I think music was made to share with others. Whether that is for a supportive spouse, a few friends, or some strangers at a coffee shop, playing for others beats sitting on the couch and playing alone. The music takes on a different quality when you are offering something up for other people to enjoy. I personally find that I am much more satisfied as a player when I am able to give something back to a listener as opposed to playing only by myself.

However, for many people, playing in front of one or two listeners is a big challenge, and playing at a coffee shop or on a stage seems even harder. I think if you want to play in front of others, but feel too scared, you owe it to yourself to give the process a try, as it can be enormously rewarding. Lets look at some ways to ease into it.

Start small. Try playing for a spouse, a partner, or just a few friends. This group should be totally supportive. Just have them sit there and watch you play; often times that will feel a lot different than sitting by yourself and playing with no one watching. Get some honest feedback. Was the playing and singing (if you sing) ok and in tune? Did you speed up during the song? Often times playing for others will cause you to speed up without noticing it.

From there move onto to playing for a slightly bigger group. A good idea is just to bring your guitar along to a BBQ or family party. Something where you know most of the crowd, but where there might some folks you don't know or have not seen in a while. I know at these types of events, if I happen to have my guitar, someone eventually asks me to take it out and play something. This is a good chance to practice talking a bit in front of an audience, which is the other part of playing music on stage that, at least to me, does not come naturally. A good way to start is just to talk about the song you are about to play, who wrote it, where you learned it, etc.

Open mics are also a very good place to get practice playing in front of others. They are mostly held in small coffee shops, pubs, or cafes. A performer usually only plays one to three songs and so there's not the pressure of learning a lot of material for a full set or gig. They are good practice because it's a usually different, lower pressure environment. Open mics are generally very supportive of first-time performers, and they can be a good place to test a new song, or practice chatting to the audience a bit between tunes.

Here are some good thoughts to keep in mind when playing out. They have served me well over the past few years of gigging:

Always be confident in yourself and your material. I cringe inside when a performer starts a song by saying "Here is a song I wrote, I hope you like it" or "Here is a song I am working on, I hope I do not mess it up." The audience is there to support you and enjoy your music, why give them any other reason to think otherwise? Chances are, if you make some little mistakes, no one will notice anyway.

Try to look up at the audience when talking. This one might be more of a personal preference, but I think it's good to try and to eye contact with the audience at least a little bit. People like to feel some connection with a musician they are seeing live. Trying to make eye contact while playing is something different. I think if you are singing it's definitely a good thing to do, but often times for me, playing difficult instrumental music is hard enough: looking out at the audience can easily cause me to mess up.

For some, playing music in front of others is hard, for others the banter between the songs is hard. For me it's the latter. It can help to come up with little bits to say between songs beforehand. Giving some background about the song is cool, but that can become kind of routine over the course of a few tunes. I like to think about a song, and perhaps try to relate a humorous story to it, or something funny about where I learned the song. Coming up with banter is something you can't force, after a few performances some things will come to mind as to what to say, and you will start to develop a flow from song to song. I have seen pros who use the same funny introduction for a certain song year after year. They come up with something good and file it away for future use.

So there you have it, some advice on how to start playing music for others. I hope you find it as satisfying as I have.