If you’re about to go on stage, whether a 1,000-seat theater or the corner of the restaurant that you can barely fit into, you need to be mentally prepared. While there are undoubtedly some musicians, especially pros, who can just calmly walk in front of an audience without a second thought, most us are going to get keyed up – which is normal, and adds to the passion of your performance.
You want to develop yourself to where you can get into a state of calm excitement, where you confidently know you’re going to deliver a great performance, yet still feel the rush that comes from playing your instrument in front of people and making great music.
The key to being confident is being prepared.
Before the gig – and don’t do this in a rush – make sure you have all your equipment packed and ready to go. If your guitar strings or drum heads need changing, do it before the gig, not right before you’re about to go on, unless you’re someone like James Taylor’s guitar tech. (New strings need to stretch, and you almost certainly won’t have time to change strings before a gig.) I like to make sure all my gear is ready to go the day before.
Many musicians have two sets of equipment: their gigging equipment which is always ready to go, and their “at-home” stuff. This way you won’t have to pick out the gear you’re going to bring before every gig, with the possibility of forgetting something, and worrying about the very real possibility of forgetting something.
Know your material. It can be fun to play songs on the fly at an open mic or jam session, or even on the gig if things are loose (like the after-midnight third set at a bar when most of the crowd is gone), but to be truly solid and confident in your playing, you have to either know the song down pat, or have an accurate cheat sheet or sheet music in front of you. I prefer memorizing the material. As the pros say, you don’t practice a song until you get it right, you practice a song until you can’t get it wrong.
Memorizing also gives you the freedom to move around on stage, and not have to be tied down to looking at a music stand, iPad or gawd forbid, your phone. Can you imagine a band like Kiss looking at music stands or iPads while playing? Yeah, kind of ruins the vibe. Exceptions: keyboard players and drummers, who have to sit in one place, and in the case of the former, laptops and tablets “look like” and often are part of the rig. And nothing, nothing, nothing looks more amateurish than holding a phone in your hand and reading lyrics off it. Just don’t.
I can tell you that if you don’t know a song down cold, whether with a paper or electronics cheat sheet or not, you won’t feel 100-percent confident when it’s time to play it. Take the time to get the song down. In the band I’m in, it usually takes 20 to 30 run-throughs before we feel it’s stage-ready, and even then it needs a few live performances before it really gels.
When playing, you’ll have two kinds of memory at work – memorization, and muscle memory, where even if you get distracted and momentarily watch the baseball game on the bar’s TV screen or someone smiling at you on the dance floor, your arms and hands “remember” how to play the song. All of that said, I should note that the use of onstage lyrics prompters ("Teleprompters" to us old-timers) has become acceptable, but most bands can't afford them or don't have the room onstage.
I cannot emphasize this enough – those cheat sheets you get on the internet are almost always wrong.
These are not “official” transcriptions of songs but rather the work of an individual who transcribed the words and chords according to what they thought was right. 95 percent of the time, some of the chords and/or lyrics are wrong. They can be a tremendous time saver compared to what we used to do in the old days, which was listen to the song over and over again and write out the words and chords. But these internet cheat sheets almost always have to be marked up and corrected.
Speaking of the internet, this isn’t exactly a news flash: a vast amount of stuff is clickbait garbage. Don’t be fooled that there’s some magic system or shortcut to learning how to play. There isn’t. However, there’s some wonderful educational material out there, like Sandra Sherman’s videos on beginning jazz guitar. Ignore the trash Facebook Reels and YouTube videos, which can usually be spotted by some guy making a goofy-looking face on his splash page, accompanied by a ridiculous clickbait headline. If you want to get better and better, which will make you feel more and more mentally prepared (and physically prepared with good “chops”), you have to put in the work. As a woodwinds teacher I knew once said, “I can show you how to do it, but I can’t blow for you.”
Get a good night’s sleep the night before the gig. This isn’t always possible, especially for musicians on tour or, like most of us, those who are working a full-time job. But try. If you can’t get a full nights’ sleep, try to squeeze in a nap the day of the gig or even at the gig. Don’t laugh – when I was playing in the Lines in the 1970s and 1980s and working a 50-hour-a-week job, if we had time before the gig I’d string a line of chairs together and crash on them before showtime. The more rested you are, the better you’ll feel.
You don’t want to play on an empty stomach. Imagine finally getting that big gig and all you can think about is the fact that you’re starving. If your blood sugar level gets too low you may feel physically ill and weak, aside from the fact that you’ll be distracted from playing because you’re hungry.
Don’t drink too much alcohol before the gig, or any at all. I will address this topic in much greater detail in a separate installment. Look, most of us like to have a beer or two before and during the set, and a little bit of drink can have a relaxing effect, but if you think it’s going to “loosen you up” as a musician or make you play better, you’re lying to yourself. Same with smoking pot. You may think you’re reaching the heights of Cosmic Connection to the Great All when you’re playing high, and in fact, you may hit some fantastic musical moments, but, reality check, listen to a tape or watch a video of your performance afterward and it may come as a shock to see how lousy you were. I know, the history or jazz and rock is filled with brilliant performances by those who were drinking and using, but, especially if you’re just starting out playing, don’t go on stage buzzed. You really want to be focused. And there’s the very real possibility that your bandmates will not tolerate your being drunk and stoned, especially if you put in sub-par performances, and will kick you out.
Don’t take the possibility of alcohol and drug addiction lightly. Sure, having a good time is part of the hang at gigs, and let’s face it, if you’re playing in a bar, well, people are there to drink and it’s easy to get sucked into the partying. But the path to addiction can be a very slippery slope. Some people can’t handle alcohol and drugs. It can and has destroyed peoples’ lives and made the lives of those around them miserable. In case you think I’m being sanctimonious; I learned this the hard way when I was younger. I partied way too much at times and it was stupid and reckless and I consider myself lucky to have gotten out of it without seriously harming myself and others. I’ve seen people very close to me ruin their lives.
Do you really want to be playing if your brain feels like this?
What about stage fright? As I’ve noted, getting worked up, or being more than a little nervous is pretty normal, especially if you’re about to play a big gig. In fact, it would be strange if you didn’t feel at least some degree of excitement before playing (unless it’s a regular bar or restaurant gig you’ve done a hundred times), and it can fuel your performance. But what if you feel anxious or even terrified? You’re in good company – people like Barbra Streisand, Cher, Adele, Brian Wilson, Pablo Casals, Arthur Rubenstein, Donny Osmond, and Ozzy Osbourne have spoken about their anxiety and even panic before taking the stage. And I'll admit, I still get somewhat nervous before a big gig. (I let it get to me recently when things went wrong, another story for another day.)
Some of the things mentioned previously, like knowing the material and feeling well-rested, can help. Other beneficial techniques include breathing exercises and relaxation techniques, visualization (picture yourself getting up on that stage and playing great; push that self-doubt aside and tell yourself that if you’ve gotten this far you know you have the talent), staying hydrated, and avoiding caffeine.
Some musicians have what I call “baseball superstition.” Just as some baseball players will perform certain actions, like not stepping on foul lines, or wearing rally caps or lucky underwear, some musicians have pre-show rituals, and if they’re comforting, why not? Keith Richards has to have shepherd’s pie before going on stage. Robert Plant irons his shirts. Lady Gaga dances topless and throws glitter. I wear green shoes.
Good luck charms for the author.
Everyone makes mistakes, including professionals, no matter how well-prepared you are. As I noted in my first installment, the difference between amateurs and pros is how they handle them. If you’re new to this and make a mistake while playing onstage, you’re going to get fazed and think it’s the end of the world. It’s not. Ninety-nine percent of the audience won’t notice and the other musicians will probably smile in a been-there-done-that way. Don’t freeze, or stumble. You can’t get the moment back. Shrug it off, get back on the horse, and play on.
Here’s a video of Herbie Hancock explaining how bad he felt after making a mistake at a Miles Davis gig, and how Miles turned it around to make it a good thing, and how Herbie was amazed by it.
The old jazz musician joke goes, “if you make a mistake, repeat it. Everyone will think you did it on purpose!”
I once saw Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser of Blue Öyster Cult, one of the greatest guitarists to walk the Earth, forget the instrumental interlude of “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper.” After everyone in the band stared at him in bafflement waiting for him to start the opening riff, bassist Danny Miranda played the riff to cue Buck, who laughed and then hit it. Then during the song’s fadeout, proceeded to play one of the most astounding “I’ll show you!” guitar solos I have ever witnessed.
Don’t apologize to the audience! Not when you make a mistake, not for anything. If you’re having technical difficulties or have to tune up or need time, then talk, tell a joke, introduce the band. Apologizing makes you look inexperienced and not in control of the situation. Never let 'em see you sweat.
The more you play, the better you’ll get, and the more confidence you’ll have. In time, and you’ll have to work at it, you’ll get to the point where you know you’re going to impress and wow people.
You can do it!
Header image: my friend, the songwriter/performer Hank Stone, relaxing before a gig at the Chapin Rainbow Stage, Huntington, New York, July 2024.
All images courtesy of the author.
(Did I mention, don't trust internet cheat sheets?)
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