Do you ever get mental block when playing live? How do you deal with it

[markdavid]

I had a situation last night where I was playing live and I was confident before hand as I knew all the songs so I thought "this will be a breeze" , when I went on to play we played this song that is dead simple, a total of about 4 chords with a few bass fills here and there, however when we started this song my mind went totally blank for about the first 30 seconds of the song and I basically stayed on A for pretty much the entire 30 seconds, a little embarrassing for such a simple song, in retrospect I probably should have just played nothing for those 30 seconds and come in at the chorus, anyone else have moments like this ?

[Stylon Pilson]

Yes, this has happened to me once or twice in situations where I've been overconfident. Most recently was in December - we had prepared a couple of Christmas songs, one of which was Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade. We played it one week and it all went swimmingly, so I didn't practice it at all in preparation for the next week's gig. That night I learned that there are multiple levels of "learning". There's the level where you've gigged a song half a dozen times, and you can be fairly confident that it's sufficiently well lodged in your memory that you can easily go for a few weeks without forgetting it. But if you've only gigged it once, then it's a fragile memory, and a week is long enough to forget how the chorus goes.

S.P.

[gjones]

My philosophy is, when in doubt..........play nowt.

[ezbass]

It happens to me all the time and always when the on stage sound is poor and I can’t hear myself clearly.

[Newfoundfreedom]

I do it all the time at rehersals. I usually just shoot daggers at the guitarist so everyone else thinks he's playing the wrong chords. 😂

[Paul S]

Couple of times at gigs, few times at rehearsals.  The worst time was forgetting how the start of 'I Fought The Law' went, which at that point I had been gigging for around 5 years.  Complete blank until the first verse. 

[chris_b]

It happens.

Just do your best to catch up, look confident and the rest of the band should never draw attention to the guy who's messed up.

[Deedee]

36 minutes ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

I do it all the time at rehersals. I usually just shoot daggers at the guitarist so everyone else thinks he's playing the wrong chords. 😂

In my experience that’s what the guitarist usually does to the bass player when they pink torpedo up!

Edited February 7, 2019 by Deedee

[SH73]

When I used to gig my right hand fingers would barely move every now again. It was like one of those dreams when you can't run when chased.

[vantagepointrocks]

Thankfully it has so far only happened to me while playing guitar in a two guitar band, so was just a case of playing nothing for a bit, thus letting the other guitarist cover me while I tried and remember what it is I was supposed to be doing.

[Guest MoJo]

Occasionally I'll have a blank moment and with the benefit of hindsight, after the gig, I know should just drop out, but in panic mode, I try to find my way back in which inevitably makes it sound worse and highlights my mistake

[BassTractor]

Yes, it does happen sometimes, but when I then remember again, I just play my part from the very beginning but slightly faster, always making sure that I'm back in sync again just before the song finishes.
Sadly not everyone in the band understands or appreciates this very demanding and highly musical approach, but I think they too will develop given time. 

I know the singer will.
In fact she's already come far!

Edited February 7, 2019 by BassTractor

[Hobbayne]

This happened to me recently at a gig! 😢

We do Lenny Kravitz 'Go My Way' and if you know the song you will know there is a little bass lick before the guitar solo.

Mind blank

Cue complete silence from the bassist who pretended to fiddle with his guitar lead and eventually came back in. 😂

 

[stewblack]

I started playing the wrong song once. Mental block centred around associating the titles to the tracks. That was a car crash. I somehow mangled the intro of the Guns and Roses one into the Bon Jovi one (can't bring the titles to mind even now).

This is a genuine problem only really highlighted when I have to start the song.

I get around this by using ireal pro as my set list. That way the chords are there on my tablet as a reference which works on my brain in a way that song titles don't seem to.

Of course as it's a mental problem, now I can at a click bring up the chords I never actually need to. In the old days I used a magic marker to write the first bass note next to the song title on my set list; lower case for higher octave, capital letter if the first note is in the lower octave. My rationale was whatever happened I'd come in on the right note and at the right part of the fretboard. Hopefully everything else would then click into place. 

Just a comfort blanket but it worked

[markdavid]

10 minutes ago, stewblack said:

I started playing the wrong song once. Mental block centred around associating the titles to the tracks. That was a car crash. I somehow mangled the intro of the Guns and Roses one into the Bon Jovi one (can't bring the titles to mind even now).

This is a genuine problem only really highlighted when I have to start the song.

I get around this by using ireal pro as my set list. That way the chords are there on my tablet as a reference which works on my brain in a way that song titles don't seem to.

Of course as it's a mental problem, now I can at a click bring up the chords I never actually need to. In the old days I used a magic marker to write the first bass note next to the song title on my set list; lower case for higher octave, capital letter if the first note is in the lower octave. My rationale was whatever happened I'd come in on the right note and at the right part of the fretboard. Hopefully everything else would then click into place. 

Just a comfort blanket but it worked

Done that before, at a jam night and the guitar player started playing wonderwall, the previous song had nearly identical chords so my brain was still thinking of the song before

[markdavid]

2 hours ago, gjones said:

My philosophy is, when in doubt..........play nowt.

Yes, I definitely agree with this

[Lozz196]

2 hours ago, chris_b said:

It happens.

Just do your best to catch up, look confident and the rest of the band should never draw attention to the guy who's messed up.

Or do it the other way round, if you make a mistake deliberately look at another band member so the audience think it was then that messed up 😁

[4000]

3 hours ago, ezbass said:

It happens to me all the time and always when the on stage sound is poor and I can’t hear myself clearly.

Ditto, although ironically it's actually worst when I can hear myself too clearly. I like to hear myself "in the mix" and if I'm too loud I really start to panic about what I'm playing, no matter how well I actually know it. I do suffer with chronic anxiety and depression and have ptsd though, which maybe doesn't help.

[4000]

3 hours ago, chris_b said:

It happens.

Just do your best to catch up, look confident and the rest of the band should never draw attention to the guy who's messed up.

One of the singers in the band used to actually announce over the mic when someone had made a mistake mid-song. Unfortunately he's one of those people who opens his mouth as soon as a thought enters his head, so it never occurred how unprofessional he was being. After it had happened one too many times I've gave him a bollocking and he's not done it since.

[Patster1969]

7 minutes ago, 4000 said:

One of the singers in the band used to actually announce over the mic when someone had made a mistake mid-song. Unfortunately he's one of those people who opens his mouth as soon as a thought enters his head, so it never occurred how unprofessional he was being. After it had happened one too many times I've gave him a bollocking and he's not done it since.

He'd soon learn after a few accidental bashes with a head stock

[4000]

4 minutes ago, Patster1969 said:

He'd soon learn after a few accidental bashes with a head stock

Funny you should say that, I once accidentally smashed his nose with the headstock of my old Jaydee whilst leaping about the stage (in the days when I could, in a different band). His nose was pouring for the rest of the gig.

[Patster1969]

10 minutes ago, 4000 said:

Funny you should say that, I once accidentally smashed his nose with the headstock of my old Jaydee whilst leaping about the stage (in the days when I could, in a different band). His nose was pouring for the rest of the gig.

I bet he never dropped you in it though if you made a mistake 😀

[Newfoundfreedom]

14 minutes ago, 4000 said:

Funny you should say that, I once accidentally smashed his nose with the headstock of my old Jaydee whilst leaping about the stage (in the days when I could, in a different band). His nose was pouring for the rest of the gig.

It's a good job you weren't playing a Jackson. You'd have run him through. 😂

[Guest MoJo]

40 minutes ago, 4000 said:

One of the singers in the band used to actually announce over the mic when someone had made a mistake mid-song. Unfortunately he's one of those people who opens his mouth as soon as a thought enters his head, so it never occurred how unprofessional he was being. After it had happened one too many times I've gave him a bollocking and he's not done it since.

Not quite as bad as announcing it over the PA, but in the same ball park. The singer in the function band that I was in a few years back, once said to me,

"When I c**k up, can you not make it so obvious? Everyone could see you roll your eyes and mouth the word w**ker."

Edited February 7, 2019 by MoJo

[kusee pee]

It happens to me occasionally.  Normally when I'm playing a verse and can't remember what's coming next.  My strategy nowadays is to stop thinking and just let the hands remember when the time comes.  Works surprisingly often!