Wondered if any other band members or musicians who may be on the forums who gig had any tips or comments on what they do/would like to do to relax the nerves before a show, whether it be casual local pub/bar gigs or something bigger!

I always drank one or two beers, it made me more relaxed without losing focus. Be careful not to drink too much of course.

Other than that, I always had some lick ready as a form of guitar-meditation. Something you can play over and over again without thinking about it too much, but with enough difficulty to keep you at your instrument and not bothering with the rest of the room.

An ounce of her...herring!

I stretch a lot and play card games with my wife before I hit the stage

A drink or two really, really helps. But if you're not into that then maybe some kind of relaxation technique, maybe listening to music. It works for plenty of sports people so why not musicians?

I was going to suggest a gram of can..ned beef.

I usually just spend an hour or so warming up...I have this beat that I play (I'm a drummer) that means I'm warming up, but at the same time it's kinda like a form of meditation...after playing that same thing for around 15mins, I'm usually completely relaxed and ready to perform. For anyone who knows it, I loop from the 31sec mark to the 50sec mark in the intro to Not Now, by Blink 182. It's an old song, because I've used the same beat to warm myself up since I started playing...don't ask me why, but it helps!

So my advice would be to find a piece of music you really enjoy playing, and just play it. If you're playing because you have a passion for music, it should hit you where it needs to and everything will flow from there. Also, I agree with a couple of pints before a gig, depending on your threshold. I usually have around 8 pints to get me fairly 'tipsy', so a quarter of that will just take the edge off. Of course, the last gig I played was at a private girls school, so I couldn't really drink first!

I haven't exactly been a musician but I've performed talent in front of an audience and my advice is just to practice to a point where you feel confident enough in yourself not to feel stressed in front of an audience. When you think your task is easy, your fears melt away. I wouldn't recommend drinking as that is just false confidence, a false confidence that can even make your performance worse. What you want is true confidence, you want to go out there, hear people cheer in awe at your skill, yet still think that what you are doing is easy even if a crowd full of people think it's not. So start practicing to the point where you no longer feel impressed at yourself for performing your music, then you know you are ready to play in front of a crowd without fear.

This was pretty much going to be my exact response. Of course, confidence will keep going up with more beers, but motor skills will go out the window; I have literally been too drunk to play guitar, which is hilarious, but thankfully I was just at a party and not a performance.

If you start performing regularly, you'll probably get used to it and not even need to worry about it, but it is good to warm up as others have mentioned; I find I normally can't play my best unless I'm at least 30 minutes or an hour into practicing.

It was always my ritual to smoke a cigarette before playing a show. It made me feel like a total bad ass at the time and because I didn't smoke every cigarette gave me a killer buzz. Looking back on it though, (probably around 5 years ago) ...it was a pretty stupid ritual.

No offence, but that sounds pretty naive. Pre-gig fears (for me) are nothing to do with being confident that I wont mess up, and playing a good gig is only 50% skill - at most - anyway. It's not like a talent show where you just have to have a good voice/play the right notes and that's enough, it's a performance where you have to leave the audience thinking you were awesome. Not to mention the added nerves that come from playing your own material to people who are (probably, at this stage) unfamiliar with it and will be inherently critical.

Which is why I, like most other people here apparently, have a couple of drinks. Not talking false confidence levels - just enough to calm your nerves.

http://www.theatrgroup.com/Method/relaxation.html

Fantastic, have a gig at a local pub tonight its our first headliner! Thought it would be a fun topic to shoot some ideas around in since it was relevant,



I agree with your point here, there's always that worry beyond your skill and proficiency that's simply the audience itself, strange business for performance based activities/careers as it can fall down to the taste of audience members alot of the time. Currently worrying about completely ruining Black Sabbaths Paranoid for the older pub goers!

One or two pints, concern myself with the levels and acoustics of a venue, go over the set in my head, talk to the people I'm with. It's awful, but the more I ignore the audience the better it is for me. I'm a half-decent guitarist when I don't think anybody is paying attention to me. Don't do this if you're a one-man act, it's not so bad to have one rather distant member of a band, but a full band that ignores the audience isn't good

This is my plan. I've never played a show on guitar before All up in the front and such..

also like a lot of other people said 2-3 drinks is perfection. If it's easy to play though then possibly more

If it's a worry of your charismatic performance but not your skillful performance then it's a matter of being able to just not give a hoot about the opinions of others which is something you really can't get rid of without something to dull your mind like alcohol. You can prevent yourself from thinking too much about your audience before you just have to be there playing by doing something to distract yourself from the show like play cards or play some specific melody with your instrument, but you're still going to be left a little worried as you get on stage unless the pace of the performance doesn't allow you to spend time worrying about anything else than your performance.

I may be a little naive on the subject since I've always been one to put myself in the spotlight since I was a kid but a common theme with me is simply to psyche myself up into thinking I am awesome already. People pick up on your emotions and if your goal is to have them think you were awesome then you yourself have to think you are awesome, and before you hit the stage. Just best not let it go too far and act like you are much better than you are, just acknowledge your own skill and act accordingly.

I'm still not fond of drinking before performance, becoming reliant on something to dull your own mindset to be able to play is just a little sad, you'll never truly get past stage anxiety if you never allow yourself to be hit by it full force and if you don't allow yourself to get used to it and then past it. I'll get a lot of heat for saying this but I think it's weak, it's avoiding your problem, not taking it on.


Oh taste is to the audience, if you're going to take work that people already know and change it, then it doesn't matter how well you play, there may always be someone who doesn't like it just because you did change it.

As long as you play it right, something like that can't really go wrong, that song's a [censored] classic and it'll speak for itself

I'd come see you and enjoy it, anyway...