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On a recent gig I did something I've never done before -- which was that I sang a bunch of the tunes and tried to be entertaining by kidding around with the audience.
I'm not sure about how effective any of that was, except for this. Instead of spending the night focused on guitar playing, I ended up thinking mostly about the vocals and the jokes and hardly thinking about the guitar.
It probably also helped that the setlist was, on average, easier than usual.
I ended up being happier with my guitar playing than usual. And I think that not worrying about the guitar (because I was preoccupied worrying about other things) was very helpful.
Long way around to get to Charlie Parker's advice to "just blow", but I think it was eye-opening in a way.
Thoughts? If you need to get out of your own head, how do you go about it?
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09-29-2025 12:58 PM
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I refuse to answer that question :-)
Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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Own it. The only way to perform well for me was to imagine playing for that room in advance when still in practice room.
IMHO, there is no better way.
Dealing with the anxious prefrontal cortex is another topic... I guess you meant that instead what I said.
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I'm never nervous because I kind of don't think of myself as playing the guitar; much more like the guitar plays itself* and I just provide maintenance, give it lessons during practice, teach it the songs in the set lists, provide transportation, loading and set up for shows, and physical security for the last twelve thousand hours on stage - sort of an assistant to my guitar, who is the one that really sings as an ambassador of music.
So I stand or sit where the light is good, not for me but for the guitar. I wish the audience to feel it's the most beautiful looking and sounding guitar they have ever experienced.
* Did not come naturally out of the box like that; it was OK but had a lot to learn about Jazz. I have spent countless hours teaching this guitar how to play since ordering it 37 years ago.
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I just did it enough times that nerves are mostly irrelevant. I have an idea of how the night will go by the end of the third or fourth bar of the first song.
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Don't forget to breathe. Helps a lot.
Shutting down internal monologues can be tricky. For example - my current band has members who play with some amazing guitarists, so it's a matter of mental discipline not to feel you are being compared or to try to 'play to impress' - both are routes to failure. In practice - it has to be about the moment and the music. When improvising you are trying to keep your channels open to the Beyond. That can't be achieved from a place of ego.
Learning to deal with mistakes is important too. I think it's worth practicing ignoring mistakes while making a mental note of them when playing through tunes etc. This is the number one mistake many learners make - they want to go back and fix stuff.
You can't do this in performance of course, yet the psychology remains. Our minds get stuck on the mistake, so we aren't open and aware of what's coming up.
That's a real challenge!
You can fix stuff in the practice room, and should do so, but you also have to become accustomed to accepting the inevitable presence of mistakes and not letting them completely throw you off.
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Blue J: For more than 25 years--roughly between the end of undergrad school and my 50th birthday--stage fright or shyness or whatever kept me from playing in public. But a friend kept nudging me to sit in with his semi-pickup group at a local restaurant, and I gradually lost most of my shyness, expanded my repertory and skill-set, and have spent 30 years enjoying making music in front of audiences. The key for me was the social side of music making--I can manage to be the solo guy playing and singing, but it's playing *with* others (or even just one other) that brings joy. It's nice when the audience likes it, but the interaction with a partner or a band is what feels like "making music" to me.
I think you'll find the band context enormously satisfying--and that it stretches your skills without it feeling burdensome. The fact that you're playing with experienced people helps a lot, too--more than half of my musical education has happened on the bandstand. (Though I've worked on my chops at home, too, in order to keep up and not embarrass myself.) And Christian's advice about mistakes is important--both of my on-stage mentors told me to stop saying "Oh shit" when I missed a change. (So did my wife.) Now I just wince as inconspicuously as possible. And, as my mentors insisted, nobody in the audience (other than other musicians) even notices, and if they do, they're on your side.
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If you have your chops well honed and are prepared for the gig, it will be fine. Some people are just nervous by nature and will need to simply deal with stage fright.
In 2007, I did two concerts with guitar legend Larry Coryell. I can report that Larry suffered from major stage fright and prior to both shows, he was clearly in distress. When I was talking him off the ledge (before both shows), he simply told me that he was always like this, but as soon as he started playing, he would be fine. And indeed, that is how it played. Be who you are and go forth and make music in public if you are truly ready. If you are not ready, please stay home. Jazz is already a poorly attended music form today and we don't need those who cannot do it properly, performing in public and turning off would be jazz fans to our music,
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"Performance anxiety" is the more clinical term for stage fright, and in the last 2-3 years I looked into it quite a bit because it was causing me a lot of self-doubt about my direction in music, besides limiting my enjoyment.
On guitar, I'm more comfortable, it's less physical, more forgiving. It's my other instrument, trumpet, that was the big problem. The physical symptoms would just happen, and impair my ability to play. Imagine going to sing and not knowing if your voice would crack or the note would be out of tune!
At one point it was existential- why do this if I'm mortally afraid and I suck at it?
That was part of the problem- being too invested in a "good" outcome or else...quitting.
Performance anxiety is more common in jazz, especially a jam session environment. After all, you're playing, perhaps with new people, unrehearsed, maybe it's welcoming. maybe there's a competitive vibe. Rehearsing from a chart is easy in comparison.
I made great progress by becoming more of a regular at the session, and setting myself some ground rules- only play tunes I know, avoid tunes I'm sightreading for the first time, and make more of an effort to "read the room", communicate with the other players- and then I noticed some of them were probably nervous, and rather introverted and non-communicative .
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I didn’t read all of this yet (sorry) but I have definitely experienced downright panic getting lost while trying to solo over complex changes! Fortunately, I was with an understanding group and they just cut back to the head and saved me.
I used to have horrible stage fright. Many years ago, I asked Jimmy Bruno about it and he said (sounds like him, right?!?), “you have to not give a shit! It’s all about the music.” God bless Jimmy! This helped, though. I focused on my playing, the band and the song first (and if everything was going well, then I thought about interacting with the audience).
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I was gonna phrase it like Jimmy in post #6 but I figured I'd keep it clean for the forum. He's 100 percent right but he's a famous jazzer and I'm a dumb bluesman so it means more when he says it I guess, lol. Originally Posted by Fusionshred
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I interpret the question more as "how do you quiet thoughts and feelings that undermine your enjoyment and execution of performing music?" than about stage fright specifically. I'd say my biggest problem in that area is anticipating a mistake and having it become self-fulfilling prophecy. I honestly can't say I've ever figured out how to escape that entirely. Basically, I practice the bejesus out of things I have trouble with and hope those particular demons don't show up on the bandstand. Sometimes if I sense the demons in the near distance, I'll skip the tune that hangs me up.
I also sing and front bands, and for sure doing songs I like and engaging with the audience make the experience more enjoyable than just cleanly executing difficult instrumentals. I do like to throw in a tricky tune here and there, but a whole set of up-tempo demanding heads with complicated changes is not my thing. Partly because of fear-of-mistakes, but also because I just naturally don't gravitate toward that. Some people do, and I enjoy listening to them, but I leave that field to them.
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Everyone should have a level of performance playing that we could call "first gear" roughly defined as a solid foundation that comes across to an audience as "acceptable", even if you have a bad cold/flu, ate a bad fish for lunch, were in some pain/discomfort, just had a fight with your girl friend/spouse/boss, bad news, equipment is acting funny, or some other distraction.
This is a level of play that is not effected by low to moderate issues - it satisfies the "show must go on" and satisfies the audience and venue.
Performers need to raise the level of their playing to attain the confidence margin of real "first gear". This include overcoming stage fright as another distraction.
The goal is the shift into second gear when things are all well, feeling good, guitar and amp operating right, good crowd, neat tunes, and a fine band... this is where you will be most of the time performing. There is freedom to explore and discover, and there is the down shift back into first gear if anything wrong emerges.
Third gear is for those periods when everything is perfect, stars aligned, etc. The shift into third is the possibility of periods of magic, right intuition, flow stream... the moments we dream of happening. When the dream is over, be grateful you experienced it and shift back to second.
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Interesting analogy! One needs to maintain at least a minimum level of momentum to avoid stalling. I of course like to try and kick my playing into overdrive every once in a while!
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As the kids say, "Username checks out". Originally Posted by Fusionshred
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LOL guilty as charged! Originally Posted by pauln
As the kids say, "Username checks out".
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I had stage fright in my early days starting out in 06’ but by the time I was playing changes and learning tunes as a sophomore in high school in 09’, I learned to control it. Then I went through a rough patch in college in 11’ to 14’. Landing up in a psychiatric hospital after a mental health crisis. Finally got treatment for untreated anxiety and depression. No stage fright after that, probably a combination of being on death’s doorstep and finally getting treatment. Later on in my career post college, the only stage fright or anxiety I would get is not getting called back for gig whilst on the gig, but I learned to take it gig to gig, put as much as humanly possible into savings, assume I’m not going to get called back, live a very very meager lifestyle. You could say that stage fright was economically driven and as I built up more savings I started to worry less about getting called back.
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There are many ways to address stage fright, although some people just have and have to get through it. Jerry Garcia, for example, throughout his career of playing probably 4,000+ gigs with the Dead, Jerry Garcia Band and side bands. Every gig before going out on stage he had a moment of terror and annoyance- "how do I keep getting myself into these situations?"
Toastmasters, cognitive-behavioral therapy, relaxation training, the Alexander Technique, etc., can all be helpful and worth exploring. Better for you in the long run than drugs.
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I play mostly in a duo with another guitarist who sings, not strictly jazz but we're working at incorporating as much jazz into the setlist as we can. There is always some nervous anticipation despite both of us having many years playing. We always start our gigs with an instrumental that gets us loose mentally, we like Birelli Lagrene/Sylvain Luc's arrangement of Isn't She Lovely to start. It's enough to wake our hands and minds up but we're familiar enough with it to know "we got this". My partner does a great job of engaging the audience, joking around, etc and that instantly changes the vibe into "playing in the living room with friends". That is really helpful because we feel like we can take chances and if we miss nobody is judging us. And honestly in most places unless it's a bad clam nobody is really going to even notice. I, however, do not sing and stay as far away from the chrome plated megaphone of destiny as possible. I've been putting together a setlist for solo playing (hoping neck surgery in 2 weeks will make me physically able to get through it someday) and I guess I'll have to actually speak. I think that will be even more stressful than playing, but again I structure it with something I've played forever so that I can get comfortable quickly.
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