This story is getting on for ten years old now, which feels a bit wild to say. It's the time I got to play in front of Tony Iommi, how it went wrong, and what I learnt from it.
There's a lesson in it for every guitarist, from beginners to advanced players. And it's one I still haven't properly learnt myself.
The day I played for Tony Iommi ▶ 0:19
It was the opening day at the music school I'd just got into in Birmingham, and on day one we had to perform. The song was "Born Under a Bad Sign". I now can't listen to it without thinking about this, so I just don't listen to it.
We had to get together in little bands of four or five and play our version. Being opening day, they wanted to do something special, and they'd got fellow Brummie Tony Iommi to open the whole thing. We'd had a big group photo with him outside the building before the performances, so I knew he was around.
The tutor called up a drummer, a bass player and a singer, and needed a guitarist to go first. I don't think I'd ever played on stage at that point, apart from my school talent show as a kid. But I thought, right, grab the bull by the horns. I actually felt quite confident. Wouldn't it be great to go up there and rip a fantastic solo with Tony Iommi watching?
How it went wrong ▶ 1:20
Just before we went on, the other guitarist started changing who was playing what. He wanted to take a solo here, and I'd take one there, and all of a sudden I wasn't really sure what I was playing.
I probably should have just stuck with what I'd planned. But I got in my own head about it. By the time we started, I wasn't feeling so confident any more. When my solo came round, I did some awful pentatonic messing around that didn't hit many good notes at all. And of course I looked up and Tony Iommi was at the back of the room, clapping politely. I don't think he was very impressed.
It wasn't the end of the world. I wasn't expecting him to take me under his wing as his guitar prodigy. But it still kind of sucked.
Confidence is easier said than done ▶ 2:33
The obvious lesson is that I should have played with more confidence. Everyone knows that, and it's much easier said than done. If I could just play confidently, I'd just play confidently.
What actually happened was that I let the situation dictate how I felt, and then I was so conscious of what I was doing that it didn't go well. If I hadn't let it get into my head, I'd at least have upped the odds of playing well.
Ask yourself: what would confident me do? ▶ 3:00
So how do you play with confidence when you don't feel confident? I don't think there's a silver bullet, but there is one question you can ask yourself:
What would confident me do?
If you can find an answer or two, you just need to do that thing. You don't need to feel confident doing it. You just have to do it.
In that room, confident me would have played what I knew I was meant to play, stayed aware of what the band was doing so I could adapt, and then taken my solo and played what I intended to play.
More recent examples from wedding gigs ▶ 3:31
I've been playing more function gigs for weddings recently, which is a fairly new situation for me. On the first couple, lots of things changed on the day. Songs moved around and arrangements changed, and that threw me a bit when I was already feeling a little shaky.
The pick. At the first gig, I had this odd idea that a thinner pick, one that pushed through the strings more easily, would make me less likely to mess up. I normally use a Jazz III. But I hadn't practised with the thinner one, so when I started playing I felt like I was falling through the strings far too easily. Confident me would have just used the pick I always use. I might not have felt confident doing it, but I wouldn't have been playing with something that didn't feel natural.
The in-ear mix. Another time, my guitar felt really loud in my in-ear monitors. When your guitar is loud in your ears, you subconsciously feel like that's what the audience is hearing, even though they're getting a balanced mix of everything. So I wanted to pull back, and I turned my own guitar down. A few songs in, I realised I really couldn't hear what I was playing, and a couple of parts didn't come out perfectly because of it. Confident me might have turned it down a tiny bit, but not much. If I'd felt like I was going to play brilliantly, I wouldn't have cared that it was a bit loud. I'd have just played the part well.
It applies when nobody's watching too ▶ 5:37
This doesn't just apply to live playing. I see a lot of students shrink into themselves a bit when they play, and I'm sure they do it on their own as well. You might not play a particular lick because you think "that's not me" or "I'm not good enough for that". Or you might not hit the strings with that next level of attack because you're worried it won't sound good. That can happen whether you're playing for one person, a hundred people or no one at all.
Feeling confident does make a difference to your playing, but it matters less than you'd think. There's an element of fake it till you make it.
Go and try it
Next time you practise, notice the moments where you hold back: the lick you skip, the strings you hit a bit softer, the change you make at the last minute. Ask yourself what confident you would do, then do that, whether you feel it or not. It's clearly a hard lesson, because even Tony Iommi couldn't teach it to me in one go.
