "come on, sing the next line" face. I end up just saying into the mic, "sorry we don't really know the song yet" and just walking with her off stage. Needless to say, it was mortifying. Then there was another time when I did a lame acoustic version of "Love in this Club" by Usher, and the crowd was really into it and even spontaneously shouted the "Ay!" parts in the chorus, which is still my favorite moment playing live ever. Performing is the worst thing ever and the best thing, and the more you do it, the more relaxed you become and the more you can get into your zone. It's a skill like any other, and experience is the key to developing it. It sucks what happened, but it happens. Even though you knew the piece super well, this was only your second time performing, making you a novice in that department. Take a little bit to get through the emotions you're having right now and get back in there and show 'em what you've got. If you make mistakes, big deal; it's part of honing your craft.
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Jun 23, 2015 12:02
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I once played a show and got so annihilated drunk I forgot ALL the songs. Also it was a doom metal band and I was playing through 2 full 100 watt guitar stacks all the way up. Think jet engine volume, any wrong note you play is amplified times 1000x. I "played" a solo after accidentally unplugging BOTH AMPS. It was so bad the entire crowd left, I passed out in front of the bar, and quit the band out of embarrassment. I dont remember any of this except quiting the band, it was all told to me later. Edit: You'll be fine. Not every performance goes as planned. Its all part of it. Get back out there, you'll only get better. Even top performers that have been doing it every night for 40 years gently caress up. Pokey Araya fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 00:52
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I played rock and pop piano for several years just for fun before getting in my head to try working at one of those rock and roll dueling piano bars. I was accustomed to just pulling my baseball cap over my face and playing instrumentals for drunks at parties but had never been on a stage with people staring at me expecting, you know, a personality. My first night up, nervous as gently caress, a bunch of friends decided to "surprise" me with their support. Nice gesture but it totally compounded my anxiety. So I'm up there with the guy across from me trying to joke around and banter, and all I can do is just stare back at him in dumbstruck silence. I play one song decently and the rest I just awkwardly plink away barely keeping up with him, never finding the key or chords to the songs, sweat dripping down my face. I try to lead a sing-along at one point, jittering and uncomfortable, and the crowd just stares back at me with vacant motionless faces. Probably a pretty forgettable night for everyone else but felt like total poo poo. EDIT: That was about five years ago and I gig about once a month with a cover band now and have a blast doing it. Still a little nervous every time, still have some gently caress-ups, but it gets easier every time. I've just learned to make friends with my nerves and realize the audience is usually more forgiving than I think when things go wrong. Drink-Mix Man fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jun 25, 2015 |
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Jun 25, 2015 21:39
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My least favorite gently caress up aren't performance stuff, which is on the player, but technical difficulties. I had the screw that held the straplock closest to the headstock shear off right after the first song. I though it was the normal, pulled out of the wood, remember to add tooth picks at the next show and crank it down, nope. I always have a screw driver in my pedal board, try to screw it in a realize its just destroyed. So I'm trying to fix it, everyone else is just doing feedback and cymbal washes, when my drummer decides "gently caress it, here we go" which he is know to do if you take too long messing with poo poo. So I played the rest of the 35 minutes holding my bass up by the highest strings with my right pinky and ring finger. Still haven't fixed it, I just jammed a wood screw in there and guerrilla taped the poo poo out of it. Been like that for a year with no problems. At least I got some cool pictures out of it, and realized I could do it again, which happened this last tour when the strap lock came off of the other side. Also breaking the lowest string and having to play everything an octave up on the 3rd string, and hitting the second string when it is appropriate is always a fun adventure in, "How well do I know this song." I've seen my guitarist break 2 strings at the same time, at least I get to improv a drum and bass jam while he changes the strings/tries to find someone in another band with a tuning close to ours. So far about the only thing that hasn't happened that I'm waiting for is falling off stage, I know its inevitable.
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Jun 26, 2015 23:14
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Ta-kus story on his first gig will be good for you. http://www.redbull.com/au/en/music/stories/1331726854005/the-process-of-creativity-and-stmut-with-ta-ku
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Jul 2, 2015 14:54
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I totally hosed up to an insane degree one show with my old band. A friend showed up at the bar before our gig with a couple of what he called "muscle relaxers". Now all of us had pretty heavy drug experience, especially live, so it seemed like it would be just another challenge, like, "how well can I play these parts when I can't feel my hands!" Kinda thing. So me and the drummer each took one. Then it came time to set up our gear, and that was it. It took me about 15 minutes to figure out how to plug in my bass, and I figured if I just stood with my back to the crowd it would look like I knew what I was doing. That's the last thing I remember. Our drummer apparently passed out behind the kit like one or two songs in, and the bar told us to leave and never come back. Ouch. We kinda shaped up I guess and were able to play one of our best shows ever at that place a month or two later, but it was still a major embarrassment, especially since I'd thought I could handle any substance in any situation (and had up until that). I've also forgotten how to play parts that I'd have no reason forgetting, but that's a side effect of stage fright. Never broken a string live, but I have switched on the cranked lead channel when meaning to turn on the effects loop, nearly made everyone crap their pants it was so loud. I'm also one of those people that tends to just stand there, not shoegazing but I'll kinda stare off into middle distance while maybe swaying. For a hard rock/metal band that's not the most engaging, but I could never just jump around and poo poo, it just felt so forced when I'd try.
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Jul 24, 2015 16:58
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First public performance was awful to say the least. Teacher insisted that I play from memory (should have mentioned that this was on the piano), got very nervous (as one does when doing things for the first time), proceeded to have many memory lapses, and then the tears followed. Thankfully things have picked up since then I no longer cry or have memory lapses in concerts...
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Aug 5, 2015 00:18
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Played an open mic night with the band years ago and couldn't hear any vocals through the monitors. Tried telling the sound guy who just kept shrugging and saying the monitors were mixed properly. So I played through the first song without being able to hear any of my vocals in the mix just doing the best I could and *HOPING* I was somewhere near the right key of the song. It wasn't until after the show that someone played back a video and yeah... I was probably a whole step off of the proper key for the song and it was absolutely terrible. Technical fails are the worst.
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Aug 6, 2015 03:24
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I once managed to kick my lead out of my amp, as in, snapped it off at the plug end. I had to ask 'anyone got a lead' after the song had finished 
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Aug 6, 2015 13:27
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There is only one rule in performance: The show *MUST* go on. Drill it into your head and then start planning strategies for dealing with disaster, because disaster happens to everyone. I've had amplifiers catch on fire on stage, I've been knocked out cold by stage diving idiots. I've had more guitar strings break than I dare count. I've had keyboards decide to play dumb. I've had audio interfaces poo poo the bed. I've had faulty leads start tuning in the radio on my amp (seriously). I've fallen sick with the flu. I've had band members get so drunk they cant even stand properly , let alone play. And sometimes all in the same song. But the show goes on. Dont freak out, it happens to everyone. I suggest playing to friends, and small no stress gigs like open mike nights to get used to the stage. Small audiences are usually more supportive so you really dont need to worry about feeling like an idiot, because they dont care, they have fun if you have fun. And thats the secret, just have fun on there. Go nuts, make jokes, do silly stage theatrics, put on a SHOW and then even if you play like poo poo, the audience wont care because they had fun watching your antics. My rep live came from playing a keyboard like a guitarist does. I've smashed people over the head with keyboards, headbutted them off the stand* , poured beer on my head , and all sorts of stupid rock and roll stuff and people god drat love it because they havent seen a keys guy go off like that. And since I tend to play in punk bands that are usually a bit keys skeptical, putting up stage theatrics breaks the ice and gets them used to the idea that the band on stage is just a keys guy with ableton and a singing guitarist. And if alll else fails, a beer or two (but no more!) before hand does wonders for the nerves. *I bring a cheap behringer midi controller on stage as they are dirt cheap to replace when broken. Last one I had I busted some of the electronics after bodyslamming it, so I opened it up during the set break, and pulled the busted board out, and the keyboard worked again. Turns out the less behringer parts in a behringer instrument , the better it works. duck monster fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Sep 7, 2015 |
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Sep 7, 2015 00:47
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Harley C posted:Ta-kus story on his first gig will be good for you. http://www.redbull.com/au/en/music/stories/1331726854005/the-process-of-creativity-and-stmut-with-ta-ku That barber store is a street away from my house and its hilariously hipster. Literally every person in there has the same beard. There used to be an art studio in that store called "Last stand" who had the most violent cat I ever met. It'd sit there for hours stalking someone then just go nuts trying to exctract blood, and boy was it good at it.
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Sep 7, 2015 00:58
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In highschool I played alto sax and wasn't terrible. But we played a swing version of "down by the riverside." That was the one song that I got to pick up the Bari and have fun with. The school we went to had only one Bari and I had to share it with another older student. The night of the concert the other guy managed to smack a handrail hard enough to bust off the guard for the low C pad. I found out that losing a guard means that the key is usess unless you attach it to your finger and/or remove the spring. Cue us going up on stage while have the fuckedr rubber banded to my finger. Topped by the fact that the 4 or 5 of the sax section got up front and stood on the other side of our director. I missed so many cues just because I was thinking so hard about how to play the loving thing. Afterward my mom said "you guys looked pretty good" and my response was "I was loving terrible because some rear end in a top hat broke the godamn sax."
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Sep 26, 2015 09:01
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duck monster posted:That barber store is a street away from my house and its hilariously hipster. Literally every person in there has the same beard. There used to be an art studio in that store called "Last stand" who had the most violent cat I ever met. It'd sit there for hours stalking someone then just go nuts trying to exctract blood, and boy was it good at it. That interview I linked wasn't nearly as good as the original version I heard on his snapchat! Sorry I thought he would tell the full version where he went into detail. Yeah it is hipster, but what they are doing does have value. They're doing very good haircuts, which is a nice craft and makes people look and feel good. I've met him a few times and Ta-ku is a very caring person, he has expressed genuine concern and interest for fans of his that I know. If there is anyone who deserves success in Perth its him. I hosed up the other day supporting his side project HWLS actually. I just didn't play the right music because people wanted another hour after the two they had already had of trap bangers. Educating people doesn't always work, and sometimes those risks backfire. It isn't fun to perform to crowds because its safe though!
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Sep 30, 2015 17:41
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We opened for 311 back in the nineties, right when they blew up. The bar booked us when 311 was nobody, and four months later, they were the flavor of the month, we played to a sold out house, (1300 capacity). Our drummer was 20 minutes late to our STARTING TIME, because he was out in the van doing blow. The bassist active pickups died on the last song, (a cover of sympathy for the devil). He threw off the bass and started singing the Whoo-whooos. Overall, it was the greatest gig with the worst nightmarish bullshit at the same time.
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Oct 17, 2015 17:56
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duck monster posted:There is only one rule in performance: The show *MUST* go on. Drill it into your head and then start planning strategies for dealing with disaster, because disaster happens to everyone. This is all that matters. No one in the crowd will give a poo poo as long as the music doesn't stop. I stepped into a cover band after they fired their last drummer and the first show went off without a hitch. The second show, not so much. The guitarist had used a Line6 head and foot controller with all his patches/sounds/whatevers pre-loaded on the first show. Second show he's playing a Plexi with a few foot pedals. I'm a drummer - all this means NOTHING to me. For the rest of the band (who had been through this before) it meant the 4th song in the set was going to sound TOTALLY different. When the guitarist kicked into the intro I had no goddamn idea what he was doing. 4 bars later the rest of the band starts and I'm just sitting there. After a solid minute of the band staring at me I just started playing something and we eventually fell into the chorus. While I thought it was a total clusterfuck, no one in the crowd cared because the music didn't stop.
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Nov 1, 2015 20:57
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In college I took a songwriting class (major in music composition) and was pretty anxious about the final performance we had to do. I was doing mixed roles playing drums for other writers which I'm comfortable with, and playing acoustic singer songwriter style. The latter I felt not so good about. I stressed the day before the show since we did a quick sound check and they asked me to play someone else's guitar since mine didn't have a pickup. It played so differently from mine I could hardly do anything with it and felt stupid holding it on stage. So I got home and practiced on my guitar but didn't feel up to it because what's the point? I'm not playing this guitar tomorrow, I'd probably gently caress it up the moment I'm on stage. So I drank a bit that night, practiced some more and couldn't sleep at all, and I mean literally stayed up all night into the next day. I get to the hall to make sure everything is ready to go that afternoon and everyone is excited and I'm just stressed as gently caress and feeling tired. We end up with a few hours before we needed to be back there so I went home to shower and get dressed. I woke up to my mother pounding on my apartment door, I had passed out and had already missed an hour of the show. I broke down crying but because I was drumming for others I felt so bad I went to the hall just to make sure someone covered for them and apologize. All my family had come up to see my show so I felt like a failure after a string of other failures before this happened. Needless to say I still have some performance anxiety to work through. Every time I do an open mic gig just doing covers and the occasional original my legs and hands shake nearly uncontrollably. It's helped trying again but I think I might need to do something else to deal with this.
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Nov 3, 2015 01:07
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Pokey Araya posted:
Supporting evidence: https://youtu.be/LacKMOpBDPs?t=23m20s Paul McCartney has to start We Can Work it Out over twice!
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Nov 19, 2015 05:00
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duck monster posted:There is only one rule in performance: The show *MUST* go on. Drill it into your head and then start planning strategies for dealing with disaster, because disaster happens to everyone. Yup, even if your drummer passes out, wakes up and tries to fight your guitar player, then passes out again, the show must go on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFa_VQI2K6Q
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Nov 22, 2015 03:29
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I was pulled into a school-organized Christian rock band in high school thanks to a few too many fuckups in class (hooray for Catholic education) who ended up playing one of those really weird fair/festival things that are common in the Midwest. As it was one of those "Do this or you're not graduating" situations, I didn't take it seriously at all and let the singers prep the setlist and decide on what we were doing. Rather than the twenty minutes that they decided was necessary, we had to fill an hour, for a crowd of surprisingly angry people looking to get their inoffensive Jesus-rock on. When we first tried to leave after the set, got angrily informed that we were paid for an hour and would play for an hour (side note: we were not paid at all for this, because the funds instead went to the school). Since we were warming things up for bands that actually cared about this stuff, we had to fill the time somehow. Ended up playing a hilariously awful fifteen-minute "jazz" odyssey while the singers randomly quoted from psalms, kept having the mikes on the bass amp fail, and had my amp get shorted because someone managed to toss a bottle of water into the back off of one of the supports. It probably did more to show me that I couldn't make a living as a musician than any other gig in my life. I'm still paranoid about setlist timing, and I haven't played at anything more than an open mike in years. At least I never had to play with those people again.
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Jan 27, 2016 05:59
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One time a guitarist for a punk band I was drumming for tried to whip his guitar over his head via the strap like Snapcase and catch it during a song. He'd done it a couple times before but I wouldn't say he was really good at it. Well, I think he jammed down on it too hard and the bottom set screw stripped out and the guitar flew 20ft off stage like a rocket ship, head first, into an amp and nearly took out some girl. In my current band the bassist was day drinking and passed out mid afternoon, totally missing our gig that night. We played as a weird guitar/drums Black Keys version of our band. In a different band the guitarist/vocalist was so drunk he played and sang to the wrong song for the entire song. We were so lovely I don't think anyone noticed. Just act like nothing is wrong and keep playing. Everything is way worse if you stop the song or start apologizing for your fuckups. Chances are nobody noticed and even if they did they probably don't care.
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Feb 11, 2016 14:54
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stupid puma posted:In a different band the guitarist/vocalist was so drunk he played and sang to the wrong song for the entire song. We were so lovely I don't think anyone noticed. This. I went to a friend's show recently and was drinking a bunch since I didn't have to play. Five minutes before he goes on he decided he wanted me to drum behind him. He and I thought it was awful, but we didn't stop or apologize and afterwards people kept coming up and telling us it was great.
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Feb 29, 2016 18:22
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Oh dang, that Who video I posted got taken down. Here's another version of one of the all-time great rock n' roll trainwrecks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O-N8MZ9ilk
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Mar 2, 2016 00:58
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