Originally Posted by: KasperowI can only agree with this. Everytime I practice with my family around, they keep telling me it sounds amazing, yet I can't see any improvement compared to where I was when I started. Maybe I should consider listening to what others think of me instead of what I think of myself...

Amazing article, Wildwoman. Another very well-written post that's still as easily readable as the other articles you've written. Keep up the good job :)

Same here. My wife hears me practicing downstairs and tells me it sounds great. I kind of dismiss it thinking to myself "she's just overhearing what I'm doing and not really listening...blah blah blah...". I shouldn't do that though. Ultimately, you are playing for an audience. If they like what you are doing, then mission accomplished!!

In my personal experience I found allowing myself to be less than perfect was the key - I was way too hard on myself. Performing in front of an audience became much more enjoyable once I did that.

As far as flubs go - I started out with a major one. I played acoustic guitar in the contemporary choir for our church. We had piano, guitar, flute, violin, and between 5 and 10 singers. We had practiced together for a couple of weeks before making our debut at mass. It was all good. I'm feeling confident. So we start the opening hymn and I strike the opening chord. Immediately, I think "ugh, this sounds horrible. What is wrong!?!?!? I'm playing the right chords!!" It was a nightmare come true...seriously. The piano player looks at me like "what the heck are you doing!!!". So I stop, which I could do since the piano was the forefront instrument. I then realized the problem - I was supposed to be using a capo. So I slapped my capo on quickly and moved on...ahhhh, that sounds better!! Even with such a horrible mess up, I don't think the audince really noticed. And if they did, they soon forgot all about it.

So I learned 2 things that day - 1) You can recover from the most horrible mess up and move on and 2) to denote capo usage (along with the fret placement!) *prominantly* on the top of my sheet music! Never happened to me again.