On a slightly different but related tack…I used to be really uptight when playing in front of a live audience. I came to realise that I was conscious of only the musicians in the audience and was afraid of what they might think. The turning point for me was at a concert when a really dreadful, derivative, heavy metal band had the audience going wild. It made me think about why that was.

I came to the conclusion that the general public are by-and-large totally unmusical. I hadn’t thought that before because it just seems so arrogant. Yet experience since has proved this over and over.

Understanding this allowed me to stop worrying about bum notes and bad timing but concentrate instead on having fun. I’ve found as a result, my music flows much better, has more feeling and I play less mistakes anyway as I’m more relaxed. Hey, and when I do play ‘unusual’ notes people seem to interpret it as being jazzy!

I still demand near perfection when recording and this makes the process painfully slow. I’d love to have the nerve to ‘let go’ in recording as I now do when playing live.

As a musician with a sensitive and critical ear, it still makes me cringe when I hear someone singing out of key, etc. But I also think that actual the soul of the song is what most people hear when listening. I’m constantly surprised at the awful music most listeners will put up with. I guess us fussy people are just a minority which gives hope to those of us who aren’t the most talented

Andy.