I want to share my feelings after playing Amélie by Pereza at @openmicgalway. My critical brain tells me there’s a lot to improve, and my emotional brain tells me everything was and is wonderful. Both are right. I’m super happy and also already know what I want to improve 🔥
The song is really beautiful and I enjoy playing it a lot, even though I never fully mastered it. When I chose it, I worked on it, studied it, and made it my own, bringing it to my style. I loved that process—it’s amazing to see how the song changes ❤️
On the other hand, I identified the source of my insecurity. Last week, with Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash, I was super calm because I had the song well memorized. This week I didn’t feel that calm. My problem is definitely the lyrics. It was funny because 20 seconds before going on stage I told my friend Luis, “Shit, how did the first line go?” We laughed and said, “It doesn’t matter, whatever comes out will be fine,” and off I went 😂
But not having the lyrics clear makes me insecure. While I sing one line, I have to think about the next one. And if it doesn’t come, I make it up, the point is I can’t stop, I’m live. Being aware of all this makes me miss a chord here and there, and I also speed up the tempo of the song. In other words, it doesn’t flow like when I play at home, where I can check the lyrics and everything sounds so good and confident 😂
If you have any advice to improve this or any technique that has worked for you to memorize or study something, please, tell me 🙏
Anyway, I’m not going to stop, I’ll crash as many times as needed. And if one day I forget the lyrics, I’ll just hum them and laugh. I’m sure the audience will laugh with me because that’s life ❤️😂
PS: Tonight I play in another pub, how I love this game! 🎵😬
📸 Video: Luis Gago @destinoikigai 🔝