Ok. Here's a story for everyone.

It was a few years back. I was playing in a nice cozy intimate space in Ann Arbor. I have a cover of "Here, There and Everywhere" that I pull out every so often. I know the tune like the back of my hand and, unfortunately, so does every one else.

So here I go. As I start to play it, I suddenly become aware that I'm completely blanking on how to play the melody. With no other choice, my fingers simply went through the motions and although the duration of the notes was correct, the pitches were completely wrong. And I mean completely wrong. I was cool like I was doing it on purpose but I glanced to my immediate left and made a sour face at a friend of mine who was present and who has known me since were were little kids. I did this in such a way that the people out front couldn't see.

Repeating the melody again ... same thing. Although now even thought the notes are completely wrong, they were at least consistent. Again I look over at my friend with the sour face and this time he's smiling.

When the third go around came, it was the same story again. Although this time when I glanced at my friend, he had is head down, his hands over his mouth, he was shaking and his face was as red as an apple trying to keep from busting out laughing.

This is what your best friends are for right?

After we finished, I lightened up the moment though. Without ever admitting that I'd done anything wrong, I asked the audience if they ever had one of those brain fart moments when their 16 year old nephew, who've they've known his entire life, walked up to say hello and for some inexplicable reason they couldn't remember his name.

Another thing I've learned is that when you get up on stage, you will likely sound different than you do in the comfort of your own home... you might sound bright and thin, or hear a lot of boomy low end, and it can be quite disconcerting at first. Especially when you use a bunch of effects (like I was doing for a while), most of the subtleties are lost once you get into a live performance space and that lush reverb and delay turns into a pile of mush.

So I've been concentrating on having "no effects" (i.e. little bit of reverb) versions of my songs, and as a side benefit it's been improving my technique as well. It's good to be able to make some general, broad EQ changes (like controls on an amp or the PASV-4 filter setting, if you need to quickly add or remove some high end for example) to compensate for the room, you likely won't have time to go through and tweak all your effects parameters to your liking.

Ok, I'm convinced that I need to do the "open mic thing". I can make mistakes with the best of them.

-Curtis

It's always good to have at least a couple of tunes more than you think you'll need.

Listen to what the person who's on before you is playing and try to start with something that's different from their last tune. And unless you're playing only original music, you never know when you might get "scooped" (to borrow a term from journalists) and have to let go of that favorite cover tune.

I'll never forget one time I was all set to start with "Watchtower" on a Stick Night and the person on before me played it.... oh well, I put my competitive side back in my pocket for the night.

I only seem to cover obscure songs, with the added benefit that most people think they are originals if I don't say anything.

My set is currently quite unbalanced (originals and Tull covers, that's it). But there is a bit of Gentle Giant and Crash Test Dummies coming up soon, and eventually an ambitious Steve Hackett classical guitar piece that has been a challenge (train wreck potential is VERY high)... I'm also wrestling with a Van Der Graaf Generator cover that might clear the room.

I have to admit that your cover songs are pretty obscure Rob!

Must be pretty bad if you play your simple cover, only for the next guy to blow you away with his amazing version.

Sometimes simple is amazing though

Speaking of clearing the room, I spoke to Jeff at "The Magic Bean" tonight and sounds like I may be playing at the Open Mic on Thursday at his place next week. I had really better get to practicing. Wait, I have been practicing...then I had better focus my practice. I will hopefully do Autumn Leaves (StickBook version) unless I chicken out and do Greensleeves (which is currently my most fluent song).

I figure this should be something I do once per month or so then more often once I get a little better. I have never even been to one of these little events, but Jeff I guess has been hosting them for 13 straight years and gave me the scoop.

Perhaps this will be a good exercise in skin thickening.

-Curtis

P.S. I will try to record it so you all can see how well I fared. I know you all said two songs but I'm going to start with one unless I'm feeling spunky.

Wow. That was even harder than I thought. I was so shaky it was nuts. I promised I would share but I warn you it was pretty bad. I will have to be a ton easier next time.

Good news is there were some amazing artists there. I was very impressed. Almost everyone there was fantastic. The person running it said it was one of the best Open Mic night's they have had for a long time.

One guy plans to order a Stick. I probably won't be going back there anytime soon simply because of the smoke. In fact, had I thought there would be smoke I would have never gone.

One girl there spent half the night preparing a list of additional places that host similar events regularly.

Here is the link to my little fiasco...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_fSBj8X9Q

Hopefully no one stumbles across it because I would hate for that to be any more people first exposure to the Stick.

Having said all that, I do plan on doing it again soon. I must conquer those virtually debilitating jitters.

Any tips would be appreciated.

-Curtis

P.S. Even though the shaking hands were a serious challenge to control, my even bigger issue was the total mind freezes. It is hard to even not so gracefully recover from a "train wreck" when the track is completely gone.

P.S.S. I am also going to post this in the "Virtual" Performance thread under feedback.

Hi Curtis,

I admire your courage and how you got through that, and it was great to see how supportive the audience was... that's exactly the kind of environment that allows you to work on your performance skills. Next time will be a little easier. It was nice that you were open about being nervous, I think people respect when someone is humbly trying something new and doesn't have much experience playing in front of people.

Part of the challenge is learning to shut off that inner voice that screams things like "oh no here comes that hard part, don't mess it up" or "everyone just heard how awful that mistake was" or "don't get nervous, don't get nervous, you'll forget the next chords" and just relaxing and having fun with it, giving yourself "permission" to fail (these are "Inner Game of Music" concepts).

I still get a bit of the jitters sometimes, (I heard someone yell "drink more coffee!"), and I don't suggest this for everyone or as a permanent solution but I often will have one beer before playing at an open mic (which is part of the social aspect of it anyways).

Even just Wednesday had to stop my new Gentle Giant tune about 30 seconds in because I was forgetting all the fingerings. Like your audience, people were just like "it's an open mic, try it again" and I relaxed and went ahead with it.

Every time you go up you'll feel a little more confident!