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Nerves before a Performance

Do you get nervous before a performance?

  • Yes

    Votes: 92 50.5%

  • No

    Votes: 90 49.5%
  • Total voters
    182
#121
I was involved in some theater when I was young, I've played around 3,000 gigs, and my professional activities (language interpretation) for the past 30 years has involved working in front of an audience that is listening intently to every word I say.

I have screwed up and embarrassed myself countless times, but I learned early on that if it's not worth fretting about on your death bed, it's not worth fretting about when it happens. I lost any shred of stage fright long long ago.
 
#125
TripleDouble said:
Never had a problem, but then a few years back I started getting really heady and weird about my playing and got what I'm assuming was stagefright. In the process to learn to relax and not give a dang what people thought again, I learned I had been holding lots of tension in my body in weird places like my wrists and triceps when i played. I've really focused on working through this. and like any learning process there have been challenges, but now am the most relaxed performing I've ever been and feel I'm in the home stretch with this mini-battle.

There is an AWESOME website called "the bulletproof musician" that outlines many strategies and can help you break through to loosy goosey-ville. I still get a blast of adrenaline before I play, but no longer think of it as stress, just energy. Once it settles down and balances out, then I feel great.
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#126
SheaSolo said:
One more thing I read about NFL and NBA players throwing up before games. Something they do which I did before gig's is take a nap. Naps are freaking great when you're sitting around all day waiting to play a show. Try to get an early sound check in, go take a nap and wake up with enough time to get ready for the show. Shower, stuffing your pants, makeup etc. Leave yourself just enough time to get to the stage when it's time to play. If you just sit around all day thinking about it, that can wear you out.

And I can see by your comments talking about meds and psychiatric help that your nerves are getting the best of you. You gotta sleep that stuff off or like my singer found solace in a good long workout. Naps were a huge help for me when nerves played a serious role before a gig.
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Thank you SheaSolo for your post.....that's one hell of a story!

The question is in general though, and not so much about me. It is to enlighten myself and others as to the effects of playing live, and how people deal with nerves if they become present.....and no I'm not writing a paper on this

It certainly has educated me and hopefully will do the same for others, as to the fact that even some musicians with loads of stage experience and confidence in their abilities still get the jitters.

I think it is important for us in the musician community to know all of the in's and out's of our environment. And how we adapt to each and every situation....we're all here to help each other to create the best music possible.....isn't that the true spirit of TB?

For me though, (because I never did say) when I see the guys before the show and I know they are ready to rock, I'm fine. If I sense they had a bad day and have the attitude of "let's just get this over with" then I never know what's going to happen.......
 
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#127
I'm the same as Doctor_Clock. Despite an entire lifetime of playing alone, or with one band or another, I always get...maybe not so much nervous as wired up just before I go on.

And just like it goes for the good Doctor, mine only last for the first two or three notes of the very first song. After that it's smooth sailing.

Funny thing for me about crowd sizes is the bigger the crowd the more I'm relaxed before going on. When I look out over a crowd that numbers around 2500 (the biggest I ever faced) it doesn't seem real to me. What I always found harder was playing for an audience of around 30 people who weren't at all into the type of music the band was doing.
 
#129
baileyboy said:
I am currently gigging 2-3x monthly and never get nervous. The reason for this is when I'm in a gigging band all I do is practice the set list on a daily basis. Because of my diligence to being prepared, mistakes are extremely rare. Practice makes perfect (or close to it) and tends to eliminate any feelings of nervousness.
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Very true, but that was pretty hard when I used to have a complete overkill on bands I played with (4 + 1 friendgroup) at the same time. Still laugh about that one awkward moment when I saw a tune on the setlist in the middle of the gig that made me go "Oh please, not that tune, who put that on there?" or "I can't remember that song by the title AT ALL". Happened once or twice but that was the only time I felt TRULY nervous. I blacked out on a song, dropped my volume and almost at the end I would check up on my amp as if something was wrong with it. Nobody said anything about it. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
#131
Helix said:
Thank you SheaSolo for your post.....that's one hell of a story!

The question is in general though, and not so much about me. It is to enlighten myself and others as to the effects of playing live, and how people deal with nerves if they become present.....and no I'm not writing a paper on this

It certainly has educated me and hopefully will do the same for others, as to the fact that even some musicians with loads of stage experience and confidence in their abilities still get the jitters.

I think it is important for us in the musician community to know all of the in's and out's of our environment. And how we adapt to each and every situation....we're all here to help each other to create the best music possible.....isn't that the true spirit of TB?

For me though, (because I never did say) when I see the guys before the show and I know they are ready to rock, I'm fine. If I sense they had a bad day and have the attitude of "let's just get this over with" then I never know what's going to happen.......
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Oh lol. Well to those out there with nerve issues and dealing with the road and crew and merch and band mates and managers and promoters/A&R/Record industry folks . My only real advice is, try if at all possible to not self medicate. My guitar player turned into a real piece of work because of that. Peeing in peoples floors and stroked out after a show on the bus. Almost died. It was not cool and it was also not cool that we as a band let it get to that point. It's a long road if you take that path and even harder coming back clean and sober once you're used to hitting the stage with a good buzz.

You want to perform the best on stage. Clean and sober is the way to accomplish that.... until you get to the fifth song left on the set list. Then it's time for the sound guy to bring up those jager bombs. Nothing wrong with having a buzz for the encore!
 
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#133
Also if you're rocking the cover band deal (which most bands start out doing(some never stop)). It's more of a preparedness that is the factor. But once you cross over into that all original set. You better believe in what you're doing. If you are a guy that does get nervous and you don't believe in the original music you're playing... It can be a very nervey situation from night to night. And there are a lot of factors that play into that, as far as from show to show.
 
#134
fclefgeoff said:
I've found that the best way to avoid nerves before a performance is to be prepared. If you are nervous, it's probably because you are afraid of making a mistake. If you know your material so well that you don't have to think about, you're a lot less likely to make any errors.
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Even if you've prepared a 110% it's still possible that the human amygdala will overreact due to the fact that you're afraid of rejection for whatever (irrelevant) reason. Here is an article about how the Navy SEALs deal with it.
 
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#137
SheaSolo said:
Oh lol. Well to those out there with nerve issues and dealing with the road and crew and merch and band mates and managers and promoters/A&R/Record industry folks . My only real advice is, try if at all possible to not self medicate. My guitar player turned into a real piece of work because of that. Peeing in peoples floors and stroked out after a show on the bus. Almost died. It was not cool and it was also not cool that we as a band let it get to that point. It's a long road if you take that path and even harder coming back clean and sober once you're used to hitting the stage with a good buzz.

You want to perform the best on stage. Clean and sober is the way to accomplish that.... until you get to the fifth song left on the set list. Then it's time for the sound guy to bring up those jager bombs. Nothing wrong with having a buzz for the encore!
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You are the man SheaSolo....you are definitely speaking from a very large amount of experience

Sorry bro if I mislead you (and anyone else)on this thread
 
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#139
I
Helix said:
What do you do to combat nerves before a performance?......if anything
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I don't play out a lot, but the last times I did, the Band I was with - it was our first time playing out - did an open mic night at a club and I was so nervous, that my knees were nocking together the whole time, then, a week later, we played at a different place, same kind of thing, an open mic type of deal with a house drum set and PA, and I felt calm as a cucumber, like a seasoned game show host. so I guess, know the songs your playing, and go play out as much as you can!
 

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