I had my lesson with Justin last night. Pure gold. My heart is filled with so much appreciation for the time he spent with me.
Buying an electric guitarIt’s a super personal thing. Might not be the most expensive it’s about finding the vibe. The most important thing is that I like it, how it looks, how it feels against my body and in my hands, how it plays. Look at second hand guitars. Buying a new guitar is like driving a car, as soon as you drive it, it’s lost value. Justin buys most of his guitars second hand.
Electric guitar posture.With an electric I can’t rest the forearm on the top as you do with an acoustic. If there is a jumper in the way the muscles in the upper arm have to hold the arm up. Roll sleeves up so the skin on the forearm creates friction with contact with the guitar for a grip.
Stage FrightFirst step is to figure out where the problem comes from. I’ve done that. It’s like plotting a course, make it incremental or some throw themselves in the deep end, face the nightmare, do an Open Mic. Gentler would be to do it for a small group of friends and family. Awesome and super courageous that I’ve faced my fear with my first Open Mic last year.
Almost everyone he has met who performs, including himself, feels these feelings. Dry mouth, sticky hands, elevated heart rate. All a normal reaction. Learn to recognize this collection of feelings that would be categorized as nervousness or anxiety as being normal feelings. Even Keith Richards and people who’ve done a gazillion shows talk about these feelings. Keith said ‘
Oh my hands are sticky, it’s time to go on’. It changed Justin’s perception of these feelings. ‘
Oh I've got butterflies, I’m about to do that thing that I really love doing. This is a precursor that I’m about to do the thing I like to do’.
Expect those normal feelings. The only thing that can muck it up is the mind games, the psychological response.
My motivation is that I’m doing the thing the thing I love that connects me with others.
Posture and Stage FrightI played a song I wrote last year, haven’t posted a recording of it as yet. It’s called Hope Dies Last.
To say I was nervous would be an understatement. It's taken me months to find the guts to make a lesson time with Justin. How he made any sense of my incoherent babbling is testament to his perceptiveness and talent. It was some of the worst stage fright I've experienced.
When I'm nervous I can't lift my eyes from the guitar or look at anyone. It took me most of the song to be able to lift my head and look at Justin. This song I play with my eyes closed very often. I have no need to look at the fret or my right hand.
Never hold a flag up and make something I’m not happy about obvious to the audience. No flagging mistakes, no commentary, no shaking my head if a chord doesn’t go right. It’s habit forming, the more I do this when I practice the more it becomes a habit. Then it becomes more likely to happen when I play for an audience. Get out of the habit. If the audience thinks I’m not happy with what I’m doing, this interferes with the connection with them, it can break the connection. If it becomes part of my practise routine it becomes part of my performance.
The self critical commentary breaks my connection with the song, and the guitar and if I’m performing, the audience. The same thing applies with recording. When I practice, practice being in my happy place. It’s a place where nothing matters. It doesn’t mean that nothing is important. The space of Nothing is important. When I play, get to a place of playing where I’m not thinking about anything, it just happens. Get lost in this place.
Practise is to automate it so I can switch into that other zone, a place of nothing. It’s very much like the space called meditation. Thoughts come and go, it’s an empty place but it’s not.
Stop looking at my hands when I change chords. The frantic motion of looking at every chord change takes me out of my happy place. Constant head movement gives me an air of not being confident. It makes the connection weird. I don’t need to do this with either hand. As my head moves back and forth, this squeezes the voice box, mic won’t pick me up. Play in a black room, blindfold myself, close my eyes. Build up my confidence doing this over the months ahead. There are times I’ll need to look, a big jump, something complicated, when something goes wrong.
Future DirectionI've been feeling lost and to be honest, like a loser going backwards at a rapid rate.
Writing and the creative thing are the strongest drives in me. A specific course eg Jazz Chords, Blues Improv isn’t really compatible with my goals. The most inspiring would be to continue to learn songs I love and as I find things in the songs that I love, explore them further eg drop D. Look at how I can use these chords in my own songs.
Recording is a good adventure for me. It gives me something tangible I’ve made in a few hours. That builds a sense of achievement and progress. The feedback can be enlightening and super valuable. Don’t let it be a self-critical thing. Allow it to notify me.
This next bit is pure gold. Tears mist my eyes every time I read it. It brings an enlightenment and an expansive perspective that gives me permission and impetus to grow with grace, ease and joy in my own way. I'm liberated from feeling driven by the lists of all the things I should be learning and mastering and never getting there.
Let go of the idea of having to progress in a linear fashion. Just because someone can play fancy s***t doesn’t mean they’re a better musician. It’s an art. Find the things that resonate with me. Focus on those rather than thinking I need to be better. Do things that are fun. I can improve myself and how I sound, how well I get in the zone, how I express myself in the zone. It’s about learning things that resonate with me and exploring those things, finding things I think are really cool, and absorbing them into my palette of things I can use when I write.
Thankyou Lieven and Richard for putting my name forward, thankyou Justin for this precious gift you've given me. 
Topic: The 1-to-1 Sessions ... (Read 49007 times)
