Failure

I don't have a video or anything of my performance a couple weeks ago at my church, but if I did I honestly might be too ashamed to show it...  I played a rendition of an old christian hymn 'In Christ There Is No East or West', and the show was undeniably the worst I have ever played in my life.  It was painful to hear.  It was 50 seconds of utter nonsense.  If I had any sense at all, I would have started over.  But I didn't.  I just kept floundering, trying to jump back on the rift.  Unfortunately, I never did, and after about a minute of chord guessing and plowing on with the lyrics, I just gave up.  And walked off the stage.  The audience clapped politely.

So, I guess I should specify exactly how it went down.  You see, the song I had planned was a simplified version based around the chords and melody that was in the hymnbook.  However, I wasn't satisfied with just repeating the song in the version it had always been played before.  I decided to write my own original intro by tweaking the melody a little and changing the chords to suit it.  I mean, this is how songs evolve, and it's not worth playing something everyone has heard before.

\But when it came down to it and I began the song, my voice sang the melody in the book, and my guitar played the chords I tweaked.  This mistake caused my song to train wreck, but instead of stopping the train I just kept driving, playing chords and guessing to get back on the tracks.

This experience was terribly embarrassing and discouraging, but all that means is that I have some major things to learn from it, in order for me to enjoy my shows.  So, even though it is painful to recall and analyze, I did and established the distinct reasons that caused my terrible performance.

• I did not practice the song within a half an hour of the performance.  This is important because it was not ingrained well enough into my mind
• I was too nervous getting up onto the stage.  I was out of breath, my mind was racing.  This was the problem that set all the others into motion.  I realize now how important it is to take a minute to calm yourself into a meditative state before you try to do it.  It is completely a state of mind.

So I suppose what I'm taking away from this terrible performance is the need to master my inner state.  The feelings of the performer shine through to the audience very clearly, and so I need to be happy and enjoying what I am doing in order for the audience to feel the same.