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Catching Up II...

     Playing the Guitar well Has several contributing factors. The main One is how often you play the song itself. If you know a song really Good and then don't play it for Five years - Your not going to play that song well. This applies to Everyone, Even the big smash Players.

    Another big factor is Knowing what everyone else Is going to Do. If you have no Idea what the other people playing with you are going to do, Then your part will sound bad. Lets compare this to Football - Lets say The football player Never Worked out, Never Practiced their Plays and Never huddled before Each Play - What do you think the Game would be like then.
    Its the same for Playing in a band, If you never Practice songs, don't work on scales and Chords and don't decide what songs you are going to play - you will not be a very Good band.

    Even your favorite band most likely sits around and practices songs. and just about all of them have a set list of what they are going to play. and Usually if they play a song that they haven't played in years - It wont sound like it did years ago. 

Honesty  

    Being Honest to yourself About what you sound like is crucial too, Your mom, Girlfriend, wife, friends and even strangers will tell you to your face that you sound great - Don't rely on this as reliable. If you don't believe this, Go to an open Stage in your area and you will see that even the sickliest people you hear will get applause.

    You can take someone that has never even tried to play Guitar before in their life and tell them to fake it by moving their fingers around and strum randomly at an open stage, When the audience thinks that they are done - Guaranteed, They will applaud. Be honest with yourself because nobody else will - If you have any doubt, Record yourself and go from there   

    Playing live is entirely different than what you hear on the radio - You must keep in mind that there are two types of recordings, Live and Studio. Usually a Live album is live but they know well in advance that they are going to be Recording so they will practice very hard and sometimes They will just record all their shows and pick the good ones out. 
  
    The Studio albums are created in the studio and sometimes it can take a month to Get just one song down. Most bands cannot recreate on the stage What they put on tape. They can do alot of stuff in the studio that they cannot do on the stage. Mainly they can't stop in the middle of the song and say lets do that over, and they cant just keep playing a song over and over till they get it right, Plus the anxiety on stage cannot be deleted - this can effect you greatly and can only diminish through time on the stage. It would be hard to do your job at work if you had 20 people gathered around you watching you work. Don't get discouraged if you cant recreate what they have done because usually they cant either.   

     Stage Presence is the hardest to pull off, This is basically how you act on stage and is also known as Putting your feelings into it. presence has some factors with it too. You must enjoy what you are playing, Like a dog picks up fear - The audience will pick up whether you are enjoying what you are playing. As well you cannot fake stage presence - Its an aura and it will come in time. Just because you jump around doest not mean you have stage presence. You have to know a song very well before you can work on the presence, You also have to be beyond the fear and anxiety that occurs on stage. Stage presence is your Genuine enjoyment causing your body to move - Its the inner most part of your brain taking over and you cannot control this, Its How you truly feel about the song coming through your body.  The only way to practice this is to play the song over and over until you can focus on other things besides how to play the song - You can also watch yourself in the Mirror.  

     The biggest rock stars are good in all these areas of performance because they have learned through experience the importance of Practicing, knowing a song, and knowing what they are going to do - All of that combined creates their stage presence. If you are serious about going somewhere with music then you better try to achieve all that I have mentioned here - You are in charge and perseverance is crucial.