Post on recovering from a bad performance
Had a Skype with Nic, he had a bad performance at music college
- No time to sound check. The band sound checking before him took up all the time, so two bands didn’t get a sound check
- There were two amps on stage. He accidentally used one he wasn’t familiar with because he didn’t want to mess up settings the first band has used on the amp
- Compared himself to the guitar player in the other band and psyched himself out
- From using an amp he wasn’t familiar with he didn’t like his tone, no gain for solo
- General nerves
- General chaos that goes with live music and learning to handle it
- Negative self-talk while on stage
- Another girl at the college has tons of experience and he asked her about performance anxiety and she said she had the problems he has but got used to it and learned to relax. Like a lot of things, you have to learn this stuff from doing it. He could talk to others that are good performers and get their take.
- I recommended he goes to local open mics and offers to back singers doing super easy songs just to get experience playing infront of people
What can you control?
First thing to consider is what problems are inside his control?
The soundcheck problem is the fault of the school and he should submit a written complain to them. However, he could have spoken up.
He could have used the amp he knew how to use. Take a photo of the settings on your phone if you’re worried about being able to reset it for the previouss band.
General notes to redo
Don’t compare yourself to others.