I was recently approached by a young musician who was having trouble sounding her best when performing in front of others.  While her skill level was more that sufficient she seemed to suffer from a mild form of stage fright.  This is very common among begining performers.  The following are some suggestions for getting used to playing in public situations.

 

Find opportunities to play in front of people as often as possible. Play for friends, and family.  Tell them that you are struggling with playing in front of people and that they would be helping you a lot by letting you give them an occasional mini performance.  Explain to them that you aren’t looking to have your playing critiqued.  Let them know that this is for the purpose of getting comfortable performing.  This is important.  Having your playing criticized when you are simply trying to learn to perform properly will just make you feel discouraged.  Let them know that you will know if you made a mistake with the song.

 

Here are a few suggestions:

 

Consider playing a song before or after dinner each night or maybe a few times per week.  Holidays are also a good opportunity to perform for family. Who knows?  You might start a new family tradition. 

 

Get a group of your closet friends together one or two days a week at lunch and play a song for them.

 

If you take lessons ask your teacher to organize a recital.  It wouldn’t have to be anything formal. It could simply be a gathering with your teacher and a few other students.

 

If you attend a church inquire about playing along with the choir. A lot of churches do a “contemporary” service with modern sounding music performed on guitar bass and drums.  This is often a great way to get regular practice playing in front of a very receptive audience.

 

It is always best to start out small and with very low pressure situations.  When I started fronting my own band I only booked us in small out of the way clubs until I could develop my “stage legs”.   I am glad that I did.  I learned a lot.  While you may get comfortable playing guitar in front of people there is a lot more to performance than simply playing all the right notes, but that is a  discussion for another time.

 

Happy Jamming!

Lou Lombardi

www.yourgutiarist.com/bog

www.LLStrangelove.com

 

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