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When I'm onstage my confidence gets a huge boost!

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I hope this forum is the right place to share this.

In real life I'm self-effacting and quite shy like my sisters. But as soon as we have a concert and get onstage, our confidence kicks in to give us a massive boost. As I sing and play, I feel my whole personality change. Our regular fans see it and react. While leading I make eye contact with the ones up the front and I see their excitement and happy faces. My partner loves it when I belt out our songs loud and clear - and the pre-concert nervousness just melts away. I become a different person, but then I've had lots of vocal training and up to recently, a personal trainer to improve my physical fitness. I'm much fitter now than I've ever been and this is specially good because performing takes a lot out, but then, many performers know this from experience.

To our delight, we've got a gig this coming December and it's lucrative, too. YAY! :hyper: One of my partner's clients has a wedding anniversary so she and her husband are combining it to treat their company staff, so that means we're going to have an audience of 200 with their family included. Today the husband and wife lunched with us, afterwhich we took them to our soundproof room and with my band, gave them a taste of our repertoir. They absolutely loved it, and gave my partner a big deposit and signed our contract. The venue we'll be performing is big, but has no staging so we'll be bringing our own, a Stageline SL260.

Last year we bought live performance gear from Martin Audio. They do the big bands at Glastonbury, but cater for smaller bands, too. We bought some of their muli-cellular loudspeaker array (MLA) speakers, a pair of horns and monitors and the difference the audio has made, really attracts an audience. We've been needing to upgrade our stage speakers and boy, these arrays have vastly improved our sound.

Every time we have a gig, be it at a hotel or night club venue in Majorca, or outside where we perform on our mobile stage, we get a good press even though it's local. Now my little sister will be joining us to make 5 band members, it's going to do her a world of good.

How I wish though that in real life, I could be as confident. When back home though, I feel much better and more so when fans recognise my partner and I and ask for autographs. Maybe after this gig next month, things will start looking up. And that would be wonderful.

Comments

  • RileyRiley Moderator Posts: 991 Part of The Mix Family
    Hey Princesa,

    Just to say I moved your thread from Health & Wellbeing to Anything Goes where it fits in a little bit better and should get some more responses. It's wonderful to hear you're having so much fun and success with your singing though, hope it all goes brilliantly for you! :d

    - Riley
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  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Riley

    Tomorrow night we have quite a big gig at an assembly hall that can take up to a thousand people, but it's a private party. My partner has been getting us more gigs over here which is unusual, really as in the last three years we've been professional, haven't played England. Our manager has also got us some weekend gigs so this is really going to help our financies. Tomorrow we're setting our how stage up. It's a Stageline SL260 mobile which we bought through our band's manager last summer, http://stageline.com/products/sl260/ but it doesn't take long setting up. We use Martin Audio Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array [MLA] technology which is nothing short of fabulous and can adjust our sound accordingly. Getting excited for tomorrow. Glad it's fairly local, too.

    Last summer we did brilliantly, bringing in good revenue. Our gear is top notch and though initially I am nervous, once we get onstage - that is when I become so very different. In a good way, I mean.

    Have a sweet weekend. :)

    Julie
  • RayofhopeRayofhope Posts: 152 Helping Hand
    Hi Princesa

    Its great that this boosts your confidence, I hope the gig which you have tomorrow night goes well. Let us know how you get on. Good luck for all your gigs over weekend as well, I am sure you will do amazing.

    Rayofhope:rainbow:
    Life doesn’t require we be the best, only that we try our best
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Rayofhope It's lovely of you to drop by. :)

    Our fanbase is mostly Spain either mainland or Majorca and it's risen to just over 5,000. We bought our stage and Martin Audio from being bequeathed from my late Gran and my partner, from her late Grandfather. Dixie is an accountant so knows what our band would financially do well with, equipment-wise and our band's manager gets us gigs when we go home after the winter. Mum is British and my father, deserted us now was Spanish. So we finance our family throough having an enormously fun band and Dixie's income helps with the rest. Mum doesn't work because she's ill, but bonny.

    My two younger sisters play in our band, the oldest has OCD, but found the orderliness of chords and scales helpful to her condition so she's a wonderful musician, and Belle our youngest sings like a bird and plays her electro-acoustic guitar with panache. I am so proud of both my sisters and my partner, she gets nervouse before concerts like me, but her violin and cello playing is as sweet as a nut. All are so talented.

    Stage fright is in some ways good as it levels us from being too cocky, therefore making mistakes. The great film scorer and composer Hans Zimmer has stage fright, too, and yet he performs incredibly well. We went to one of his concerts and he was just wow - as were his orchestra.

    This 1080p video of Hans Zimmer making the soundtrack of Interstellar at Temple Church in London is an absolute masterpiece, especially when shown in the church listening to its mighty organ.

    I bought the download of Zimmer's Masterclass for film scoring as we have a media composer and mixer so I can use what I learnt to compose for my band's Celtic Folk Opera. I already found my 'voice' as has Dixie, many thousands of hours' hard slog and study has achieved our (musical) dreams. But after our performancies we are exhausted even though we are fit and work out. Performing in the UK is less strenuous than in Spain because my country can be very hot at night, but we keep hydrated and have to.

    We think tomorrow and the next three gigs (two in London) will contribute to us becoming better known in the UK, but it has been very difficult breaking into the music business, nerves besides.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Rayofhope wrote: »
    Hi Princesa

    Its great that this boosts your confidence, I hope the gig which you have tomorrow night goes well. Let us know how you get on. Good luck for all your gigs over weekend as well, I am sure you will do amazing.

    Rayofhope:rainbow:

    Hi :Rayofhope

    Whether it's an outdoor or indoor gig we just never know what our audience is going to be like. Except we have a trick. If they are slow to respond and there is weak applause, then we switch to an upbeat song. Example, we switched to Mylène Farmer's XXL using our onboard pyrotechnic boxes. The last time we did that trick was Madrid. We broke the crowd! They went bonkers, and from then on our show went brilliantly. :d

    Tonight we're performing Mylène Farmer's XXL again, so maybs we'll be goin' like a train.
  • AbigailAbigail Posts: 816 Part of The Mix Family
    When ever I go out on stage ... I am to make each performance I do for a different reason and for some one special to me. So my last one I did I performed Valerie and no matter what, I did that one because I really wanted to show people I am not this caring person classical musician, I have a voice I know how to use it also I wanted to prove that dyslexia isn't going to stop me!!

    ​Good luck tonight!! :>
    Some people think I am unhappy. I'm not. I just approach silence in the world that never stops talking.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Abigail

    I should imagine you sing like a bird. There are many professionals out there who are dyslexic. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Mick Hucknall is one of them; he lives in Monaco where I met him when visiting that mini city-state. He was incredible to talk to, a really friendly guy and down to earth and loving our music when I gave him a High Deff DVD of our best performance

    Is it your heart's desire to become a professional musician? If so, I have every belief in you. Really :)

    Thanks for the best wishes!

    Julie
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Tonight we are reworking Plumb's Need You Now, and I'm expecting it's going trigger me of what was, but that's alright because it's just occurred to me that the reason I'm driven to perform is - self doubt.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Rayofhope and everyone. :)

    Our gig was unexpectedly amazing. Though slow with a lukewarm response, the audience reacted so lovingly, seeing me triggered when singing Plumb's Need You Now. It's a song I've had mixed feelings about performing because of my murky past, and that song unexpectedly unearthed a buried memory. Down flowed the tears. Years of vocal training couldn't prevent my voice cracking with emotion.

    The audience raised their arms and sang along to my band's slower rendition. Unthinkingly reaching to wipe the tears away, my hand smudged the concealer that hid a scar on my face. On my onstage screen monitor it showed alright. On the larger stage screens either side, everyone saw the scar - glaringly obvious - absolutely the last thing I wanted. Unexpectedly a couple of girls climbed the stage to put their arm around me as I sang. Below I saw lines of people singing along with their arms raised, and as the spotlights swept across the auditorium as we were recording the show, I saw the whole of the concert hall were doing the same, singing along with me, arms moving side to side.

    The audience were simply amazing. As for my scar which was caused by a cycling accident, putting concealer over it before leaving the house doesn't matter any more. Except the real star of our show was Belle, my adorable little sister.

    For her 13th birthday and as a reward for her being so musically gifted, I bought her a rare Martin D-45 acoustic, the Celtic Knot. Singing this track like a songbird, she brought the house down. I'm soooo proud of her.

    We arrived home at 2 AM. Tired, but elated.



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