I signed up my band for a talent time at my church camp(becuz, why not), and one of the songs I chose is YYZ by Rush. I practice the song everyday, I know it like the palm of my hand, and I don’t seem to have any problems playing wise…but Every time, I feel scared that something might happen on the day itself…idk what, but something might, and I feel that I need some advice to cope with this stage fright, before the stage fright…Help
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This is adjacent to music but might be of some use. While I’m generally fine with speaking in front of crowds last year my friends asked me to officiate their wedding and I definitely had some nerves.
What helped calm me down was making peace with knowing I was going to probably make a mistake or two. As long as I didn’t let it get to me I’d be able to recover and just focus on enjoying the moment. And honestly it worked! I flubbed a few things but nailed all the important bits and nobody was the wiser. Coincidentally I’m seeing those friends tomorrow actually!
Best of luck at the talent show! You got this 
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I’ve spent most of my life in front of people: teaching classes, speaking at conferences, selling consulting services to CEOs and their Boards of Directors, acting in theater productions, and on and on. I’m more comfortable speaking to a crowd than I am speaking one-on-one. That said, I always get butterflies before I go on. What I do is think about the first 10-15 seconds. How do I start? What do I say? Getting started is the hardest part. Once I get going, I’m on cruise control.
So, I suggest that you don’t think about the entirety of the gig, just the first 4-8 bars. Get started and then let your practice and muscle memory take over.
Worth a try.
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Remember you’re there to have fun, and you’re part of a band so the pressure is not 100% on you. You might make a mistake, and that’s ok because you’re human and we all do it. You know the song, so I think once you get started and in the groove you’ll forget about the audience and just have fun playing music. You got this!
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- You will make mistakes. Acceptance is the 1st step to recovery.
- Fine motor skills always diminish under stress. Use it to your advantage, start slow and simple and find your groove. It actually helps build tension in the music, making the resolution later in the song more impactful and dramatic.
- Simply being up on the stage, you’ve already won the battle. Very, very few of the people in the audience have the courage and skill to do what you are doing up there. Enjoy your moment.
- Nerves only last for a few seconds unless YOU allow them to control you longer.
- Remember why you’re there in the 1st place. It’s for fun and enjoyment. I’ll say that very few people on this board are relying on playing bass to make ends meet. Yes we want to sound perfect and professional, but at the end of the gig, the couple of dollars you earn isn’t life altering. Usually it just feeds your GAS. The real compensation is the personal enjoyment and satisfaction of being able to express yourself through music. For me specifically, my joy comes from watching people dance, knowing that the dancers shaking their asses are directly correlated to my right and left hands.
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Thank you all for such great advice! it is all greatly appreciated!
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Yeah this 
It should be low stakes fun. Like you’re not going to get your house repossessed if you’re late coming back into the chorus.
Fun fact - I’ve found after a year of gigging. As long as you’re playing in time the notes, don’t matter.
I mean they do, but because it’s buried in the overall mix and it’s such a low register as long as you just keep playing and stay in time you’re gold. A couple of wrong / missed notes won’t be noticed.
You’re going to make mistakes, that’s part of playing live. It happens, move on.
I played in the wrong key for the first half of the song once. 
Our guitarist was cracking up, mouthing the letter D to me.
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I love it. 
Been there. Done that. The BL took my t-shirt away. 
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In my defense (albeit a very poor one) the singer changed the key the night of the gig.
I just started on autopilot thinking ‘wow someone sounds off’ 
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if you have the ok to do it and you want to i think it can be helpful to actually step up to the mic, say it’s your first time on stage and you might eff it up so don’t get mad at me. kind of break the ice and if you do make a mistake, easier for you and everyone else to have fun with it. i mean it is only a song, not brain surgery. mistakes are ok, we can learn from them and they can be a lot of fun even.
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Jan and Dean actually worked that into their gigs after Jan suffered a brain injury in a really serious car accident near Deadman’s Curve. I went to see them at a casino around Gary, IN. Whenever Jan f’ed up a lyric, the drummer would blow a whistle and Jan and Dean and rest of the band would crack up. They turned a handicap into a show stopper. It was great! Lots of respect for Jan Berry and the tremendous amount of work he put into learning to speak and walk again and relearning the lyrics to songs he wrote.
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The best advice I can give you is live music sometimes has it’s hiccups. Be confident you’ll have a good run and if something happens just keep going. I catch mistakes a lot in my band but play through them and later I’m told by people out front they never knew.
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Someone? All of them
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Well it couldn’t be lil’ old me, right 
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I’d have blamed the drummer.
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That’s probably the correct answer.
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Sounds like blaming the dog when everyone is holding their nose and looking your way.
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Butterflies suppose to be there every time before you step on to the stage. You may not be able to harness that power on your first few dozen performances but when you do, it’s like being inducted into a fraternity of assassins , you’ll be able to enjoy the sensation on the stage.
You can have a musical conversation with your bandmates and most likely pull off a few fills that you usually can’t do at practice. Kinda like mountain bike racing, you can’t never really rev your heart rate into the red zone during practice intentionally during practice but the Race can do that to you under 60 seconds.
The best part of having experience on stage performance is, nobody knows when you messed up. Less than 5 people in the crowd of hundreds know you had a bummed note as long as you keep playing the groove. Not even your bandmates know you F’ed up unless it’s the one thing you’ve been advertising that you can’t do during rehearsal,
Believe me, I’ve played the entire song in the wrong keys more than a few times and no one has ever asked me if that’s supposed to be in Bm. Just have fun and enjoy the experience.
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Came here to say this
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I majorly screwed up on our opening song last night - I know I screwed up, but did anyone else really notice? Not really. Keep playing move on and laugh!
I think the key things to manage nerves are:
- practice and know your material. This is the same whether playing bass, or presenting in front of audiences, or for that matter, taking exams back in the day. If you’ve internalised what you need to do, you can generally recover from the fluffs
- don’t overthink the mistakes, they will happen. Move on…
- know where you are going to start each song, and here I mean the specific note. This song starts on the B, this one on an A, this one on a D. I actually have the song key written on our set list. It’s not that I don’t know it, it’s that if I have a momentary lapse, I can just glance down, ah yes!
- if you know the song, muscle memory takes over. It’s cool, your fingers (or pick) just seem to do the do!!
- accept that nerves settle - you get into the groove and you’re away. Once I was past song one last night, while I did make further mistakes, they were not too bad, and remember you’re typically only one fret away from a “right” note
- oh, and this is a very personal one. Drugs and / or alcohol are not an answer to nerves - if you do, then don’t before a performance. Personally, I am a hard ‘no’ to both, so it’s not a choice I have to make, but I’ve seen others try to dampen nerves this way. It doesn’t work, it simply dulls the senses.
A final thought, there is actually a huge thrill surfing the waves of nerves. It’s a hell, yes, kind’a thrill, I’m in control! I’m riding this wave!!!
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