I recently received an email from a student who was concerned that he was unable to avoid making mistakes during his performances. He would practice until he felt that he had fully learned the material but inevitably during his performances something would go wrong. These mistakes would leave him feeling that he was error-prone, despite how much he committed to practice. His question was basically “what can I do to fix this?”
First off, mistakes happen all the time on gigs. It’s completely normal and happens to everyone (even the pros). Usually it’s nerves, stage fright, or performance anxiety. The important part is what you do in the aftermath of a mistake. Do you panic and allow it to snowball? Do you get back on the proverbial horse? Do you address or alter your preparation and practice skills? The answer to this question is the magic ingredient that separates the good players from the great players.
I’m going to tell you a quick story that I have told VERY few people because I think this actually might help some of you understand the value of performance experience and the importance of amending your practice habits.
A few years ago I got a huge opportunity to play on an international tour with Maroon 5 as the keyboard player for Javier Colon (who won Season 1 of the popular U.S. TV show “The Voice” and was opening for Maroon 5). We toured all over the US, Mexico, and South America and I got to play in front of 40,000 people at a time. I had never played in front of that many people before.
So here I am, getting a chance to play in front of tens of thousands of people who are screaming in excitement to hear us perform, in these amazing venues and cities, with state-of-the-art sound systems, and I’m playing songs that I have been playing, and NAILING, for years (I had been playing with Javier before he won “The Voice” at different clubs around New York City). I mean, I could play these songs in my sleep. You would think I would be 110% ready for this moment, right?
Well, this was a completely new environment to me. As immensely excited and anxious as I was to play and step onto that huge stage in Mexico, I wasn’t ready mentally. I hadn’t prepared for how I would handle that environment. How could I? This was my first experience with such a thing. When I sat down at the keyboard to play, I went blank. I mean, I seriously went blank. Not a panic attack, and not a black-out. Just a blank memory bank where I found myself thinking things like, “Wait, what key is this song in again? What section comes next? What am I supposed to be playing here? How do I usually voice this chord? Ooh, that doesn’t sound right. Was that me or did the guitarist mess up? Maybe I should play softer so nobody will hear me mess up?” I was so hyper-conscious of my surroundings that I couldn’t get to the headspace where I was able to focus on simply playing the piano like I had done a thousand times before.
This happened on the second performance of the tour as well. I was sufficiently nervous by performance #3 and resorted to writing a little “cheat sheet” of the songs and chords and taping it to the side of the keyboard. This was music that I had been playing for at least two years with no sheet music and almost never making a mistake. It upset me greatly to have to use cheat sheets for songs I had never struggled to play. Everyone was congratulating me on having this amazing opportunity to perform with these amazing musicians in these beautiful international cities and I felt like I was blowing it the whole time. And the worst thing was that I started doubting myself as a pianist and musician, thinking “wow, if I can’t even get this right, with all the practice and preparation I’ve done… maybe I don’t have what it takes.”
By the end of the tour, I had figured out most of my issues. I was able to play the last few shows with competence and bask in my temporary rock-star status. But my opinion of my own playing was very low and I felt wounded by those early performances. People wanted to see videos of the tour and I was apprehensive to show them for fear that they would hear and see my mistakes. It took me a little while to watch those videos myself.
So here are the lessons that I want to pass on:
1. All the practice room preparation in the world had not prepared me for performing on that type of stage. There was no substitute for what I needed most – experience. How do you get more experience in staying mentally focused and able to execute even despite your stage fright or performance anxiety? Answer = more performances, as much and as often as you can. No gig is too big or too small.
2. Whether you’re practicing or performing, try to not let things snowball out of control. The pros make mistakes and they recover quickly, not letting it rattle them. Just like in basketball, good shooters have bad days, but they also have short memories. They never remember their last missed shot, they just keep thinking about making their next shot.
3. It’s never as bad as it seems. I eventually showed some videos of the performances to my friends and what I was surprised to learn was that neither they nor I was really able to hear the mistakes that I thought were so grossly obvious!
4. Here’s the big take-away from my experience: I adjusted my practice in order to better prepare myself for the challenges of those big gig, high-pressure situations. But this idea of adjustment can apply to your preparation and planning for any musical setting. I never thought I would need to use cheat sheets. It upset me greatly when I felt I had to resort to them, but I had lost my confidence and no longer trusted my instincts (translation: my ears). Looking back, using cheat sheets hindered my playing because it kept me from settling in, gaining some experience, and listening to my playing and that of my bandmates. Putting a cheat sheet in front of me actually caused me to read music that I already had memorized! Have you ever been to a rock concert? Have you ever seen any of the musicians reading their parts? Neither have I.
Now when I practice (especially when learning pop songs), I learn the tunes by ear FIRST, even if charts or sheet music are available to me. Figuring out tunes by ear definitely helps me commit the music to my long-term memory more quickly than reading. Singers oftentimes want or need to change keys for a host of reasons. So I now transpose songs up and down a half-step in preparation of this as part of my practice. Here are some other questions I often ask myself in order to feel fully prepared for gigs:
- Can I improvise over these changes in case I get asked to solo?
- Can I create a few harmonic substitutions that really sound slick?
- Can I play the bass player’s or guitar player’s part?
- Can I listen to the tune and know exactly when it switches to the verse, chorus, bridge, ending, etc.
These little challenges force my brain to look at the song from various perspectives, thus reinforcing how deeply I have the song learned. And as one of my heroes (Tom Brady) once said, “If you’ve done the preparation in your practice, the fun part is to go out and execute.”