Question on my last post:
How do you do it? I was asked to sing lead on a few songs with a group, and totally tightened up. I can sing harmony ok, but am terrified of singing lead vocal. How do you get yourself mentally ready to sing as a solo act?
I had performance anxiety so bad when I started I couldn't play in front of my family and close friends. I used to go into a room at work where me and two other guys would play at lunch time and warm up for a half hour before they came because of my stuff going on. Your fingers don't work, you freeze, you forget what you know.
The advantage I had was that I knew I could eventually some day kill it. I used to have bad stage fright when I spoke in front of large groups of people. Years ago there was a literary arts group in LA called "The Chamber Pot." You would sign up a year in advance to do a 90 minute talk about something- an author, a book, an artist, a musician. I really wanted to do this -mostly out of intellectual pride of holding my own with a bunch of professors, but it was also a way of focusing a subject of study into something at the end and you had a year to do it. I recall the first one. I worked up for it by rehearsing the talking every night for two weeks and the night of, I alternated a glass of wine with a cup of coffee every fifteen minutes.
I did these for ten? years. By the time I went to work on the USC main campus, I could stand up and ad lib and crack jokes in front of a hundred people without a sweat.
But I had to start over with the music.
I would freeze up at jams, freeze up anytime I did a new song in front of anyone that I thought was better than I was, freeze up when I had to play acoustic without amps.
I started going to a local open mic coffeehouse in Venice and would smuggle in rum to drink to boost my bravery and still screw up. I just kept going. The last time was up at the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest in May when they gave several of us a chance to go back on and do an extra non-judged song. It will never completely ever go away, but its gotten pretty minimal of late, because I'm out there soloing so much now.
You just have to forgive yourself and go on.
I saw Paul from Peter, Paul & Mary at McCabe's a couple of years ago when his last solo CD was released and he told the crowd that he like to start with a screw up song because he was always nervous when started. After how many years is this guy still nervous?
So I start with a screw up song now. something easy and throw away. Right now its "All I Want Is You" a song from that Juno movie.
It'll happen again, no doubt.
The whole process is ridden with self-doubt. You play and someone gets up to leave and you think - oh they hate me. There are times when there is no audience or no audience reaction and you leave feeling bad. Now and then something really cool gives you positive reinforcement to last a good couple of years.
There will also always be the frigging idiots who will tell you are not good enough because they think they are not good enough.
I get asked back, I get applauded, I get people buying my CDs. I get new gigs based on my videos that don't always have the greatest sound.
You need that kind of stuff to fight off the demons.
How do you do it? I was asked to sing lead on a few songs with a group, and totally tightened up. I can sing harmony ok, but am terrified of singing lead vocal. How do you get yourself mentally ready to sing as a solo act?
I had performance anxiety so bad when I started I couldn't play in front of my family and close friends. I used to go into a room at work where me and two other guys would play at lunch time and warm up for a half hour before they came because of my stuff going on. Your fingers don't work, you freeze, you forget what you know.
The advantage I had was that I knew I could eventually some day kill it. I used to have bad stage fright when I spoke in front of large groups of people. Years ago there was a literary arts group in LA called "The Chamber Pot." You would sign up a year in advance to do a 90 minute talk about something- an author, a book, an artist, a musician. I really wanted to do this -mostly out of intellectual pride of holding my own with a bunch of professors, but it was also a way of focusing a subject of study into something at the end and you had a year to do it. I recall the first one. I worked up for it by rehearsing the talking every night for two weeks and the night of, I alternated a glass of wine with a cup of coffee every fifteen minutes.
I did these for ten? years. By the time I went to work on the USC main campus, I could stand up and ad lib and crack jokes in front of a hundred people without a sweat.
But I had to start over with the music.
I would freeze up at jams, freeze up anytime I did a new song in front of anyone that I thought was better than I was, freeze up when I had to play acoustic without amps.
I started going to a local open mic coffeehouse in Venice and would smuggle in rum to drink to boost my bravery and still screw up. I just kept going. The last time was up at the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest in May when they gave several of us a chance to go back on and do an extra non-judged song. It will never completely ever go away, but its gotten pretty minimal of late, because I'm out there soloing so much now.
You just have to forgive yourself and go on.
I saw Paul from Peter, Paul & Mary at McCabe's a couple of years ago when his last solo CD was released and he told the crowd that he like to start with a screw up song because he was always nervous when started. After how many years is this guy still nervous?
So I start with a screw up song now. something easy and throw away. Right now its "All I Want Is You" a song from that Juno movie.
It'll happen again, no doubt.
The whole process is ridden with self-doubt. You play and someone gets up to leave and you think - oh they hate me. There are times when there is no audience or no audience reaction and you leave feeling bad. Now and then something really cool gives you positive reinforcement to last a good couple of years.
There will also always be the frigging idiots who will tell you are not good enough because they think they are not good enough.
I get asked back, I get applauded, I get people buying my CDs. I get new gigs based on my videos that don't always have the greatest sound.
You need that kind of stuff to fight off the demons.
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