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Last Night's Gig, the best/worst ever


bitflipper

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1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

If you want to make a living playing music, (1) play songs they know by heart (2) play the room you have for the day (3) give a little extra effort to the owners, hopefully so they will make more profit while you are there than your competition.

 

1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

To make a living doing music and nothing but music, you must make compromises and treat it like a business.

Yep.

I love playing music. I have a need inside to play. I hooked up with others that had that same need. We were dedicated to doing our best to make the song enjoyable to the listener. To us that meant "play it like the record"

1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

(1) play songs they know by heart

Our next motto was don't play overly loud. We would rather the crowd left because they didn't like the type of music rather than forcing them to leave because they loved the music but it was too loud.

1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

(2) play the room you have for the day

And we always treated the owners as our boss, they were the ones handing out the money. Even though some were out right a$*#loes, we treated them as our boss. That helped with repeat gigs.

We practiced a lot. By our selves before we brought the songs in to play for the first time, and even after we knew all our songs. We stayed tight. You have to. Because we came to a realization: Even though we prided ourselves on our music abilities, when we were up there on that stage, we were entertainers. And people were paying us to entertain them. And if we wanted to keep on doing this, we had to keep them entertained (iow, coming back).

1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

a piano monster with jazz chops... She played difficult and delightful jazz tunes and sang well too. But the only people in her lounge were other musicians who sat there drooling.

I had a good friend that I learned a lot from. Guitar player as good as SRV. Seriously. All he wanted and would play was SRV or Johnny Winter songs. The bass player and drummer were an excellent rhythm section in their own right. Best in our area without a doubt. There was every reason to go see these guys perform. I would go to his shows (he was an unbelievable player, really) and after about 30 minutes my wife would want to leave. She just didn't know anything he was playing. I looked around at many of his gigs and the main ones I saw was the local guitar players, members of other bands and a few blues lovers. But boy could he play (RIP Timmy).

 

[edit]TOTP!![/edit]

Edited by Grem
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2 hours ago, Grem said:

Our next motto was don't play overly loud.

Such an overlooked strategy! Many musicians lack the self-confidence to play quietly, assuming that they can only win over the audience by beating them over the head.

Plus, lowering the volume is the quickest way to tighten up a band. When you can clearly hear one another, you're naturally going to sync up better. Vocals work better, especially getting a proper balance between harmonies.

As a piano player, it means my amplification runs cleaner and what comes out actually sounds like a piano. Everybody tends to put more subtleties into their playing, and natural dynamics just happen without having to be scripted.

And as everyone has noted, your final assessment comes at the end of the night when the till is counted. If staff can't hear to take orders, that's not good for the bottom line. 

Finally, let's not forget one important reason that people go to bars: to hook up and to socialize. The band shouldn't be like "I don't care if it's your anniversary/birthday/office outing, just sit there and listen to US!". Those who are actually there to listen will sit up front or dance. The couple in the back with their hands all over each other don't care what you're doing anyway.

 

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