Largest Crowd

[rcsnydley]

haoli25 wrote:

Lavallee wrote:

Went I visited Neil this week, I wanted to demonstrate where I was in my progression (not to show off but only outline my level). I could not play one thing without tripping here and there. Fortunately he was very diplomatic in his comments .


Marc

Marc, I would think that playing for Neil "The FRETinator" Hogan would be more intimidating than playing for a large crowd. A large audience just wants to be entertained and could care less about your right/left hand positions and chord formations. lol

I think you are ready for the BIG TIME now!

:laugh:

There is a lot of truth in what you say haoli. One of the things to remember when playing in front of a crowd is that they are on your side, they want you to do well.
Have you ever been in an audience when some one is playing and struggling it's uncomfortable for you also, you feel embarrassed for them.

I just try to take a few deep breaths to relax and tell myself they are here to see me. Quite frankly, I have an easier time playing for and talking to a crowd than I do one on one. I tell my wife I am shy and not good in conversations with people. She thinks I crazy because I am such a good public speaker and performer. To me they are two different things, getting up in front of people is actually the easier of the two.

Keep Playing
Ric

[AndyT]

rcsnydley wrote:
Quite frankly, I have an easier time playing for and talking to a crowd than I do one on one. I tell my wife I am shy and not good in conversations with people. She thinks I crazy because I am such a good public speaker and performer. To me they are two different things, getting up in front of people is actually the easier of the two.

I agree totally. I can give a sermon, and yes, there is a bit of nervousness, but talking to a big group of people is rather easy because there are too many of them to make it 'personal'. Its like reading your lesson into a tape recorder and playing that back for them. Its just bodies in the seats. Where it gets hard is when you have expectations of yourself that they don't. Then you get nervous because you already know where your mistakes are. You have to be willing to make mistakes.

[agentcooper]

In high school, my band played at a festival that our guitarist's mom was running, and I think there was more than 200 people there. We got asked to play a bunch more gigs and got a bunch of cards of "talent scouts", but we didn't follow up on any of them because they were all creepy and seemed phony (straight from Catcher in the Rye) so us, being the pretentious group of kids chose not to contact any of them. Weird.

[cabro]

I think the largest crowd I ever played in front of was back in the early to mid-'80's. My band opened for a major indie/punk band and we had somewhere between 500 to 1000 people in the hall. As for performance anxiety, every time I have to play in front of more than a couple of people, I get tense and my hands get tight. Usually, if nothing goes horribly wrong, by the third tune or so, I'll settle in and relax. I have never walked onto a venue when this didn't happen.

Chris

[haoli25]

Neil pointed out in the last TARGET Live session that when you are playing before an audience and you hit a wrong note, most of the audience will think that is just your interpretation of the song, hit that wrong note a second time and they will assume that is just your style of playing. A very nice perspective. :laugh:

[BigBear]

cabro wrote:

I think the largest crowd I ever played in front of was back in the early to mid-'80's. My band opened for a major indie/punk band and we had somewhere between 500 to 1000 people in the hall. As for performance anxiety, every time I have to play in front of more than a couple of people, I get tense and my hands get tight. Usually, if nothing goes horribly wrong, by the third tune or so, I'll settle in and relax. I have never walked onto a venue when this didn't happen.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one with this "affliction". You work so hard in your living room to get it right that I'm terrified I'll choke when I play in front of any size crowd. It's like "Lord, give me the strength to get through these first few songs without looking like an idiot".

[wrench]

As a youngster in school, I excelled in public speaking. As a younger adult, I had a five year part time stint as a professional bowler, during which I excelled at match game competition and had a dozen or so perfect games. The first perfect game was the most traumatic non-life-threatening event of my life. The rest of them hardly even got a deep breath; I even yawned once. I even bowled on TV once before I was very good. I had a successful industrial career for the rest of my adult life (until five years ago) during which time I had the opportunity to train with and present to top management a number of times, and never got nervous or anxious about it. My point is I am able to perform with stoicism, and I think I have better than average ability to defeat my own emotions.

Then I picked up a cheap guitar five months ago. I can play for my dog OK. I think she even likes it. Then I tried to play for my kids, and it sounded like I was wearing boxing gloves.

You need three things to perform in a public venue: 1. skills, 2. confidence in those skills, and 3. the ability to channel your emotions to the execution of your performance. Since I have skill number three, I am obviously deficient at numbers one and two.

Anybody who can play is my hero, but Ric, you're my new #1 hero to play for 40,000 with such comfort.

wrench

[haoli25]

Thanks for the post WRENCH.

After professional bowling, playing guitar should be a piece of cake for you. And the best part, you don't even have to change your shoes to play guitar!:)

I can't even imagine the thrill of bowling a perfect game!

[wrench]

The first one was pretty intense - I imagine it's about the same as performing on the stage of a packed theater - and nailing it.

wrench

[Chasplaya]

wrench wrote:

As a younger adult, I had a five year part time stint as a professional bowler, during which I excelled at match game competition and had a dozen or so perfect games. The first perfect game was the most traumatic non-life-threatening event of my life. The rest of them hardly even got a deep breath; I even yawned once. I even bowled on TV once before I was very good.

One query, what kind of bowling? Ten Pin, lawn, Cricket...

Oh and by the way guitar playing largest crowd about 100. Acting on stage about 2500. regularly teaching about 12 lol