It is normal to get nervous when you are playing the guitar in front of people. However, too much stage fright can have an enormous effect on your performance. In fact, getting nervous may make you cut short your performance to the surprise of your audience. As a guitarist, you should strive to embrace ways of dealing with performance anxiety sooner than later. Below are ways of conquering your fears before you rock the stage!
Focus on the music
Most experienced guitarists recommend that one should transition from thinking about the music to feeling it. Typically, it would help if you took the time you are practising as the time for thinking. When you get on the stage, it is time to feel the music and facilitate a smooth flow within you. Doing this will go a long way to help you in overcoming the fright factor. It makes you focus on the music and ‘forget’ that you have a crowd of eyes staring at you. To help you focus more, you can also close your eyes for a few moments to eliminate the feeling of shyness.
Strive to impress yourself
Think about your playing as one of your accomplishments and as something that most people only dream of being able to do. Keep in mind that you have played the guitar in the past, and you impressed yourself with your performance. Even so, work towards impressing yourself again with your current performance. Take advantage that you have an audience to impress and give yourself a share of the cake. Concentrating on yourself will help you avoid chances of distractions of going off key. Enjoy playing and immerse yourself into feeling the excitement of the music!
Prepare yourself
One of the excellent ways to deal with stage fright is having ample time to prepare yourself. During the preparation, play as if you are playing for an audience. You can also go to the extent of requesting your friends and relatives to come in as an audience. Memorize the lyrics in any way possible until you are sure that there are no chances of failing on the stage. Besides, learn and practice your chord progression throughout a song repeatedly to gain perfection.
Let go of your ego
Even if you have the spotlight over your head, do not try to be something you are not. Try to lighten up and be relaxed. Accept that you are imperfect and avoid taking yourself so seriously. Your ego wants you to be perfect. However, no one is perfect and mistakes are bound to happen even at times you least expect. Do not care to make a mistake. Instead, play the song, enjoy it and share it with others. Get out of playing to impress and play to have fun!
Strive to get more exposure
If you are just getting started, begin by playing the guitar with an audience. Try to exploit any chance that comes along to play the guitar in front of people. As mentioned earlier, this could be friends or family members. In addition, practicing around others is a very low-pressure way to get used to an audience.
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