Maintaining Concentration During Gigs

[Iced Tea]

Hey,


Wondering if anyone has any advice about concentrating on gigs? I've noticed that I've got a bit of a habit of losing some focus in the second set of gigs. During the first set I normally play pretty well and don't make many mistakes, however in the second set I notice that I make sloppy mistakes, and this isn't to do with not knowing the tunes.


I think that it may be something that you get better with experience, or particularly if you playing a lot of gigs.


Any suggestions very welcome!

[rpjazzguitar]

[QUOTE=Iced Tea[/QUOTE]

This requires a diagnosis. Why is it happening? Lots of possibilities spring to mind.

Fatigue.
Tunes are harder.
Sound is louder or more irritating for some reason.
More people, more distractions.
Band members are getting more adventurous with the music.
Or, ???

And, then, what is happening? Losing track of form? Clams? Losing the time?

In my case, it's often fatigue when it happens. So, sometimes, just before the first set, I'll drink some coffee. It seems to help with the music, not so much with getting to sleep later that night.

[garybaldy]

This requires a diagnosis. Why is it happening? Lots of possibilities spring to mind.

Fatigue.
Tunes are harder.
Sound is louder or more irritating for some reason.
More people, more distractions.
Band members are getting more adventurous with the music.
Or, ???

And, then, what is happening? Losing track of form? Clams? Losing the time?

In my case, it's often fatigue when it happens. So, sometimes, just before the first set, I'll drink some coffee. It seems to help with the music, not so much with getting to sleep later that night.

The Club has emptied?

[Jimmy blue note]

You lose more than fatigue during a break. Don't make the mistake of taking too long of a break, don't lose your audience's engagement, or presence.
Read their energy. That's why second sets are often shorter. Pick your set lists carefully so things are familiar and vehicles you look forward to playing, and things especially that reward the audience's sticking around. Y'know, the ones where people recognize and clap when they recognize?
If you can connect with the audience, there's a whole level of energy you can tap. If they're just coasting through and not being fed a set of rich offerings, they'll feel it... and then YOU feel it.

That's one of the reasons I really discourage cell phone usage, it transmits to all the people around them "This music is really not that good, maybe there's something better in my phone". That's a subliminal message but it's real and it breaks the connection between the audience and you. You feel it.

Good luck!

[pauln]

Read their energy. That's why second sets are often shorter. Pick your set lists carefully so things are familiar and vehicles you look forward to playing, and things especially that reward the audience's sticking around. Y'know, the ones where people recognize and clap when they recognize?

Yes! The second set mystique is comprised of various factors, one of the most important is deliberately pressing the emotional profile of the concert to form a major peak with the second set.

I'm also curious about the actual issues described. Loss of focus and concentration, mistakes, and sloppiness might be directly mental, but might be indirectly mental - for example, returning to stage with a cold guitar slightly out of tune or just slightly off from the first set can cause the mentioned symptoms even if you don't consciously realize the tuning of slightly off... it can consume your mental "headroom" with second guessing and leave you with little reserve. That can feel like a problem with maintaining concentration and focus, and can allow mistakes to pass in music you know well.

[Iced Tea]

Thanks for all your amazing replies! I think it's a mental thing for sure, it's something that happens on different gigs. Probably when there's an audience it's better because there's more energy in the room. I think the thing I notice is phrasing, I can phrase pretty well, but then the drop off is in the way the ideas come out - there's less clarity and more obvious bum notes.

I think the break can have an effect, it depends on the other musicians to a certain degree too. Sometimes, us musicians can be in our own little worlds and it can mean that perhaps that feeling of synergy on the bandstand can get lost. It's such an ephemeral thing - sometimes it feels like a circus highwire!

[Sam Sherry]

Thing Number One: Is anybody in the band having a drink on the break?

[pauln]

Thing Number One: Is anybody in the band having a drink on the break?

Jazz musicians might return from break in an "enhanced state of mind". This is why in Jazz performance, the general form is to play the head first in a plain clean clear straight fashion. People think that's done out of respect to the song before improvising, but it is also practical. The head is a remedial alignment chorus which informs someone who is not playing the right song or the right key. This helps ensure that everyone is "on the same page" for improvisation even if they're not presently on the same planet...

[jazzshrink]

Jazz musicians might return from break in an "enhanced state of mind". This is why in Jazz performance, the general form is to play the head first in a plain clean clear straight fashion. People think that's done out of respect to the song before improvising, but it is also practical. The head is a remedial alignment chorus which informs someone who is not playing the right song or the right key. This helps ensure that everyone is "on the same page" for improvisation even if they're not presently on the same planet...

utter nonsense

[rpjazzguitar]

Just to hijack the thread for a moment: there seem to be 2 schools of thought on playing heads. At the extremes, one is to stay completely faithful to the original material. The other is to interpret it to the point where it's barely recognizable.

A few years ago I heard Robert Glasper at the Blue Note. He hinted at the melody, to the point where my wife and I were saying, "hey, I think that's Stella!". They soloed on vamp taken from the last 8 of the tune.

Both can sound great and either way is fine with me, but I prefer the latter, probably because it's easier.

[AllanAllen]

You need to actually know the head to reference it. As long as you know learning the first 3 bars and then winging it isn’t the same as what Glasper did it’s all good.

Since this forum is for students, I think playing the melody correctly should be emphasized. You’ll know when you can stretch out.

[Lionelsax]

When I was young I used to fish, I really loved that.
Now I'm older, I feel exactly the same when I'm gigging.
It's repetitive then something happens, your line goes anywhere but you catch something you never expected.
When you feel like you're fishing, they are good vibes.

[spencer096]

i dont like to focus when im playing out...i like what franz liszt said "do your dirty laundry at home"...all the focus stuff has been done in the practice room, when im playing out i like to interact with the crowd. smile, eye contact, talk to people (that are engaged in the music) at close tables during song breaks, get someone's attention who asked me to play a song at an earlier gig...stuff like that. it's just more fun and engaging, and it makes me play more carefree when i see everyone smiling and having a good time.

[TheGrandWazoo]

i dont like to focus when im playing out...i like what franz liszt said "do your dirty laundry at home"...all the focus stuff has been done in the practice room, when im playing out i like to interact with the crowd. smile, eye contact, talk to people (that are engaged in the music) at close tables during song breaks, get someone's attention who asked me to play a song at an earlier gig...stuff like that. it's just more fun and engaging, and it makes me play more carefree when i see everyone smiling and having a good time.

Great point! Everyone has a different take but FOR ME I find that thinking "too much" during a gig contributes to the "yips". Coming in relaxed and confident helps me generate ideas and be musical.

[Fusionshred]

For me, the problem will be that I lose focus on the form, particularly in a song that I’m less familiar with, or especially if I need to play it in some other key than I’m familiar with.

I’ll be toward the end of the A section and forget if we’re going back to A or on to the B section.

the other thing for me is once I get lost, I might as well just stop playing. Once I’m lost, I’m lost.

I play with no other polyphonic instruments so when I’m soloing, there are no chords behind me so I can’t fall back on playing by ear and the bassist doesn’t really play crisply enough to outline the chord forms.

There’s one particular tune I screw up every time we play it.

It’s tough too when you are really digging the other players and forget your job.

It helps to know which tunes you have the issues with and make a conscious effort to focus intently on them when they come up. Also, for me, the better I have internalized it, the more I can rely on muscle memory to get through. Of course, won’t work if someone is just calling out tunes and you’re reading charts cold. I’m not ready qualified for that.

[JazzPadd]

This is a very useful conversation, and I think it applies to playing live with others in general, including jam sessions. In my case, as someone has already mentioned, I tend to lose focus when I start grooving on another participant’s playing, especially when they’re messing with the bar lines and such. The more internalized a tune is, in my limited experience, the easier it is to get back into focus. Another factor, at least as I recall when I was a gigging musician decades ago, boredom can set in. Playing the same tunes more or less the same way, and I’m referring to wedding bands here, was not fun nor very interesting and when I got bored I would lose focus. I think for jam sessions, where there’s a lot of unpredictability and each session may have different people, unexpected tunes or combos, it keeps me on my toes.

Regarding the head subtext to this thread, I enjoy playing the head as in my case I feel that limitations breed creativity. Total freedom on one side and total restriction on the other form a continuum, and I like, with regard to playing jazz with others, leaning more toward playing the head. Someone wrote off a comment above as nonsense (maybe they meant the altered states part), but I think, at least in my experience playing mostly in jam sessions, the head is a baseline for everyone. We don’t know each other, sometimes there are total strangers, we don’t know the level of their playing, so stating the head in a recognizable way is a good leveler. I also like seeing the theme of a tune as grist for creative manipulation. It reminds me of how film composers work, at least in the old Bernard Herrmann school, as each cue is limited by time and establishing a short theme to revisit throughout the score works to hold it together. Creativity comes by limitation in both the time frame and melodic raw materials.

[John A.]

First set: A bit of jitters and discombobulation early on, then you get your shit together and by the end you're in a flow state.

Second set: You remember the end of the first more than the beginning and forget that you can't just pick up where you left off, so you think the second set was worse. Either that, or you had a beer between sets and it was worse.

Regardless of the explanation or facts, the audience thinks the second set was better because they were drinking all the way through.

[Oscar67]

Great topic! There are similarities to other situations, like recording (red light syndrome), giving a speech, teaching a class, playing a great match, writer’s block, etc. Finding the right headspace seems important in all such situations. More precisely, and limiting it to musicians: the ability to be acutely aware of what’s happening around you and to act on that in real time, in a relaxed and confident way. Musically, that means really, really listening to other players (probably the most important thing) and accurately assessing and influencing the audience vibe.

It’s a balancing act:

• Youth brings energy, enthusiasm and physical ability but also things like ego, temper, immaturity. Age hopefully brings maturity, modesty, wisdom, the ability to listen, etc. But unfortunately also physical limitations (hauling gear around, travel, late nights, ailments like arthritis) and hearing issues (not just getting deaf but losing high-end, leading to an inaccurate assessment of how something sounds).
• Talent brings the ability to capture people’s imaginations but it’s like a lighthouse: the taller it is, the further its light reaches… and the longer its shadow. Really talented artists seem to be more prone to anxiety, depression, addiction, etc.
• Performing as well as recording are situations deserving of one’s best abilities and should be approached professionally, yet there should not be tension or anxiety. Humor, being relaxed and easy to work with are just as important (if not more so).

Personally I stopped playing with other people long ago because I can’t do this balancing act anymore because at some point insecurity crept in. Objectively I know I can play. Nothing special, but I can play. At some point I started forgetting the next chord in simple songs I’d played since I was 15. At some point I started to freeze when playing in front of people. Which is interesting because in my day job (not music related) I draw on the same skills every single day and they’re my key asset and never a problem. Go figure. I’m slowly digging myself out of this hole and it’s getting better, but slow going. Ironically I’ve never played better because I always kept playing and learning just for fun.

[pamosmusic]

Youth brings energy, enthusiasm and physical ability but also things like ego, temper, immaturity. Age hopefully brings maturity, modesty, wisdom, the ability to listen, etc. But unfortunately also physical limitations (hauling gear around, travel, late nights, ailments like arthritis) and hearing issues (not just getting deaf but losing high-end, leading to an inaccurate assessment of how something sounds).

A few things in this whole post I’m not sure about … but ...

In my experience, ego is pretty equal opportunity and—just in my personal experience—it tends to skew older if anything.