Guitar
I just landed a steady solo gig, the first in about two years since I had a serious falling out with the proprietor of the last joint (where I had cooked for eight years and performed for three-and-half). This makes me deliriously happy for two reasons:
a) our family needs the money.
b) solo gigs are a great way to hone your right hand chops and focus on arranging.
Oh yeah, and I just love to play in general, and let's face it, in these lean times it's easier to find the budget to pay one musician fairly than it is to pay a whole band.
After playing in ensembles or duos for all that time, it was a little daunting to walk up and perform a whole night of music by myself: would my finger-style chops be horribly rusty? Would my voice hold up all night after a couple years of minimal use? Would I bore these poor people to tears?
I was lucky. The venue is comfortable and intimate enough to connect with all the guests. The owner is friendly and honest. The staff are cool and professional. The regulars are a garrulous, friendly and open bunch. All in all it has gone exceedingly well.
It certainly woke up some sleeping musical muscles. Here are some observations about the process to date:
Know your audience:
The very nature of a solo gig encourages one to have a one-on-one relationship with the audience, and goes a long way to ensuring their attention, appreciation and forgiveness (on those off nights). After all, they're stuck with you all night; if you want them to laugh at your jokes, enjoy your tunes and buy you the odd drink you'd better strike up a personal relationship with 'em. This also gives you a chance to pick their brains: which tunes are working? what else would they like to hear you do? is the mix good? All good things to know.
Learn some new tunes:
If you're going in to perform every week for mostly the same folks, do them (and yourself) a favour and learn some new tunes. Change the show up week to week. Plan some surprises for the audience. Don't bore them (or yourself) to death with the exact same show every time. A choice, fresh tune or two on any given night will go a long way to ensure your long-term employment in that venue, and will be nothing but good for your own musical journey.
Watch the punters (and your volume):
It can be difficult to play in intimate spaces. You'll have people seated right at your feet who didn't necessarily come to hear you- they came for dinner, a drink and some conversation with friends. They're not going to be too thrilled if they can't hear themselves think because of you. Listen to the voices in the room (you should always be able to hear the buzz of conversation), watch the faces seated in the danger zones and above all, keep an eye on the service staff: if they can't take orders and chat with customers on account of you, you won't be playing there long. If it gets down to you and a bunch of fans, go ahead and rock it out, but pick your times carefully.
Arrange, arrange, arrange:
If your idea of a solo gig is strum a few hits and sing the words, well, you're gonna' need an awful lot of material, and it's all going to start sounding a lot alike to you and everyone else. Arranging tunes for solo performance is the key, and to this end I lose the pick altogether and pursue wide, fingerpicked accompaniment to keep activity in the basses, mids and trebles. Careful choice of keys will allow you to access open strings to hold down bass lines (or approximations thereof) whilst you solo up top.
Joe Pass was a master of deep solo playing. One of his tricks was to carefully slip in single string lines in little gaps in the chord sequence to keep a seamless blend. He was able to conjure up the illusion that everything was happening at once even when he was switching from part to part, in part because...
You can suggest parts that aren't there:
Setting up a bass line or a chord sequence strongly will leave those patterns suggested in the audience's heads. You don't have to play every part explicitly; work at leaving those suggested parts hanging with the audience while you dazzle them with a little something.
Don't worry about covering a whole band's sonic footprint:
One question I get often about playing solo is what I do about my tone: do I crank up the bass, or run multiple amps to try to cover everything? Uh, nope. I do nothing. Read the last point and extrapolate. The audience cannot hear what you do not suggest to them. They can see you by yourself. They're not too worried about the depth of your bass frequencies.
Put your right hand to work on percussion:
I employ a lot of right hand slaps on the strings on the two and four, either between, or simultaneously whilst picking. This provides a little extra forward drive to some tunes that need a bit of a boost.
Obviously, there are many other points one could discuss on this subject, and there are many different ways to skin this particular cat. I do hope that this gives you something to think about if you have been daunted by the idea of going it alone. Remember, the most important thing of all is to relax, have fun and play your music in a natural, comfortable manner.
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- Learning To Live With It
Under the microscope again... I recently had occasion to listen to some of the recorded work I did over the last year. In total I "surveyed" about fourteen tunes from three different projects, and was struck with a simple fact: in not one...
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- Audio Wallpaper
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Guitar
Solo (you can't hear it)
 |
| One is the loneliest number... |
a) our family needs the money.
b) solo gigs are a great way to hone your right hand chops and focus on arranging.
Oh yeah, and I just love to play in general, and let's face it, in these lean times it's easier to find the budget to pay one musician fairly than it is to pay a whole band.
After playing in ensembles or duos for all that time, it was a little daunting to walk up and perform a whole night of music by myself: would my finger-style chops be horribly rusty? Would my voice hold up all night after a couple years of minimal use? Would I bore these poor people to tears?
I was lucky. The venue is comfortable and intimate enough to connect with all the guests. The owner is friendly and honest. The staff are cool and professional. The regulars are a garrulous, friendly and open bunch. All in all it has gone exceedingly well.
It certainly woke up some sleeping musical muscles. Here are some observations about the process to date:
Know your audience:
The very nature of a solo gig encourages one to have a one-on-one relationship with the audience, and goes a long way to ensuring their attention, appreciation and forgiveness (on those off nights). After all, they're stuck with you all night; if you want them to laugh at your jokes, enjoy your tunes and buy you the odd drink you'd better strike up a personal relationship with 'em. This also gives you a chance to pick their brains: which tunes are working? what else would they like to hear you do? is the mix good? All good things to know.
Learn some new tunes:
If you're going in to perform every week for mostly the same folks, do them (and yourself) a favour and learn some new tunes. Change the show up week to week. Plan some surprises for the audience. Don't bore them (or yourself) to death with the exact same show every time. A choice, fresh tune or two on any given night will go a long way to ensure your long-term employment in that venue, and will be nothing but good for your own musical journey.
Watch the punters (and your volume):
It can be difficult to play in intimate spaces. You'll have people seated right at your feet who didn't necessarily come to hear you- they came for dinner, a drink and some conversation with friends. They're not going to be too thrilled if they can't hear themselves think because of you. Listen to the voices in the room (you should always be able to hear the buzz of conversation), watch the faces seated in the danger zones and above all, keep an eye on the service staff: if they can't take orders and chat with customers on account of you, you won't be playing there long. If it gets down to you and a bunch of fans, go ahead and rock it out, but pick your times carefully.
Arrange, arrange, arrange:
If your idea of a solo gig is strum a few hits and sing the words, well, you're gonna' need an awful lot of material, and it's all going to start sounding a lot alike to you and everyone else. Arranging tunes for solo performance is the key, and to this end I lose the pick altogether and pursue wide, fingerpicked accompaniment to keep activity in the basses, mids and trebles. Careful choice of keys will allow you to access open strings to hold down bass lines (or approximations thereof) whilst you solo up top.
Joe Pass was a master of deep solo playing. One of his tricks was to carefully slip in single string lines in little gaps in the chord sequence to keep a seamless blend. He was able to conjure up the illusion that everything was happening at once even when he was switching from part to part, in part because...
You can suggest parts that aren't there:
Setting up a bass line or a chord sequence strongly will leave those patterns suggested in the audience's heads. You don't have to play every part explicitly; work at leaving those suggested parts hanging with the audience while you dazzle them with a little something.
Don't worry about covering a whole band's sonic footprint:
One question I get often about playing solo is what I do about my tone: do I crank up the bass, or run multiple amps to try to cover everything? Uh, nope. I do nothing. Read the last point and extrapolate. The audience cannot hear what you do not suggest to them. They can see you by yourself. They're not too worried about the depth of your bass frequencies.
Put your right hand to work on percussion:
I employ a lot of right hand slaps on the strings on the two and four, either between, or simultaneously whilst picking. This provides a little extra forward drive to some tunes that need a bit of a boost.
Obviously, there are many other points one could discuss on this subject, and there are many different ways to skin this particular cat. I do hope that this gives you something to think about if you have been daunted by the idea of going it alone. Remember, the most important thing of all is to relax, have fun and play your music in a natural, comfortable manner.
- Ephemera And Updates
Garnet Stencil head. 4x10 open-back cabinet comes this week! Lookout Vancouver! Hello everybody. Once again I have let a significant period of time go by without posting anything new. I know how much this makes me crazy when I'm...
- Comfortably Numb
Into the great wide-open, a rebel without a clue... I had an interesting revelation last night: I played better (more dynamically and sensitively) when I had had no idea what was going on than when I did. As regular readers know, I host a...
- Learning To Live With It
Under the microscope again... I recently had occasion to listen to some of the recorded work I did over the last year. In total I "surveyed" about fourteen tunes from three different projects, and was struck with a simple fact: in not one...
- Chords And Grooves
...and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.... Often I hear less experienced guitarists who have reasonably good meter, but have a hard time coming up with good chord voicings or compelling rhythm grooves. Some players have a tendency to push forward...
- Audio Wallpaper
The Wolf performs at the grocery store. This past Thursday I played a charity event at a high-end cooking store (the Gourmet Warehouse in Vancouver). It featured a few local celebrity chefs, a popular local news team, a number of...