You folks are awesome, so were my fellow uksters last night. There were 7 performances and I was the lone "virgin". Some very good players went before me as I was second last, this did not help, man I was nervous. I sang "Big Rock Candy Mountain" from the O Brother Where Art Thou sound track, a surprising number of people knew it and sang along.
I could gloss over this and say it went ok but that would not be of any help to those reading this who might be thinking of going up for the first time. The microphones really threw me off and were a major feeling of discomfort. First I felt I was not loud enough, got closer, too loud, backed off, started to feel self conscious and heard my voice going flat and breaking. I lost a few chord progression but I never stopped strumming and I never stopped singing. That cures most flubs, just keep rolling. I looked at a few friendly faces, they were smiling and pulling for me so that helped to keep me going
Someone here said you will hear all your mistakes and I did, man did I ever. But talking to others afterwards about the volume variance and my voice they said they never heard any of that.........good friends are good fibbers
I walked off the stage feeling a bit down because I know that song backwards and forwards and sing it well. A lot of people say I have a good voice, it certainly did not feel like it last night. Nothing felt good coming off the stage last night
I got a lot of congratulations and "good job"s last night. When I sat down I thought I am never doing that again, talking to others I thought well at least I did it. Driving home I started thinking "first time for everything". Anytime you do something for the very first time it is not going to be perfect. The stage and the mics were all very new and it made me uncomfortable, so what. Now typing this I am thinking of ways to improve. The only way to improve is to do more of them. Gotta hit thousands of golf balls to be a good golfer.
Taking some congrats from our sound man who is a fabulous player and singer I mean REALLY GOOD I said, it did not sound as good as it does from my kitchen table. He simply replied "it never does for me for me either". That blew my mind and has given me great perspective and hope to move forward.
If you are thinking of getting up just do it. You are a unique voice and deserve to be heard.