If there is one thing I’ve gotten worlds better at when comparinng myself now to the me of a few years ago, it’s rolling with the punches. I’m not as easy to phase.
It is what it is but I’m going to make sure it’s fucking awesome if I have any say in the matter. And when things don’t go as well as I hope, they usually turn out OK because I made the effort I could make.
I’m less consumed by “what if’s”.
There is no need to fear failure because the more you fail, the less scary it becomes. And I’ve failed a whole lot.
This is the least prepared I have ever been for a performance. It’s also the least nervous I have ever been.
The leak and construction in my apartment made it very hard to practice and I did everything I could, so what is the point of worrying?
Part of this confidence comes from the fact that I DID prepare a whole lot, not for this particular performance but for the kind of performance I will do.
I prepared a lot in building the skills needed to give the performance I want to give.
I spent 3 months this summer drilling non stop to be able to play scales bettwr which made jamming on stage possible. I got a loop pedal and learned how to use it well enough.
I got better at rolling with the punches. That’s what I focused on improving, my ability to go with the flow.
I want the show to be laid back so why should I be stressed out about not remember the lyrics to a new song? I can look at the lyrics while I sing, not something I usually do but it’d fine. I could make up some of the lyrics as I go too. What does it matter if the song sounds great?
If anything I feel the song is so awesome it will blow people away, and my friend who is playing with me will also blow my friends away and I will blow her friends away and we will all blow each other away.
My goal for the evening isn’t to make every moment sound great. I want half of it to sound great and the other half to be interesting. I want people to feel some moments deeply and others to cause reflection.
One thing i always try to so with ny performance is challenge the way we experience such things. I hate how so many bands play their best songs first and last and the meat of the show is just mediocre. I don’t like to hear songs that sound the same every time.
I like to change my songs so they sound different every time. Now that I jam and play electric guitar and acoustic too, a 3 minute accoustic song can turn into a 10 minute epic. For a longer song, sometimes I only performe a part of a song and add something new.
Today I will play 3 five minute songs but try to link them together in improvised interludes. The art isn’t just the song but its each unique expression of the song.
I feel so much freeer now that I realized mistakes aren’t a problem, it’s being able yo recover from mistakes that matters.
Something I learned from Victor Wooten is that if you hit a wrong note, according to the major, minor or most other scales, you move one note to the left or right and you have a very high peobability of being on a note that sounds good. If your second note sounds off too there is 100% certainty that the next note from there will fit into the scale.
This idea made jamming a whole lot less scary to me, especially when it helped me realize that some of my favorite jams are when bands play the wrong note and make an interesting recovery. You can hear it a lot in thr solos of a band like Mars Volta, where something sounds very dissonant but it fits into the melody well.
These may have been 100% intentional but I suspect that the first time Cedric played the solo he made a few mistakes (and by mistakes, I mean not what he was intending to play, and not part of the key he was in) but he worked to smooth them out and sound comfortable in the song. I think you can probably hear it a lot with Jimi Hendrix too.
Some of the best music does this!
This got me excited to jam and play solos more. I reaized jamming is just like life, we do the best we can with what we know and when we fall down we just get back up and keep going. If we get good at making mistakes, most people don’t even realize we’ve made them.
I have some plans to make the show a bit unusual as usual too, but those will remain a secret for now!
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in the age of perfect AI music, mistakes and imperfections are going to be the gems of experiencing music/art.
I'm not a musician, but I read a cool book once called "Zen Guitar". It talks about the journey of improving your skills and going from a white belt to black... but then also trying to get from black back to white... where mistakes are liberating and where effortlessness takes a lot of practice... your post seems to resonate that idea.
I hope you had an awesome performance, just as you were hoping to deliver.