fellow musicians read this, especially right before a concert.

I guess this could apply to anyone who has to do any kind of public appearance too, such as actors or athletes. but I'm neither of those and this is coming 100% from my own experience and perspective. 

I've been playing the drums for 5 years and I've had to play in public a bunch of times. since I started playing I've felt very nervous about messing up on stage: if I were a guitarist or a bassist it wouldn't be so noticeable, but the drums carry the whole song, if you stop playing everyone stops. I've always been very worried about how people perceive me, and I think this blog could help someone who's struggling with the same problem. 

imagine you have a concert next week, and all your friends and family are going to attend it. you hate playing in front of people you know because you know they're going to remember if you mess up, you'd rather perform in front of strangers for that reason. while you're on stage, your anxiety doesn't let you focus and all you do is tell yourself to "just play and not think about it", but the fear of skipping a bar or not playing that rhythm correctly is too strong. this is the first mistake. 

my teacher always tells me, if you're playing something while telling yourself that you can't do it, you're not going to be able to do it. when that hard part comes, you should focus your whole body and mind to at least try your best instead of panic as you continue to play. you will always sound way better while playing relaxed. 

and of course, practice. even if everytime that you play that section it sounds good, if you still feel like you're not good enough to perform it in public, you should continue to practice it, maybe even faster than usual to make sure you nail it. if for whatever reason you are 100% sure you don't have the ability to play it, just change that part. you are the performer who chooses what to play, and playing something good no matter how simple it is is always way better than trying all the hardest tricks and failing, everyone will appreciate it. 

all of this might sound obvious but sometimes our nerves can make us forget about the simplest things, and I don't know what else to tell you. 

so now that I've talked about what you can do to not fuck up on stage, I'm going to talk about what happens if you do:

absolutely nothing. 

you're the musician. you guide the music, the music doesn't guide you. you should know that you're in charge of everything instead of feeling like this is too much for you. and the public sees you this way too, even if you make an objectively terrible performance, being able to go on stage with so much attention put in you is a huge achievement, and everyone who sees you knows this. 

in a concert, I can assure you that most people are just vibing to the music and atmosphere instead on focusing on the musician's abilities. the only exception to this rule is other musicians, but if they aren't assholes they should have enormous respect for you for being able to play an instrument too, we know better than everyone else how much it takes. 

being a good or bad musician isn't just about making as little mistakes as possible (although you should always try your best), it's more about being able to "rule" over your instrument and how you handle said mistakes. you should never, and I repeat NEVER randomly stop playing the music no matter how noticeable your mistake was, even more if you're playing with other musicians and even more if you're the drummer. if, for example, your drumstick fell off and you have to stop to pick it up, at least try to keep the tempo with the kick so the other musicians have a base, don't stop the whole thing to start over. the most important thing is making everything work together. 

and I know a lot about this because I couldn't have failed more in public. one time I was playing with my band, there was a lot of people and a lot of them knew me too. we were playing basket case by green day, which is a relatively complicated song on the drums, and I dropped my drumstick right in the worst moment. it was so far away that I couldn't reach it, I was continuing to play what I could with one hand while trying to pick it up, but the snare caught into my pants and it almost fell. my bandmates were confused, but they didn't stop the music (they did exactly what you should do if you're playing with someone else) as I was panicking. in the end I was lucky because my drums teacher, who was in the concert's organization, was around to pass me the stick and we could continue playing with no problem. but that day I learned a very important lesson: there are two types of musicians: the ones who are scared of failure and those who have already failed. 

and guess what: since I knew how to handle the situation, some people didn't even realize what happened. I even got to sign autographs that day and every single comment I got on my skills was very positive. I can assure you that no one will criticize you for a mistake, they're going to praise you for being able to keep going, so keep practicing because you want to make a better version of yourself, not out of fear.