Playing For Family & Friends Over the Holidays
With the holidays upon us, there’s a pretty good chance that someone who knows you play guitar is going to ask you to play for a gathering of family and friends. For some of you, this is what you’ve been waiting for all year and you’ll be raring to go. For others, it might inspire something more like dread. So we thought now would be a good time to share some tips for surviving the required family performance.
They Want You To Rock
Remember that unless your family and friends are actually quite evil, they just want to hear you play and have fun. They’re not looking for a reason to tear you down – quite the opposite. For most folks, just seeing you strum a few chords – especially the more flamenco-sounding ones – will impress them. They don’t know or care if you’re in compás or how fast Paco was able to play that Buleria. They really don’t.
They’re probably as excited about what you are able to do as anyone will ever be. Especially if they like/love you, they’re just there to share this thing that you love and spend so much time doing. They are likely to hear anything you play as really quite wonderful.
They Don’t Know What You Know
Your family and friends don’t know that maybe you can play much better/faster when no one is looking. They don’t know or care that you skipped that really hard part. In fact, they’ll probably think that Rasgueados are the most impressive thing they’ve ever seen.
So don’t feel the need to play the hardest thing you know. Most audiences want to just feel something and will be very influenced by how much fun you seem to be having. So play whatever you’re most confident playing – even if you think it’s super simple. You’ll be surprised at how much they’ll love it. And once you feel good and warmed up it’s even possible you’ll feel up to playing something that’s not quite as simple.
Prepare Some Material
For some, the hardest part about being asked to play is deciding what to play in that put-on-the-spot moment. The obvious solution to this one is to decide beforehand what you might play if asked. So as you’re practicing, think about what’s the most fun or the easiest thing to play. If you’re a confident performer, decide what pieces will dazzle your audience (You could even prepare this great Campanilleros falseta, which is basically flamenco holiday music). If you’re a less confident performer, ask yourself what pieces, or even bits of pieces, feel natural and easy for you. And keep in mind what I said above about your loved ones wanting you to succeed. It’s really true!
This also might be a good time to remind everyone about the power of simple falsetas. I wrote a blog post about that which may be a useful read as you prepare some material, and the bottom line is that it’s incredibly satisfying (for you AND your audience) when you play simple stuff really well.
Set Yourself Up For Success
One common thing that’s really frustrating for us flamenco players is when someone who’s heard that you’re a guitarist hands you a steel-string acoustic, and then asks you to play. Because they’re likely to not understand all of the VERY REAL reasons why you won’t want to play that guitar. So to make sure you don’t have this problem – bring your own guitar with you! If you’re at all uncomfortable playing for others, having the familiarity of your own guitar will be a real help.
Of course, bringing your own guitar will up the chances of someone actually asking you to play – and in the words of Martha: that’s a good thing!
