isaacmiranda7 & Dbassnut pretty much nailed it.

That stiffness is to a certain extent physical, but mostly its psychological.

The physical bit is easy, u practice and get the muscle memory down - it will come to a point u can function on autopilot. Practice slow, medium, fast, upside down, on one
foot, forwards, backwards, whatever it takes.

The psychological bit is a lil tricky. It all boils down to ur comfort level with your audience. U will notice that when u play alone, or with close friends, ur not stiff at all. Ur used to them. While u play, u would talk to them, joke with them, laugh with them when u mess up, tendang them when they perli u, shit like that. Ur familiar with these ppl because they r ur friends. Ur not too worried about messing up in front of them, and that I think is really what it is. Ur sure enough of ur performance (the "physical" bit) and comfortable enough with the audience that u dont
care if u mess up.

This takes getting used to. Like the previous post said, go jam with other ppl, get used to being around others while u play, get used to interacting with others while u play. Go see other live performers play. Observe. See how they interact, see how other performers behave, what they do, what they say, how they do it. See how they engage the crowd.

Once u've absorbed all this, all that's left is to go up the stage and do it. Start small, play smaller venues first if that's what u think ur comfy with. Then slowly work ur way up.

One last thing, everytime before u go up that stage, keep this in ur head:

- I'm going to have fun.

- I'm going up that stage to enjoy myself.

- Everybody else is just coming along for the ride.

And when ppl see how at ease u r, it will rub off on them too, and pretty soon u will find urself playing to a roomful of friends. Good luck

p/s: there's something to be said about liquid courage in these situations, but being focused and alert is important. Besides, there's plenty of time to muck about after the performance.

This post has been edited by pleasuresaurus: Jan 5 2016, 05:40 PM

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This post has been edited by spiderman17: Apr 16 2018, 12:11 PM

From my experience whenever Im on stage I pretend to forget all the people watching as if Im playing during jamming/rehearsing. This will make you become less stiff during on stage especially during solos

Yeah!

from what i'v seen, dun bother how u look when soloing. focus on ur play.

the solo is cool enough.

wear very dark sunglasses, or better yet...some monster facemask

how to stop being stiff? stop popping them viagras. haha

This post has been edited by ariffdude: May 9 2016, 09:42 AM