Thoughts on Fingerstyle Performance - Part 1 of Many
Mental Blanks and Noodling

Fingerstyle guitar is a particularly challenging thing to do in front of other people. There seem to be a lucky few that just take to it naturally, but for most of us it is far from easy. Add to this the task of thinking up stuff to say between songs, and things look even harder. I figured out a few things that make it a lot easier over time, so thought I'd start a thread to write about it here. The first topic is avoiding total disasters during the set.

The first thing about fingerstyle guitar is to accept that a lot of mistakes will happen. Worst of all is the dreaded mind blank. Sometimes you can sense it coming on, which just makes it worse, and then DADGAD blurs into a mess under your fingers. This happens to pretty much everyone. The trick is to have a plan-B ready for it. Ironically when you do this, it stops happening very much at all, suggesting that it is just fear of disaster that brings it on.

A good Plan-B is noodling. The great thing about noodling is that by definition you're not paying much attention and can practice it while watching DVDs or whatever. The reason is that when a mental blank hits in an unfamiliar tuning, you're finished. Repetitive practice in an unfamiliar tuning can even make things worse, as you're performance is dependent on continuity in the tunes. As soon as a single part fails, you're off the rails and it's difficult to come back in.

The trick is to just let the blank hit and have a bit of a noodle in the general area of the tune. For each tune in the set, practice leaving the tune at random points to start noodling. Most important is to keep the pace of the song steady and stick to simple themes in the same key of the song. Most people won't even notice as long as you keep it together and keep the continuity going. It could almost be called "improvising". Most important though is don't ever stop playing. As soon as you stop in the middle of a song, it's a long way back to recovery. In the worst case, at least noodle to an ending.

Occasionally though, it all goes sideways and recovery isn't possible. There are several reasons this can happen, for example after a tuning/capo change you might have a string slightly out and it can throw you right off. I think it's best to stop a song early on and let the audience know you need to fix the tuning. If you do decide to finish the song, the worst thing is to play it badly because you're out of tune anyway. All the more reason to play it well. A tendency is to rush to the end when a tuning problem hits, but again that just makes the song worse. 

Keep a handful of recovery tunes up your sleeve in case you ruin a tough song. All the better if these songs have a bit of a tried and trusted joke attached, so you can take a break from the guitar. Also take note of any songs that consistently cause problems during your set. Some tunes, not always the most technically difficult, just seem to be trouble-makers. For me, the faster tunes are much easier as they tend to be more mechanical. The slower ones have more variation on similar looking fingering patterns which can get confusing under pressure.

So there's just a few ideas to start this thread off. I'll keep adding to it as it's a really interesting topic. Cheers.