Do you play better or worse in front of an audience?

[rokdog49]

Playing in front of people is something I will do as long as I am able.
There is nothing like the high one gets from the positive response of an audience.

[Pitar]

I don't have a need to crowd source my playing energy. It comes from deep within and turns me, the guitar and music into the total muse package. There is no outside influence that can benefit that. If anything, it's an unwanted distraction. I give to music what I've taken from it and never has any other person or persons played a role in that intimacy other than the influencing artists themselves. No audience was going to make me a better player.

My observation at concerts and venues is a general disdain for the audience where people tend to maintain conversations or carry on as they do in deference to the happenings on the stage. I have a much better time at open mics where focus and respect promote a better mutually engaging vibe. The average concert goer is not packing that psyche.

I have played for money but I have not asked or otherwise solicited venues to play. My experience was solicited by the venue players. Having become locally connected by word of mouth (people heard me playing at the local music stores when checking out guitars), a couple gigging players asked if I would accompany them and/or fill in for them if they could not make an event. I half-agreed to it and even jammed with them to get on the same page with their acts - practice. Even then, I wasn't seriously engaging the thought. What that did for me is reveal a general dislike for compromising what and how I like to play. I knew it would, going in, so that wasn't a surprise. I'm a soloist, strictly speaking. The accompaniment part of the request did not work out because of that. But, I did fill in certain dates for them as a soloist. I was distracted by the venues themselves, though not in a manner that affected my playing, but I had zero respect for it. The audiences carried on as they do at all venues, and I compromised the muse to adapt to them. Three venue managers asked if I was available for future dates so I took their requests as measures of successful evenings all around. The audience's response was the same obligatory playing/ noise in my head I always hear at venues so I didn't gauge it as a measure of my playing.

[Toby Walker]

Hi Wade,

For me, an audience always raises the bar as well as the energy level, and the feedback from the audience just propels things along even further. Besides playing pranks on my next door's neighbors little boys, I can't think of a better way of having fun!

Heck, I’m closing a show in July where I’m following Clive Carroll, so I better be good!!!

[Methos1979]

I'm at that awkward stage where we are just starting to play out regularly. My wife (surprisingly) has gotten over her nerves much quicker than I have. I tend to play my best with less people but I prefer to play for more people and an engaged audience BUT I'm also more nervous with that as well.

On any given day/performance I can play really well or not so well. One thing I have noticed is that if anything is distracting me with regard to equipment or guitar tone issues then that is a recipe for bad playing. I really need to get into the zone of playing and concentrating and enjoying the SONG and not think of that darn overly resonant A note or anything else!

The struggle is real.

[FrankHudson]

I was going to answer that I play better alone, but I reflected a bit and came to the conclusion that that's not so.

I've always been very inconsistent as a player, due to a lower skill level that many musicians, a lax practice regimen, and my artistic aims. That means that playing in front an audience or playing with just myself in a room or with a mic in front of me recording will produce anything from something reasonably well executed to an utter trainwreck/clambake.

My reflection tells me that the audience (in general) doesn't cause this. It's just a likely to happen in room alone, but it's more embarrassing, and much more importantly, disappointing when it happens with an audience. I'm out there trying to convey a musical idea and I've failed that idea. Alone or recording, I just try again. In a live performance, that's not as available as an option.

Therefore I remember the times I've failed in front of audience much more intensely.

I try to avoid disappointment in the audience and myself when I play live, which increases my practice focus, though it also reigns in my adventurousness. I play somewhat differently, but suspect it's about equal each way as to better or worse.

I will agree that an audience of one or two is much tougher than a hall full of people.

[muscmp]

as usual, it depends. if the audience is family, i'm a little self-conscious. if the audience is strangers, then i have no problem.

play music!

[packmule]

I've been playing guitar or drums in bands since my mid-teens, so I'm well used to playing in front of crowds and enjoy it, but also perfectly happy just playing at home. I also busked regularly for many years. I don't feel like I play better in one scenario vs. the other. Relaxation is such a big part in playing fluently and I've always been super relaxed playing in front of people, so no tension taking over resulting in missed notes or beats, or forgetting what the next part is etc.

[Jack Orion]

I would say that I sometimes play better in front of an audience and I sometimes play better at home.

I do gig a lot (currently I make a significant part of my insignificant income from playing!) and, to be perfectly honest, I would say probably 50% of the time I feel like I perform at 70% of my 'best', maybe 20% of the time below that, 20% of the time between 70-90, and 10% 90-100.

Those times when it is 90-100 i often find myself singing notes I've not sung before, or embellishing the vocal melody in ways that I haven't done previously, and putting more feeling and emotion into my playing and singing than normal - sometimes those shows coincide with a great audience as well and then it's as if the whole night just flies.

I'm pretty good at getting in front of people and playing and tend to get 'restless' rather than nervous now, though occasionally I still get caught out by something and it throws me into a real nervous state (shivering and everything) - normally I can shake that out by using up the nervous energy running around outside the venue!

In terms of improvisation though, it's always at home where I play best as I don't fear mistakes - I can come out with stuff that I would never play live as there's no risk, live I've yet to enter that headspace where there's no fear, even if my playing seems free, I'm still playing the parts I've worked out previously...

[vindibona1]

I don't get stage fright but performance distraction. I'm too sensitive to small things that change my overall perception of things. For example, I was playing electric as part of a pop tune a community concert band was doing. We had rehearsed it one time before the performance when the bass player stood on my right. On stage he was on my left and it bugged the [insert moderator approved word in here] out of me. Just that small detail was a distraction. It took a few minutes to get used to the change where I could once again focus on the music.

Recording is the worst. The simplest things that I can play in my sleep get messed up. The more I want it to be perfect the worse it gets. The process just gets in my head. Maybe it's because I'm trying to play and monitor the recording myself. Again, a distraction combined with being in my own head.

In some of the legit things I play (trumpet) in, the conductors like to do "warm-up rehearsals" of up to an hour, with a 30 minute to 1 hour break before the performance. So the focus and adrenaline goes up during the warmup and then needs to maintained throughout the performance which could be 4 hours total. I sometimes run out of mental energy, lose focus and make errors I wouldn't otherwise make.

When I'd play for the teacher in a private lesson, things I'd do perfectly at home would sometimes be error laden because of her presence. I think I just get in my head sometimes when in front of people.

I do regular casual Friday night acoustic gigs with 100-200 attending and I think I'm more relaxed and less distracted, which I think is because I'm familiar with the venue, the audience and the players and there is far less to draw my attention beyond the music.

[MHC]

Everything is MUCH better when no one is around. My voice is absolutely pitch perfect, my playing is sublime, my emotional delivery of a song is shattering, the... uh... but... just don't listen.

[roylor4]

I went with "do pretty well in front of audience". True most of the time.

The truth is, that I definitely play electric better at home. Transitions from rhythm to leads is seamless and nearly effortless at home - not there in front of an audience yet w/that skill.

The reason I voted this way is that I have noticed that when I don't feel all that great (my job can be physically taxing) - I always have my best performances. I don't know if it's because i have little reserve energy that there's no room to get nervous or what. I have always been the type that gets calmer in an emergency.

I play well when I have to, but play my best at home when totally relaxed.

For me, If I play 90% that well in front of a crowd, it's a good day.

[Ozzy the dog]

Nerves do get the better of me when playing to an audience. However, I used to play as one third of a duo in a restaurant which was perfect for me because the audience always appeared to be paying no attention to the music as they rattled their cutlery and talked amongst themselves. This put me at ease - if they weren't listening, it didn't matter if I made a mistake and as a result, I didn't.

Then, at the end of the night people would come up and say how much they had enjoyed it and would discuss the songs we had played.

An audience can be a weird and wonderful thing.

[robey]

Yes!

Good nights and off nights.

Stage fright isn't something that affects me. Now bad sound...

[Wade Hampton]

I've got a question for you, Ozzy. You wrote:

Originally Posted by Ozzy the dog

I used to play as one third of a duo in a restaurant

Okay, I'm trying to work out the math on that one. So are you saying that the other person in the duo did two thirds of the work, while you sang harmonies and stood there with a bristling mustache like John Oates to your partner's Daryl Hall? Or are all three of you in the "duo" just tiny little guys, and there are minimal weight requirements under British law that specify that you have to add up to a certain amount of mass before you can get that much-cherished "trio" designation?

Just curious...

Originally Posted by Ozzy the dog

An audience can be a weird and wonderful thing.

On that we can all agree.


whm

[bufflehead]

I enjoy performing when I'm playing with others. Not so much solo. However, what I really dislike is playing alone in a studio. Whenever I've attempted that I've really missed the energy one gets from an audience.

I don't know that I'd ever perform something on video and then post it to YouTube. Zero motivation for that.