Playing to the Public

I've taken guitar lessons off and on for the past ten years. I started out on an acoustic but switched over to electric fairly early and now do everything on my wood Fender strat. His name is William, by the way. Delilah, my acoustic, was very annoyed with me when I abandoned her for his blond sleek good looks.

Anyway, I just noodle. I don't practice much because it always seems like there's something else I should be doing, but I love my teacher and I love having a half hour each week that's just for me, so I keep at it.

My problem is, he's nagging me about playing for his recital. I've gotten out of it the past few times with other conflicts, and frankly, I'm hoping RT conflicts with it this year, but I know I'm letting him down when I back out of it. But the truth is, it doesn't matter how good I might be at home. I'm not nearly comfortable with my skills to play in front of strangers. Music isn't my forte. I know this. It's not like when I was acting. I never really had any doubts about my abilities then. But this...man, it's terrifying.

He's giving me options, either play an ensemble piece that's harder or a solo piece that's simpler. I don't like either one, but I have to choose today. If I pick the ensemble and then screw up, I'm letting down other people which is frankly worse than sounding bad on my own. But the latter is scarier by a mile. I would very likely do "Beautiful Boy" which is a song I love.

Decisions, decisions.