You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Performance Anxiety - #83

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

Peter and Adam answer another listener question today as they give some tips on overcoming performance anxiety. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. Hey. Do you ever have anxiety? Getting a little nervous right now. You look very nervous. Nah! Ugh. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. You're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Daily jazz advice and anxiety-ridden jazz riddles. I'm anxious about our intros, man. They make me anxious when you do. Yeah, because I don't know what's going to happen. I thought you were just acting just now. That's the thing.

It's like if there's a piano, I can improvise. That's right. I'm nervous about improvising my, with my acting chops. Yeah. Well, what are we doing today? Oh. It's Wednesday. It's Wednesday.

How do you like Wednesdays? I like Wednesdays, actually. Is this what they call hump day? It is what they call hump day. I mean, that's like one of those things I just, I've heard all my life and I learned it like six months ago. I'm always ashamed. But you know what? ABL, hashtag ABL.

Always be learning. That's right. That's right. We got a question from one of our private open studio Facebook groups. This is from the jazz guitar studio, which is our guitar group. All of our guitar members are on there. Well, all of them. Some of them are a little afraid of Facebook right now.

Let's be honest. Many of our guitar members are on there. And this is from Mark and Mark says, Hi, Peter, maybe a topic for a podcast. Well, you know, Peter and Adam, Mark, thanks, buddy. Can you offer any suggestions for overcoming performance anxiety? I'm a recovering attorney whose 34-year legal career to date has gotten in the way of my musical obsession.

I play chord solo and primarily Brazilian jazz guitar. Very cool. Over the past 57 plus years of playing, I am merely better than some and not as good as many. I hear you. After years of self-analysis, I have come to believe that the genesis of my anxiety is twofold. One, fear of making a mistake. And two, the absurdity of playing for a group that may include a more accomplished musician who, in effect, pierces the musical veil and sees what naivetee I may be displaying.

This guy is an attorney. He laid it out like a legal doctor in there, didn't he? Further, why does the world need another less than perfect guitar player anyway? I welcome any perspective signed, intimidated in Indiana. Triple I. All right. Well, thank you, Mark, for the question and the legal diatribe there. That was impressive. Well, and then your add-on question there, why does the world need another less than perfect guitar player? The world absolutely needs that. Every guitar player is less than perfect. Every guitar. Yeah, every musician is less than perfect. No, not pianist, but guitarist, for sure.

And, I mean, we can dive right in here to number one, the fear of making a mistake. So this is something that just needs to be addressed straight away. Just stop, okay? Now let's move on. Stop being fearful. No, I don't mean stop making mistakes. Stop being fearful. But let's talk about some ways to do that. Because, well, let's just talk about why we want to get rid of the fear of making

mistake and why it's a little bit irrational. And I think the main thing is that there's a lot of really interesting things that happen as part of mistakes in music, especially jazz music in particular. It's fact that is one of the things that makes this music so exciting, actually. Yeah. So it's a weird thing. You actually don't want to have, you don't want to get rid of any mistakes. So why would you be fearful of it?

If you're, you know, an attorney, perhaps doing, you know, criminal cases where somebody's life, you know, his life is on the line. You should have a fear of making a mistake. You need to have that perfection. But maybe thinking about it, you're, well, I think, I guess any kind of attorney, you wouldn't want to make a big mistake. But I think in. But you would also want to be, I think, free from being afraid of that. You know, you would want to still even practicing law. want to be able to have the freedom to experiment and push yourself.

Yep. You know, so there is some similarities there, I think. So I think that there's two parts to maybe that could be helpful in getting over that fear. One is the, is trying to get some confidence into your playing. Yeah. That's really, you know, commensurate with what your skill level is so that you're playing things that you don't need to be overly feel fearful of making mistakes. So it's okay to make some small mistakes, mistakes.

It's even good. And the main thing is that we're not worrying about them. You know, as you develop, you're going to make less and less. If you're constantly trying to kind of play out of your league, you're going to make a lot of mistakes, and you're going to have kind of trouble fitting in. So if you're sort of moving along, knowing what you can do, pushing a little bit, and then not being fearful about the mistakes, knowing that your percentage is so good for not making mistakes, then you can really play some exciting music.

And more importantly, when you do make mistakes, they can kind of be part of your story in an interesting way. I mean, yeah, there's some strategies for when you do make a mistake, which is inevitable. Yeah. You know, as you were saying, it's like, I don't, even the best musicians I've ever seen will make an occasional mistake. Yeah. And if you're really improvising, if you're really going for stuff and in a place where you're, you don't know what's happening next, which is oftentimes when the best music lies. Yep. Sometimes you're not going to land just quite right.

You know what I mean? And so there's two things you can do. You can blame somebody else. No, no. You can, you can try to cover it up. Yeah. and maybe do the same thing again. Like, I meant to do that.

It's part of my thing. Right. You know, or, which is what I like to do, is to, like, be like, oh, and laugh it off a little bit and maybe try to wink at the drummer, like, eh, didn't get that one. Let the audience in on it. Like, yo, this is like improvised music.

We're going for some stuff. We're having fun. Right. This is joyful. I mean, obviously, you're not going to try to make mistakes, but, like, they happen. Right. You've got to let it go.

Yeah, and I think it's important that you not, Well, like if you're if you're very Your foundation is really in like the time the groove and the form like and you've really put a priority on You know keeping the time going if you make a mistake In which maybe you're improvising something or playing the head in a way that you didn't want to But you're still right in that groove you can get away with actually a lot of mistakes a lot more than the other way which is like you make a mistake And then you let that rattle you you lose the form or you start to play out of time or out of the groove, that's going to be way more noticeable to the listener.

If you stay right in the groove, and the groove can be a lot of different things, it could be ballad groove, it could be any kind of groove. I don't mean just a heavy group, but I mean, like, you're locked in with whatever the groove of how you're playing. And basically, if you're playing with the rhythm section, that means locked in with the rhythm section as well, then when you make a mistake, it doesn't really sound that bad, actually. And you can kind of repeat it and fix it even as long as you stay in the groove. What you don't want to do is try to go back in time.

That's right. That doesn't work. That doesn't work. So a strong sense of time and a strong sense of groove will take you very, very far. And you're right. Your mistakes don't sound like mistakes because they feel good. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Classic example, you know, Miles Davis on My Funny Live at, oh, I guess it's called My Funny Valentine when they're live at Lincoln Center. Yeah. On My Funny Valentine, his solo, when he goes up to that, to the highest part of that solo and he kind of cacks some of the notes. but he keeps that beat it, bit, geek it. Like that rhythm, he's so locked in. Plus, he's built up so well to get there. You don't lose all the great things you played before there, even when you kind of cack a note or play something that's less than optimal in a way.

You still have that momentum of the story that you've told to get there. And the listener gives you that. So, you know, don't worry about it. Just stay in the groove. What the listener won't give you is you've built up to that point and then you let the, you fall out of the groove with the rhythm section, because then it just seems like stuff is falling apart, you know. So you can kind of use that as a template.

Totally. Yeah. So and your second concern here, which is number two, the absurdity of playing for a group that may include a more accomplished musician who, in effect, pierces the musical veil and sees what naivete I may be displaying. Okay. So this is recognizably difficult and challenging, I think, for every musician, you know, to get over. But one thing to consider with this is to,

to not in these situations, try to play your way out of it. No. Don't try to impress any musician who may or may not be in the audience. Right. You know, it's more impressive is being confident in yourself. Yes. And playing the gig, telling your story. You know, oftentimes if there's someone, if I get a little tinge of like,

oh, they're in the audience tonight, I'll play less. Like, I'll try to be more confident with my space. Right. Try to, like, say, like, I'm not afraid to not blow you off the stand in this situation. Yeah. Like, I'm going to play in a way that is still me. Yep. And not try to impress audience or musician.

Same thing with people you play with who, you know, if you're playing a little above your head with other musicians, you know, stay simple, be confident, be you. Yeah. I think, you know, a word that comes to mind from everything that you just said is authenticity. Totally. Be yourself, be authentic. And that's such an attractive quality.

I mean, just like as a person or when you're speaking, You know, when you're trying to be something that you're not, even if you're highly skilled at it, that's going to come across, especially to somebody, you know, the accomplished musician who can pierce the musical veil, as you say. So if you think about it, you know, a lot of times we can take things from different parts of our lives as we get older and apply them. You may feel like, I mean, you have the 34 legal career and 57 plus years of playing. So you've got some stuff under your belt. I mean, I haven't even heard you, and I know that. Yep. So you may not feel the confidence yourself, but that doesn't mean that the other people even.

more skilled players or whatever you don't feel that. And if you think about like, you know, a great baseball player, a great basketball player, a great basketball player going up against LeBron James. Look, I mean, there's no, you know, there's billboards around the world. I was in China and there's a huge billboard of, you know, that says King James. Like he's literally been anointed around the world. Amazing. So the pecking order is set.

Yeah. But, you know, people dunk on LeBron James sometimes, more often than you would think, you know. But if they're paralyzed and they're not as good as players, but he's had his ankles broken before. Not much, but I mean, he's, you know, so it's not that that you can say, I'm going to get above him or whatever. The order is still whatever the order is, but especially in music, it doesn't really matter. I think the top players and stuff, and look, I have some experience in this because I've played a number of times around, not just better players than me, but I mean like legends, you know, like literally played right before Herbie Hancock

on the same piano. So you don't get any more like, you know, piercing the musical veil. Come on. you know so but after a certain point you get to the point where you like i can play on i'm gonna i can tell my story better than herbie if i try to tell herbie's story i'm gonna fall absolutely fall short you know but i can tell mine and and and have it as as an authentic and and play on the same court with them that's so true and one more thing you might think about in this same vein actually is that you know who are you playing to you shouldn't be playing to you know a perceived better musician the audience or even the audience, where your attention lies is the most important thing. Oh, no, sorry.

No, where you put your attention is the most important thing. And really, we're here to serve the music. The music is the most important thing. You know, that's more important than any musician who's in the audience. So your attention should, as much as you can, try to stay focused on the music and do what you need to do for that. Don't worry about anybody else who's outside of the bandstand. Right. And I would just refute a little part of what's kind of,

implied in the absurdity of playing for a group that may include more. I don't think it's that absurd because if you think about it, you know, so-called accomplished musicians, when they're listeners, I think in general they're not as critical on like kind of a technical and theoretical level as you may think that they are. I know that I'm not either. I go in as a listener. I'm very like less like, wow, that was a great C7-9.

I think of anything, we're a more sympathetic audience because we know how it is. You know what I mean? I mean, we're more educated about it, but it's still like, oh, okay, I see what you're trying to do there. You know what I mean? Like, even if you don't pull it off. Yeah. I'm like, ah, I got it. And I like your vibe.

You know what I mean? Well, and it's just like people, like if you meet someone or if you think about the way, I mean, there's nothing better than like, you know, a guy or a gal that's like, you know, just sort of normal attractiveness. But they, like, aren't trying to be more or less, but they're like really put together. They got the right clothes. Oh, thanks, man. Oh, thanks. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, some of that's not self-centered. You know. Caviot to this, though. Now, if there is a group of musicians hanging out at the bar and there's three or more of them, steer clear. Exactly. Very absurd.

Very absurd. I'm just kidding. No, you're not. All right, good. Well, thanks so much for the question. Please keep them coming. You can go to you'll hear it.com. Go to YouTube.

And then you'll, yeah, go to YouTube. For some comments. Go, go to comment on. I jumped in on. No, no, you're right. Go to today's episode. You know, every episode is on YouTube. And you can go to go.

there and comment and engage with our fellow listeners, as well as occasionally Adam and myself, although I have to say I've been jumping in, I'm not counting, but I'm jumping in a little more than you. I don't, you know, let's see if you can up your comment game. Yeah, no, I like some comments, but, you know, I get a little skittish about, well, you guys, why don't you call out Adam on YouTube? See if you can get them out there, right? Troll them into a conversation.

I really wish I didn't say that just now. So what else? Happy Wednesday. Is that it for today? It's it for today. All right. You'll hear it.