Free Advice! Free Advice!

I started off "pretending' to play guitar at age 12. No guitar. That would come later at the age of 21. I did listen to the radio a lot and memorized a number of songs.

Fear came upon me at my first performance at the women's College(RIC) Dorm. I got through it with my knees literally shaking.

When I turned Pro I went back to my "pretend" stage and realized that I would forget some words from time to time. WHAT TO DO?

The answer was to think of myself as a "Performer" rather than a Folk Singer. What does that mean? I PREPARED myself for the time I would forget the words...I created an arsenal of quips, jokes, stories that entertained people. So if I slipped up, I had rehearsed backup already prepared.

Some free ones for ya...
1/For hecklers, male or female, "We're we ever married?
2/For noisy crowds and/or talking during your performance, "You can talk if you want to, I already got your money..."
3/ Breaking a string: "And here you go, a FREE lesson in how to change a string on the guitar! That's right! When you come to see ME, you get MORE for your money!" Then, change the string...
4/So I forgot the words...Just testing you to see if you were paying attention...Or, play with it, "anybody got some words?" Make a game of it...ask the audience to create new words for the song but keep going...this can get a lot of laughs and give everybody aggood time...End by saying, " Ah couldn't do it!

And you thought this was easy...
All the best...:>) bob