The Garage Band Handbook - Chapter Three: Stage Setup Part Two

When you first start rehearsals you’re just trying to learn how to play your instrument. After a while you feel comfortable playing and you concentrate on playing the particular song correctly. After that, you’ll find that you no longer think about what you’re playing, your hands just play it themselves and at this point you’re starting to concentrate on your stage presentation. Now it starts to get real fun. Ever go to a concert and notice how the band doesn’t even seem to really be playing? Their hands are moving but they’re jumping around, looking out into the audience and having a good old time? That’s because they’ve reached the point where playing the music is so second nature to them that they can just let go and trust that their hands will play the right things at the right time. This comes after extensive live gigging but getting that second nature playing down can also come with rehearsal. Once you’re confident that you’re not going to suck, musically, then a lot of the stage fright will go away.          

  
    Remember, nobody knows how you’re suppose to sound, except you. If you make a mistake very few people, if any, are really going to notice. And if they do, it’s gone in a nanosecond and you have a few hundred notes left to make it up to them. What they will notice is the grimace on your face. If every time you hear a bad note you wince, the audience will read your visual cues a lot more than audio cues and that will register as a mistake. If you must show any reaction at all, smile. Make them think you did it on purpose, that’s how the song goes. They don’t know. Again, attitude goes a long way when it come to covering up a poor performance. A swaggering, confident demeanor lets you get away with a lot more than a stiff, highly concentrating exercise in musicianship. Just watch The Rolling Stones sometimes. They’re the masters of making a sloppy performance look cool.

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