Tulsa Guitar Lessons | Performance Anxiety
This content was created for Curtis Music Academy
If you are a specific type of person, then chances are you have experienced performance anxiety and different aspects of challenge as you have performed throughout the Tulsa area and guitar students are very likely to experience performance anxiety because typically if you play an instrument you are probably going to play it in front of others at some point in your life and if you have difficulty attempting to play songs in front of others, then this is something that can be a challenge. And even as a guitar instructor, I have experienced different levels of performance anxiety if throughout the course of my life and it just goes to show how it’s really not something that you just grow out of and as you get better and better at playing, it gets easier and easier. Although it’s true.
When you get better and you are able to perform without quite as much thinking and any challenges, then one of the things that can certainly help is to continue to grow as a musician because when you perform in front of others, it doesn’t get easier, but it does become more and more familiar as you play in front of others. You get familiar with the faster heartbeat that comes with the situation where you are about to perform. So lots of times you will experience strange things throughout your performance opportunities, but just keep with it because it gets easier not because it goes away, but because you’ve become more and more familiar with the situation that arises. So if you are taking Tulsa guitar lessons and you are someone that wants to get better at playing in front of people and minimizing the performance, then what you can do is schedule different situations to allow yourself to
get better at performing. So we’re going to be talking about a few different things that you can do to schedule performance opportunities into your life. The first is find out all of the different places that have open mic nights in your area. And here in Tulsa we have at least five different places that have a weekly open Mike night. A lot of times open Mike Nights. We’ll also include poetry or comedians and depending on your environment that you pretty for some venues and some places that have open mic nights will be more appealing than others. There is one specific place here in Tulsa that I do not like going to open mic nights because what ended up happening was we had a comedian show up one night and this comedian was just folder. He wasn’t even funny.
He was just vulgar and terrible and not funny. And so you have to be careful because this specific place encouraged that type of behavior and I really didn’t appreciate it. And so if you are looking for music to play and you have a specific vibe that your songs are going for, try and find a place that helps encourage the specific type of environment that you want to be playing your songs in. So if you are somebody that plays songs very similar to Taylor swift when she was 15 years old and this sweet little girl and you go into a open mic night where there’s a bunch of drunk people, you’re probably not going to be received very well. Likewise, if you are a metal guitarist and you’re screamo type person, then walking into a coffee shop where people are just trying to relax probably isn’t the best place to perform.
So make sure that the atmosphere that you’re performing in is similar to the atmosphere that your songs are producing. That way it’ll be a lot easier for you to get up there and perform rather than trying to fight the audience into listening to you. And if you’re in the right environment, people will be encouraged and they will want to hear more, which will help you to enjoy playing at that specific place. So performance anxiety will be minimized by finding the correct place to perform it. And then lastly, if you have a interesting group of friends or if you have close family, then you could use your family and friends to test your music and hear what their thoughts are. This can be very tricky for some people.
There are people like myself that absolutely hate playing in front of their family and that’s just because they’re my family and I don’t need to impress them. I don’t really want them to hear what I sound like. So that’s just me. But if you would like to play in front of your family, that is something that you can do throughout taking Tulsa guitar lessons to have other people give you encouragement and to hear all about the different things that you are learning and as you continue to play, one thing that you’re likely find out is in your Tulsa guitar lessons. The chances are your instructor will provide opportunities for you to share your hard work. Here at Curtis Music Academy, we have four different opportunities throughout the year to provide places for you to play at.
And if you are interested in playing at recitals or playing at open mic nights, then I would encourage you to speak with your guitar instructor in Tulsa and find out what resources are available to you as you take Tulsa guitar lessons because you certainly will be benefited from having the opportunity to perform and share others all of your hard work. And I think that’s something that you should consider as you take Tulsa guitar lessons because performing is something that is very important to motivating you to continue to play your instrument. So sign up for your first introductory lesson at Curtis Music Academy and we will reveal to you all of the resources that are available and how often our recitals, our, and our performance opportunities. And we’ll get you plugged in at the very next one. As soon as you start taking Tulsa guitar lessons.