this just occurred to me yesterday, after listening to a gig from thursday night. when i was playing a long solo (improvised, about a minute long, which is a long time to improvise in front of a crowd), while i was playing it, i was concentrating very hard on playing clearly and moving from phrase to phrase and putting emotion into my playing. of course, removed from playing, just listening without a million things flying through my head, i could hear the whole solo, how it evolved, what was good and what was bad about it. and the thing is, i realize that my thoughts are completely distorted. all the errors seemed magnified a million times when i'm up there, and stuff that has no meaning takes on significance.
anyway, how do you get perspective on your playing? especially in front of a crowd, my mind is a maelstrom. everything takes on wierd, twisted meanings.
I try to get some perspective by listening to recordings of my playing -- especially the improvised solos. I find that I may start out cringing at some things I consider mistakes. But then I try to forget what I was expecting of myself -- or intending to do, and listen many times over the period of days or weeks. If I get used to what I hear, even to the point of anticipating those little "nuances" that I once considered warts, then I usually feel it was a good piece. If I keep cringing no matter how many times I listen, then I know it really did suck.
Second thing is this: Live improv is very different from precomposed soloing. If I really want to create a good improv piece, I cannot always play it safe. And that means I will suck now and again. Sometimes badly. But usually it's so painfully obvious, it's funny. And even I have to laugh. Better that than safe, boring and uninspired.
-=tension & release=-
Jason
It is pretty normal for guitar players to be their own worst critic. I have played many solos in front of crowds I thought were dreadful, only to have a fan come up later and tell me how great they thought the solo was.
So, what we hear, and what the crowd hears is not the same. We are expecting perfection, which we do not get of course, the crowd is expecting music and originality, which they do get.
I was in a band a few years back with another guitar player. During a solo, his pick cracked and got stuck in the strings. This made all sorts of terrible sounds. Finally, he yanked the pick out, which made a loud BOING! type note.
He came up later feeling terrible and telling us what had happened. He thought it was horrible.
But I told him no, that was awesome! That was the best part of the solo, especially the loud boing!
And I meant it. It sounded great to me.
You just have to let go when you play solos. Don't think so much about it. If you worry, it will translate to your fingers. Your solo will sound forced and stressed. No, you have to relax and just go for it. You might hit some bad notes, so what?? Sometimes a bad note is the best note in a solo.
Just go with what you feel at the time. It will be good because it is you, and nobody else. Nobody else can play what you play, the way you play it. And this is what people like.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
