ever had one of those nights...

[Ale]

Yeah , the bad days comes and go.
It gets better after warming up. One thing i noticed is that i always play bad when ive lugged a lot of gear , you know some times you just hate the double bass for its dimensions , that usually reflects in your playing. Even after years of running around with the damn instrument. Some weeks your a friend with the instruments , some weeks your not.
Intresting , someone said their bass sounded better in the winter , its always been the same for me , my bass is just a winter bass. Thats sucks because most jobs are in the summer

[Marc Piane]

It's funny. I try to think of all the reasons why things didn't go well in a night. Food, stress, weather, etc, etc., etc. Yesterday I had a pretty stressful day. Ate like ****. Battled traffic heading to the gig. The strange thing is that once I started playing I felt like the ideas were flowing like water and good intonation just happened.

I have been experimenting a bit with centering myself mentally before a gig. That has been more successful for me than any diet or lucky tie or whatever. I just sit in my car for five minutes in silence. Sometimes if there is a quiet street nearby I'll take a short walk. I don't know about you guys but there is so much stuff (mostly music) going on in my head all the time that it helps me to just be alone with my thoughts for a minute. I do the same thing during breaks. Part of it is resting my ears but part of it is refocusing my mind.

This is no substitute for practice. Your hands have to be able to execute. I have just found that centering myself for a few minutes does wonders.