A couple of thoughts to add to this thread:

I can sing up a storm by myself or with one more musician I know well. But when it comes time to jam, I get very, very shy. This is probably why I've never gone farther with my music. It seems to me that musicians (guys, for the most part) are either born knowing what they're doing, or stay in their rooms working up their chops until they're "there." But as a singer, you can only go so far sitting in your room and working up your music. It's taken years for me to be able to just say, "I do this one in D and the rhythm is like this..."

It's so odd. I'm a very confident woman who's been working in a "man's profession" for years, but put me in front of a bunch of musicians and I turn idiot. AND ... I can harmonize on auto pilot when I'm with one of my sisters or my close friends. But put me in front of a group of musicians (e.g. a *band*!!!) and I go completely tone-deaf.

Once I have got a piece of music well-rehearsed, I can sing in front of crowds large and small, but it really helps to close my eyes and feel the song. I get distracted by the audience looking at me.

I always pray before I go on, not to God the Father or whatever, but to the music itself. (I know this sounds woo-woo, but it's true.) I just say to it, "I pray to do you justice tonight, and to give the audience a joyful experience..." or something like that. And at some point, the music simply takes over. For me, the wrestling match is just getting my ego out of the way, taking the focus off Little Me and giving my instrument, my voice, to the music. Then, it quickly all turns to magic. And there is abolutely nothing in the world like that experience of finishing a song and feeling that complete hush in the room that tells me they all, *we* all, got it at once.

Mmmmm.

WW