The band I was in was second to last, which was both a good and bad placing. Good because the crowd was more packed because lots of people came late, but bad because all the other bands before us had played amazingly and set the standard really high.
Still, despite the nerves, we managed to get through it pretty well, and the crowd seemed to like it. Like pretty much all the gigs I've ever done (except Open Air last year) it seemed to go pretty fast. My favourite moment was when we played "In the still of the night" - an absolutely beautiful 50's ballad with some amazing harmonies in. It's just a really nice song to play.
Yet despite all the things which did go right, I was a little dissatisfied with my performance. I guess I let the nerves get the better of me, cos I rushed the second half of my guitar solo in the first song and it sounded horrible, and just a whole heap of other things weren't quite as polished as I wanted them to be. When I was onstage with Mayday I tended to jump around and go crazy, but I tried to be a little bit more reserved that night. Maybe that's why it felt weird...
Anyway, yesterday we had to watch back our performances, which were taped for us to critique. Which is an excellent way of improving your performance, I think! Still, I wasn't really looking forward to watching me fail onstage.
However, when it came to watching my band play, I was pleasantly surprised! My guitar solo actually sounded amazing! The transition out of it, which sounded so bad onstage, was barely noticeable in the recording as anything but bang on the money! While everything was really good, there were parts which were just plain awesome. And it was good cos it left me feeling encouraged as well as knowing what I could work at for the next performance.
I guess what I'm getting at here is there's always more than one perspective on things. While I could go into this in depth, for now I'm going to just focus on two: your own perspective, and everybody else's. Sometimes you think its not going so well. Maybe you lack confidence in yourself, don't think you're very interesting, or just feel like no one understands you. But sometimes the way you perceive things and what everyone else thinks of you are completely different. "Humans tend to focus on the negatives rather than the positives", as one of my lecturers told me today. So don't be too harsh on yourself. Sure, try and improve, but don't want to change so much that you end up hating who you are. Cos who you are is awesome. Everyone else can see it, and you can too.
I finish with some deep words from one of my favourite writers of all time, Matt Thiessan from Relient K:
"I've been convincing myself that I'm worthwhile
Cos I'm worth what I'll convince myself to be."
You're an amazing person, and don't ever forget it!
Peace out,
Jordan
No comments:
Post a Comment