Confidence

“Hello. Good evening. Hope I'm Funny.”

-Richard Pryor, That N___'s Crazy

“So who’s that big dumb ass out there on the hill?” 

“That’s Steve Carlton. He’s maybe the greatest left-hander in the history of the game. He’s got heat and also maybe the nastiest slider ever.”  

“S**t, I'll stick him.”

- Lenny Dykstra, Moneyball

I'll be honest, the following is how I feel about playing music at times— from Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut:

He had just been elected President, and it was necessary that he speak. He was scared stiff, thought a ghastly mistake had been made. All those prosperous, solid men out there would discover now that they had elected a ludicrous waif. They would hear his reedy voice, the one he’d had in the war. He swallowed, knew that all he had for a voice box was a little whistle cut from a willow switch. Worse—he had nothing to say. The crowd quieted down. Everybody was pink and beaming.

Billy opened his mouth, and out came a deep, resonant tone. His voice was a gorgeous instrument. It told jokes which brought down the house. It grew serious, told jokes again, and ended on a note of humility. The explanation of the miracle was this: Billy had taken a course in public speaking.

...not when I'm playing routine gigs, or playing with my own group, but when I'm feeling some kind of pressure to perform: if the music is harder than normal, or I feel that the other musicians are at a higher level than me, or there's someone in the room I badly want to impress. In advance I have no idea what I'm going to play, or if I can play at all— often I'm pretty sure I can't really play, and something is going to come up that will expose that, horrifically. Once we start playing, a completely different sound from what I expect comes out, and everything typically works fine. It's ridiculous, I'm a good musician, I just don't know it in advance. As much as I've played and practiced, I don't know where the notes come from.  

I also really feel this part of the book Moneyball, the baseball book by Michael Lewis. It's about a very successful relief pitcher, Chad Bradford:  

For his entire career hardly anyone has believed in him and now that they do, he can’t quite believe in himself. “It’s my greatest weakness,” he said. “I have zero self-confidence. The only way I can explain it is that I’m not the guy who throws ninety-five miles an hour. The guy who throws ninety-five can always see his talent. But I don’t have that. My stuff depends on deception. For it to work, there’s so much that has to go right.

That's an extremely high-pressure job for a person to have that mindset, and still be functional. 

Moneyball is largely about Oakland As general manager Billy Beane, who, as a major league draftee had been a phenomenally gifted prospect, which he failed to fulfil as a player because he was totally wrong for the game mentally and emotionally. Comparing himself with Lenny Dykstra, who was basically empty headed, reflexively self-confident: 

Billy sensed fundamental differences between himself and Lenny. Physically, Lenny didn’t belong in the same league with him. He was half Billy’s size, and had a fraction of Billy’s promise — which is why the Mets hadn’t drafted him until the thirteenth round. Mentally, Lenny was superior, which was odd considering Lenny wasn’t what you'd call a student of the game.

The point about Lenny, at least to Billy, was clear: Lenny didn’t let his mind screw him up. The physical gifts required to play pro ball were, in some ways, less extraordinary than the mental ones. Only a psychological freak could approach a 100-mph fastball aimed not all that far from his head with total confidence. “Lenny was so perfectly designed, emotionally, to play the game of baseball,” said Billy. “He was able to instantly forget any failure and draw strength from every success. He had no concept of failure. And he had no idea of where he was. And I was the opposite.”

Of course Bradford above didn't have that level of confidence either, so there's a range of gifts and weaknesses people can have and still do a thing on a national stage. Though we're also talking about different levels of player there, as well— one a great team player, the other a baseball legend. But if you look at that first quote from Richard Pryor— basically the Charlie Parker of standup, saying that at the beginning of a record that is a comedy masterpiece— and he doesn't know how it's going to go. He could bomb. 

Bombing is an inevitable part of live in that business. Comedians expose themselves on stage in a very personal way, with no idea if they're going to connect with any particular audience, every time they go to work. Musicians don't usually have to face that prospect of failing obviously and totally, while still having to stand on stage alone and keep talking into the mic.    

There is a difference between playing confidently and feeling confident generally, when you're not playing. It's harder to be confident when you're not playing. You have to face these questions without being able to act on them: Would I be able to play X? Why can't/don't I play what X other player plays? What if I have to do X that I know I'm not very good at? What about X horrible playing demand that Y drummer told me he had put upon him, how would I handle that? 

Real burnout pros don't sweat any of this stuff, it's all too familiar. Playing more straightens it all out— creating a comfort zone. You learn that you can actually play, and you learn to fake what you can't play, which is the same as playing. You learn what to expect, and you learn what is reasonable for others to expect when they ask you to do something unexpected. And you're exposed to more players, and you figure out that most people have relative strengths and weaknesses, and don't do everything equally well. You see what those people's attitudes are about things they're not that good at.  

Still, it's a lifelong thing, apparently, for a lot of people— we'll talk more about it.