I hate playing in guitar stores, and I hate having a salesman hover while I'm trying something out. As soon as somebody stops to watch or listen, I'll forget how the d@mn song goes, it's beyond mental at this point!
I don't mind any more. I don't go back to stores where a salesman hovers though - unless they have something I really want that nobody else has. The stores I go to, the staff will pop by periodically to see what I'm up to, maybe bring by something else I might like to try.
I don't play songs that people know, so it doesn't matter if I forget something. I can just go with the flow. There are a few things I generally play while trying out a guitar:
- a Carulli waltz - nobody knows it, so I can get the sequence in the 4th part wrong, if I even get that far
- a very wide variation of the chord sequences in Girl From Ipanema - I call it Stolen Girl, because I stole the progression, but the original isn't really recognizable
- chromatic arpeggios - as long as the left hand gets the shape right, the right hand can do whatever it wants
- some textured strumming with DGA variations (or CAmG…), musical, but not any particular song
- A drone with melody on the D&G string - probably only on an acoustic
- maybe some lead using just the high E - for reasons unknown I feel this helps me identify a strat characteristic I like
but...the point is, I don't play anything that somebody could be sure I made a mistake in and consider me unworthy of buying the guitar I want