January 2024 Guitar Newsletter : Celebrate Your Artistic Accomplishments!
As we head into the New Year I hope you can look back at 2023 and celebrate your accomplishments. Whether you have started learning an instrument or upped your practice routine, found musicians to play with or opened your musical palette to new genres, we are all a work in progress, and celebrating and acknowledging growth is healthy. For me, overcoming a late onset of performance anxiety, getting back into playing out and reconnecting with the local live music scene was a victory. With much self- reflection, I realized that over the years I had set myself up for the perfect storm. Deep down, I had a grand desire to perform and yet was confronted with an endless barrage of self-criticism, which ultimately froze any forward momentum. Thank goodness for my wife and friends who helped me talk things through. I am afraid that the only hope to get through that jungle is deep introspection, reading what experts have to say about this topic and coming up with a game plan.
As a musician pursues goals, obstacles will arise. The biggest ones are fear and doubt as a performer. In fact, I feel bold enough to say that anybody who is not engaging in some kind of communal artistic pursuit is not doing so because of one reason: The fear of not performing well enough and thus feeling humiliated or rejected in front of an audience. This is one of the great paradoxes of artists. On the one hand, we all strive for perfection in what we are doing, and on the other, it is very likely that those expectations are too high.
If you are prone to stage fright and yet are drawn to share music or express yourself in any way, shape or form, I would like to offer some advice. Lower your expectations and seriously work on how to stop caring what others think of you. Years ago this advice would have sounded harsh to me, but now I see it in a completely different light. This is by no means a green light not to care about other people, but it is a green light to care about yourself and to tap into your very own creative DNA. How sad is it that so much of art is often a carbon copy of what others were bold enough to do. The arts will always need innovators and artists who are able to “be themselves.” The inevitable side of walking your own creative path is that you will go through turmoil as you get out of your comfort zone. This looks different to all of us, but it feels the same. We need to see others doing this to inspire us, and we ourselves should get out of our comfort zones and bless others by setting an example.
Do not think this experience is going to be safe. Interacting with people and sharing a genuine artistic journey is VERY intimate, and you will have to make yourself vulnerable. That’s OK. Move through disappointments and keep going with determination. Bob Dylan personified this spirit when he decided to go electric and more than upset his fan base. Robbie Robertson, the guitarist for “The Band,” describes this period, (1965-1966), in detail in his autobiography poignantly titled Testimony. Keep playing “no matter what” was Dylan’s mantra night after night when the musicians found themselves booed off stage by very disgruntled audiences (171). It took nearly a decade for that music to be understood and gain a more appreciative audience. You can hear this on "Before The Flood" recorded live 1974.
Besides getting a bit of a thicker skin, what I also took to heart this year was to acknowledge and celebrate musical victories. Being an initiator was a bold, first step. I stopped waiting around hoping things would happen. They didn’t. I made that phone call (or ten) and got the ball rolling. I said yes to any kind of playing opportunity. I began soaking up compliments about my playing, acknowledging any performance I was part of and meditating more on progress made and positive feedback received.
As with anything in life, nothing good happens without some hard work. Start logging your successes and occasionally review them so that your brain gets used to a new outlook and mode of conduct. Look at your schedule and be realistic on how to go about your ambitions, and take it step by step. Don’t avoid doing the hard things first. In my case, that was getting back in touch with musicians. Hard to understand in hindsight but somehow there was almost a phobia of getting too close to other musicians, and I am so glad to have overcome this! Playing music and getting into the arts is such a source of joy and gives meaning and structure to our lives.
Wishing you all the best for 2024 and may it be a year of great artistic growth for you!
Chris
