Man.. I love Just Nick videos. When I saw the title of his latest video – “Don’t be a Douchebag Guitarist”, well, it got my attention. Initially I was excited to hear what he had to say about classic DBag guitar moments (playing guitar behind your head, the guitar flip, etc), but I was shocked to find that I was guilty as well.
Let’s watch the video first:
The first lesson was to take a compliment. And man.. I’ve been so guilty of this before. It was good to point it out, identify the problem, and correct it. I’ve played many times where the sound on stage was rough and tough, and when I played quite sloppy. I’ve been that guy that got off stage and received a compliment, and immediately complained about my performance and the rough stage sound. In retrospect, I think it’s because I want to fling out excuses due to.. embarrassment. I mean you want to walk off stage with that feeling of totally killing it, and that doesn’t always happen.
I think this is similar to messing up on stage and not *acting* like you messed up. I remember early on in my guitar life, a mess up.. would mean I would stop playing in disgust. Eventually, it turned into a frowny face (totally not a guitar face). A musician friend back then said “never let the audience know you messed up”. I worked on that, and it’s not a problem now. But, I have to admit, I have walked off stage and let people know my performance sucked. Thanks Just Nick.. I’ll work on that. It’s about the crowds’ enjoyment, and now about how my personal performance meant to me when interacting with the audience post-show.
Are any of you guilty of this? Let me know your thoughts by commenting below!