Thoughts on Fingerstyle Performance - Part 2 of Many
Disasters

This is installment 2 of an ongoing series about fingerstyle guitar performance. After a few responses to part 1, I think it's time to look harder at why things go wrong during a gig, and where the potential disasters lie.

Disaster 1: Too Fast !

Playing a solo guitar gig is like entering a bizarre time warp where one minute of guitar goes past in 39 seconds. Even when you think you're going slow, it's usually too fast. This is one of the main reasons things don't work out like they do in practice at home. And to make things worse, you can't tell it's happening.

This is probably the single biggest cause of on-stage disasters. The best way to stop it happening is to spend time practicing with a metronome. The goal is to get that tempo deeply engrained so you can actually hear the metronome in your head when you play the song. Rhythm is a much under-rated topic for solo guitarists, even with the slowest lullabies. When practicing my song "The Fisherman", the tune only started to work after playing against a metronome with 1/32 notes clicking away madly. Considering the tune is a slow aire, this was quite a surprise.

A nasty situation occurs when you enter part of a tune and start to speed up. Looming ahead is the tricky part that you know you can't manage at this speed. It's very difficult to steady an increasing tempo, let alone gradually pull it back. So why not practice this at home, and have some preparation when it inevitably happens on stage ? Start sections too quickly (or slowly) and experiment with bringing the tempo back and forward at will.

Disaster 2: No Margin for Error

When is a tune really ready to play in the set ? My test is to stumble out of bed and try to play it without any warm up. For me this is roughly the same as sitting down to play a gig. Apart from the fuzzy mental state, it tests the margin for error that the tune has when the hands aren't really moving well. Without a little slack, you're headed for disaster.

There are so many variables that call upon some margin for error. Sweaty hands is the first one. Playing outdoors in Broome, Western Australia on a balmy summer night is great fun, but it's also a bit muggy and pretty quickly the guitar strings get clogged up. At the other extreme it might be a frosty morning gig. Or a light is shining at your eyes and so on. By all means, have plenty of challenging stuff ready to roll when everything clicks into place. But don't bank on it. Keep a set of tunes ready that you can play underwater.

Disaster 3: Brain Freeze

This whole thread started with some ideas about avoiding the dreaded mental blank. There's a whole range of things your brain does to conspire against you. One of the worst is to start thinking during a song. I can't think of any productive topic to think about while performing a tune, but there are a few special cases to avoid. On of the worst is to start asking the question "What will I play next ?". This is a complete disaster, because your brain might start comparing tunes by thinking about how they sound. "I think I need a quiet tune next, something that goes la de da la... ooops where was I ?"

Another bad idea to is trance out by staring at your guitar neck. Under the pressure of performing there is a tendency to zone in a bit hard on what you're playing and it ends badly. If this starts happening, look around the back of the room a bit to relax a little. Breathing helps too, don't forget to breathe. As a general rule, if you need to stare at the guitar neck for the entire tune, it probably isn't ready to play yet.

Disaster 4: Tuning Problems

Changing tunings, or just repairing slight tuning drifts is just as much part of a gig as the songs. As such, avoiding disaster means practicing these things at home just like you would a tune. And like playing a song, getting nervous can make a tuning problem escalate into a horrid 5 minutes of twanging at the audience. So, never let a slight tuning error go unfixed when practicing, and work at getting between tunings quickly.

Some tuning changes are very difficult. For me DADGAD to CGCGCD is the only one I attempt, and I much possible prefer to start with DADGAD. Capos are also a big tuning problem. NEVER start a song after a capo shift without checking the tuning. The bass strings tend to go sharp. If it seems impossible to get the guitar tuned, try taking the capo off altogether and start again.

Another cause of un-tunable guitars is if the strings have drifted away from concert pitch. What you think is DADGAD is actually a semi-tone lower. This happens when changing between tunings or if it is warm. Finally, dead strings are difficult to tune as the nice harmonics have all worn away.

Disaster 5: Airing a new tune on stage

You can practice a tune 1000 times at home, only to find it unplayable on stage. The first few times with a new song are prone to disaster. With other people in the room, there must be some change in brain chemistry which affects how your memory works. I say this because even quite difficult pieces become much easier on stage after 5-10 airings.

Even playing a tune in front of your friends, wife etc... is a good idea to gauge whether it's ready to debut. Remember you have to get through the song from start to finish, which is something easily forgotten in practice.