Songwriters - How to Stop Psyching Yourself Out When Performing

Have you ever been playing onstage and started to think thoughts that you normally don't think while you're rehearsing? Things like "wait... what chords come next?" or "what's the next lyric?" You just can't understand why these thoughts only happen when you're onstage, when it actually matters.

This happens because while you're rehearsing, or at home practicing, you're calm and relaxed, and while you're onstage in front of people and nervous, all of your fears start to surface.

There's a great way to minimize the chances of this happening. You need to make proper use of your "mental space." This is a great concept I learned from Steven Memel, who's a vocal and performance coach.

The idea is, at any given moment, you can only be focusing your thoughts on one thing at a time. When you're onstage presenting a story through lyrics, vocals and stage presence, you need to be emoting your story properly. For all intents and purposes, you're an actor when you sing a song, delivering your character's story to your audience.

If your song has an upbeat and positive message, you need to be showing those emotions on your face, in your body language and through your voice. You need to be fusing your emotion with your words, the same way you would if you were speaking those words to someone with that same emotion.

If you use your mental space to focus on the type of emotion you (or your story's character) is experiencing, it won't allow you to think about silly things like "oh, wait - what's the next chord?" You'll be too busy concentrating on being in character and there won't be room for anything else.

If you're singing one of your own songs, you obviously know what the lyrics mean and how you should be emoting them. If you're playing a cover song, you should be focusing on what the lyrics mean to you and emoting and displaying the song in terms of your own interpretation.

This concept will serve you very well in performing. It benefits you because it eliminates the negative thoughts, and adds the positive benefit of getting you into character to properly emote your message. It's a win-win approach for you and your audience.

This will take effort on your part, but it can absolutely be done with some practice. Eventually, it will become your way of thinking when you're onstage.

For more information on improving your performances, download the free report, "How to Eliminate Stage Fright: A Guide for Performing Songwriters." You can get it here: http://successforyoursongs.com/freeoffer/stagefright/

Anthony Ceseri is the owner of http://www.SuccessForYourSongs.com, a website dedicated to the growth and development of songwriters of all skill levels.