Guitar is a not an easy instrument to play. It is easy to mess things up while playing, especially when it comes to playing in front of the mass. Despite of the years of practice, one may seem like an amateur when his/her fingers start shaking on the fret board. You might have experienced that cold feeling as you step on the stage; your heart starts racing, your hands start sweating and as soon as you strum the first chord, you desperately wait for the song to end. Your brain seems to be opposing to what you intend. If you have ever experienced such feelings, then you are among many people who have stage fright. So, don’t worry. You are not alone.
Stage fright is similar to fear of public speaking. Nearly everyone has this experience at some point in their life. The feeling can be disgusting and awful and it does no good to you. So, it is better that you deal with it as soon as possible. Here are some tips to overcome this fear and perform with more ease and confidence.
1. Practice Practice Practice:
Do not perform a song on stage until u have practiced it a lot. Performance without preparation makes you anxious and you are more likely to mess things up.
2. Visualization Technique/Mental Rehearsal:
It may seem odd but imagining yourself playing on stage can make a whole world of difference. Simply by visualizing yourself playing over the fret board whilst relaxed can help you stay calm and focused and perform a lot better on stage. Research even shows that those who visualize doing certain task actually perform better than those who actually practice doing it. You can imagine yourself playing note by note especially on difficult parts of the song. However, it is important you are very much relaxed while performing the mental rehearsal.
3. Practice Breathing Technique:
Anxiety and worry can create a warped perspective of things and make simple seem complex. So, you are to control this worrying feeling. And breathing techniques are an excellent way to do so. Certain breathing exercises are scientifically prove to control feelings of fear and stress and calm down your brain. You can practice them before entering the stage or even while performing the task on hand. Abdominal breathing technique is one such way that can help you calm down. You can search for it on the web.
4. Don’t give a shit! :
Do not worry about how things can go wrong. After all it is not the end of the world. There are many things in life that are not simply under your control and overthinking about those things ain’t gonna solve the problem. So, do not expect perfectionism out of your performance. Perfectionism is an imperfect way of viewing life. Remember that there will always be someone to criticize you however good you perform and there’ll always someone to appreciate you however bad you perform. So, just chill and enjoy!
