Tensing up (and messing up) when playing live

Zero Mercury Drummer

Senior Member
When you play live, do you find it much harder to play the things you can normally pull off no problem?
I get distracted playing live- I think way too much about the upcoming fill, and inevitably mess it up. Or recently I just locked up for a second or two and missed a beat. That never happens in practice.
One strategy I have is to remain completely in the moment, and concentrate only on the part I am playing, not thinking ahead to the next part.
I figure some of you guys must know what I am talking about. Any similar stories and strategies?
 
Keep playing. That's all I can tell you. You just gotta keep at it. And know your material.

I've been playing live for 15 years. I don't get nervous or tense up when we play live. I'm loose, relaxed, and having a good time.
 
There's a lot of factors that could yield a great/good/mediocre/bad performance. It's all about releasing your negative energy - trying to be as relaxed as possible. There's a book called 'Mental Toughness for Sports Training' by James Loche (original version) that's pretty good to read. Even though it is talking about sports and athletes, it still relates to us musicians/drummers.

Also, having the music you are playing memorized is very important.
 
Level of relaxation varies day to day for gigs.......just like in day jobs! No different. I find issues relating to access,setup and sound ckeck(or lack of) to be more stressful than playing issues. Denis
 
Surrender to the music. Let IT determine what you play. Just Surrender. Let the music flow through you, uncolored by you. As much as you think you do, you don't create the music. You are supposed to be an open conduit that the music flows through. Don't restrict the flow with your ego. Let your ego go and listen to where the song wants to go.

Tenseness and confidence are inversely related. There are no shortcuts. You have to play lots of gigs.

Quickest way to improve yourself?

Record every gig and listen afterwards and critique. (Preferably as a band, but do it regardless) If you haven't done this yet, there will be no shortage of things to critique.
When you hear it afterwards, and then remember how that song felt onstage, ...only then can you get an idea just how skewed your perceptions are. Until you record yourself and listen, if you are like most of the population, your perceptions will be skewed.

The good news is that improvement comes almost right away when you can hear yourself afterwards without having to perform, and you realize exactly what you are doing wrong.
 
I better leave this one alone!!! other then just go play and get it done! Doc
 
When you play live, do you find it much harder to play the things you can normally pull off no problem?
I get distracted playing live- I think way too much about the upcoming fill, and inevitably mess it up. Or recently I just locked up for a second or two and missed a beat. That never happens in practice.
One strategy I have is to remain completely in the moment, and concentrate only on the part I am playing, not thinking ahead to the next part.
I figure some of you guys must know what I am talking about. Any similar stories and strategies?

" I get distracted playing live- " well this is part of the deal of playing live. You have to know your material well enough that if you need to give "Eyes" to the sound man to catch there attention, or pick up a dropped stick while not stopping the drumming, or (as I do) have to run electronics next to your kit while playing, you need to have your act down well enough to handle the distractions, this is a training issue.

I give my drum students distraction training early on. I make them learn to keep playing when a stick goes flying, I give them tasks (like count the number of ceiling tiles above you) while doing complicated drum patterns without stopping. You mike think its "Nuts" but they all handle it really well - and someday when they get out in the real world of drumming they will have the mental dexterity to handle anything.

Now if you play fine in practice but you change playing live - you have to examine your thoughts - and ask yourself "What has changed about me" is it nerves, pressure, time schedule, being unprepared - ask yourself the tough questions, figure out how to deal with it, and move on. As someone said before - video yourself - you can get a large amount of feedback of what is going wrong.

Good luck, you asked for help - you are half way there to correcting your problem.

Cliff
 
Thanks for the tips. I always thought it was just the presence of the crowd. Lately we've been doing live webcasts where we have up to 100 people watching, but we can't see them. It's definitely different. But we still get nervous.
It's not a huge problem with me, but it did happen twice during our last webcast. The worst was just locking up for a second. My brain was very busy at the time, I remember. It's basically losing concentration.But I will work on it.
 
Learn to breathe deep while you play. At first it will feel awkward, but it will help alleviate tension and nervousness.

Also, trust yourself, and realize it's all about having fun..have confidence in yourself and if the audience is grooving, dancing and enjoying themsleves, then you're doing your job!!
 
Thanks for the tips. I always thought it was just the presence of the crowd. Lately we've been doing live webcasts where we have up to 100 people watching, but we can't see them. It's definitely different. But we still get nervous.

Nerves are inevitable. They say that people perform at around 70% in front of an audience. I put it down to quantum - that an event changes when it's observed :)

That goes for public speaking and other performance based things. That's a big reason why we need headroom. Unless / until I get right in the zone I always keep it simple when I play to an audience.

Agree with Larry about surrender. That takes the ego away and nervousness comes from our ego.
 
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