Before I entered the world of full-time writing (and sometime before I’d met writing about bridge), I had a phase as a musician playing guitar in venues for money.

For every 45 minute performance, it takes ten times as much in rehearsal and study. Probably far more.

I spent years learning chords, songs, choruses, and where notes are supposed to go. I even remember a few things about vintage guitar identification that will stick forever.

I learned a lot, and today I’ve managed to bring some of the knowledge over to playing bridge. I figured that this post might be a good time to pass it on, while I’m listening to The Beatles in the background here.

Here are 6 things live music performances can teach you about bridge.

1. Audition several mates

I’ve shared the stage with a handful of excellent artists, and I’ve even had a stint where I auditioned bandmates. This took longer than expected, and I remember setting up an amp and running through several potentials in one day.

Most didn’t read the brief. Some showed up playing entirely different genres than the brief had asked for.

Finding the right bridge partner for your next game might go the same way. Some people work together better, and well, sometimes they’re harder to track down.

2. You’ll fire at least one

Once I thought that I had found the right people to share the stage with, we tried out a few times playing together – and I noticed straight away that things didn’t feel as right as they should.

If this is taken to apply to bridge, it says that you will fire at least one bridge partner when the two of you don’t get along strategically or otherwise.

That’s just the way things go in bands (and in bridge).

3. Keep in tune

A band that isn’t playing in tune is obvious, and painful to everyone else there. A bridge partnership that isn’t in tune is a lot of the same.

Being in tune takes practice, or at least experience.

Sometimes, I shared the stage with people I just met. We played together well, and on songs I had never heard before. But I managed to keep in tune with the guitar.

You can keep in tune the same way with bridge players you’ve never met. Instant partnership can work just as well as seasoned ones.

Just practice, and practice especially your techniques. On stage, in studio, or at the bridge table.

4. Stay in rhythm

Rhythm is just as important as playing in tune. If a single member of the band is playing their own beat, the rest of the band will find it hard to follow – and, well, the crowd starts dancing funny, or just gives up on their dancing efforts entirely if the band in question is out of time enough.

I practice bridge to music often.

I appreciate the addition of the beat, and I find that bridge games and moves within it have their own rhythm (that can often,  in some ways, be set to music).

Do you know the rhythm of your bridge game yet?

5. Rehearse often

If you play on stage or in studio, practice. If you play at home, practice. And if you play bridge at all, practice.

Rehearsal is what turns difficult things into muscle memory, or hard skills to second nature. Use this as much as possible, and put more than 10, 000 hours into your passions – including bridge, and anything else you might feel the same about.

Did the Beatles become the Beatles from playing just two or three gigs? No, there were way more.

6. Prepare for everything

Weird things happen, usually either before you go on stage or during. Someone knocks a drink over an amp, a very important cable stops working, a goat shows up to the gig and rams you in the knees.

I’ve had all three of those random things happen.

Prepare for everything, and you’ll be more intrigued than horrified (and a little more prepared) when they do.

It’s true for performances, and it’s true for bridge.