Getting
your price for new gigs
Mixing
live music with prerecorded tracks
Are you an artist or an entertainer?
Professionalism
Consider putting out a song list
Wireless is the only way to fly
Sell the performance
Try using a guest mic
Develop a core list of crowd pleasers
Develop an on-stage personality
Be sociable
Know your own market
Getting
your price for new gigs
What do
you think you’re worth? Before you can get the money you want, you need
to determine your actual value to the market in which you want to work. Go
see other musicians who are already doing what you want to do (or are doing)
and ask them what they charge. Use this information to determine what you
should ask. If you are an unknown the venue may offer you less than their
regular entertainers for the first gig or two. Don’t take this personally;
bar and club owners are business people and, just like you, they’re
trying to protect their interests. Instead, do everything you can to make
your first impression the best it can be.
If you aren't booked solid and you're trying to get in the door at new places, you might try negotiating the price for the first gig with the understanding that this is an introductory price and subsequent gigs will be at your regular price. If you aren't booked solid, do this on a night when there will be lots of people in the club (Fri or Sat) because a full bar will make you look better to the owner, even if he would have been busy anyhow. If you have a lot of bookings already, try to negotiate this deal for an off night (Thursdays are normally the next best thing) and save your weekends for your regular customers).
The introductory price method works well for another reason: If you set this up BEFORE you play your first gig, and you go over well and get invited back as a regular, then asking for more money is easy. Easy because you told the owner to expect it ahead of time. It’s much harder to ask for a raise than it is to build the raise into the plan from the beginning.
The only other thing I might advise on the subject is to make
sure that your customers (club owners) perceive the value they're paying you
when you actually get in there and perform. If you're a cut above the rest,
no one will mind paying for you. If a singer isn't any more entertaining than
a karaoke show, why then should the owner pay more for the singer? To them,
it's all about how many people show up to hear you play. No crowd, no money.
Most bars will be willing to give you a few gigs to build a clientele if they
think you have promise, so you have to wow them your first night there.
Mixing live music with prerecorded
tracks
Last year an old friend called asking for some advice on how to get started
in the solo entertainment business. He had been a bass player in several bands
over the years and had most recently worked as a DJ/Karaoke-meister. He had
lots of good PA gear and was looking for tips on how to turn his experience
into a solo gig. His plan was to sing solely to prerecorded tracks. It made
sense to him because he already had the karaoke disks. He would sit a TV on
the stage with him, and just sing karaoke songs to the audience. As he described
his plan to me, I tried to envision the audience reaction to this at the places
I play. “Uh… do you play the guitar?” I asked him.
Audiences are funny. They love to listen to the radio and CDs, and they love to go hear live entertainment, but they aren’t usually keen on getting both at the same time. Bar owners are even less keen about hiring people who use tracks extensively. In the beginning of my career (we’re talking my first three gigs ever as a solo) I used tracks for a lot of the stuff I did, while I played guitar along with the tracks. The bar owner told me after my last scheduled gig that he wouldn’t be having me back. He didn’t like the canned music. So I gave up the tracks and brushed up on my guitar playing and improved my repertoire with more upbeat music. It would be many years before I considered using tracks again.
Today my show is a 50-50 mixture of tracks and live guitar. I use the tracks only for songs that lose their appeal without bass and drums (Gimme Three Steps, Soul Man, Footloose). The standards like Brown Eyed Girl and American Pie I do acoustically. The intimacy of the acoustic helps get people involved and singing along. The rock n' roll midi stuff gets them on their feet dancing. In fact, it was the desire to get people dancing that led me to incorporate midi in the fist place after five or six years of being entirely acoustic.
My suggestion is this: If you can do it, learn to entertain without the tracks first. Find the right songs and the right approach to get people to like you for that, then if you still want to use tracks, use them to sweeten the pie, to add something to the show that takes it to another level. Contrary to what a lot of guys think, it’s not all about the music; much of it is showmanship and stage presentation. Another thing you can do is use midi with just a bass and drum track to fill in the blanks. Audiences never balk at the sound of a drum machine; solo guys have been using them for years, and no one can tell the difference between a midi track and a drum machine (that’s because they’re the same thing). If you add a bass into the midi mix, no one will even know (as long as you don’t sequence in a bass solo, of course). These two instruments can add new life to your songs without making you look karaoke-like while you play.
Not all tracks are created equal. The karaoke kind of tracks are recorded to sound as closely as possible to the original artist’s rendition. That means that the lows and highs are sonically compressed, robbing the performance of that “live feel”. You can do nothing about this because you can’t remix the audio. Another problem with karaoke-type tracks is that it’s pretty obvious to the audience that you aren’t playing all the instruments. This is especially true when there’s a ripping guitar solo on the track and you’re just standing there looking stupid while it plays. Again, you can do nothing about this. The solution to this is to use midi tracks.
If you use midi, you can always remove instruments you don’t want and even cut solos or refrains. You have complete editing abilities at the root level. You also have control over the lows and highs in the mix. Midi, played back through a good sound module, sounds as close to live as you can get without having a band there. Another added bonus of midi is that you can change the key to suit your voice (try THAT with karaoke tracks), and you can increase or decrease the tempo as you see fit. The down side of midi is the learning curve. Sorry, it takes time to learn the technology and use it effectively, but if you’re going to use backing tracks, you need to take the time and learn.
Are
you an artist or an entertainer?
Do you want to be known as a musician or do you want to be known as an entertainer?
Entertainers work more often than musicians, even though many entertainers
are good musicians. This is because most people in clubs and bars don't know
the difference between a passable musician and a great one.
I have not made a phone call to look for work in seven years, and yet I work every weekend. This is an amazing statistic considering the fickleness of the business. The reason for this is one simple philosophy in my work: Always play songs people want to hear. This isn't always an easy thing to figure out. Takes a lot of experimentation and, if possible, listening to other performers and taking notes on what's working for them. Some guys in this business consider themselves "artists" and they tell me they play music that they (the artist) like regardless of the crowd. These guys won't stoop to playing Buffett songs and are horrified at the thought of playing Brown Eyed Girl. But this is why they scrounge for work even though they're much better musicians than I. Truth is, people want to hear songs they know and can sing along with. The more sing along songs you can do, the better you'll be received. Play lots of upbeat stuff during the first set and a half, letting the crowd warm up (drink), and then when people are getting loose, get them involved with the sing alongs. I try to keep slow songs, love songs, sad songs, to a minimum. Keep things up from start to finish as much as possible.
Recently I had an early gig on a Friday night and was finished in time to go hear another guy play across town. This dude was a smokin’ acoustic guitar player. He was so good, in fact, that I watched him dropped-jawed and in awe the entire time. He had a decent singing voice, but I was so mesmerized by his guitar playing that I barely noticed. As I watched him, appreciating his skill, I also watched the audience. They weren’t paying much attention. The player sat on the stage in a folding chair, his body facing to the side, reading lyrics off a music stand. The songs he played, although complex and musical, were doing nothing to excite the audience.
When the guy took his break, I introduced myself to him and we talked for a while. He expressed his frustration to me that the audience wasn’t paying attention to him. As we talked, he went on to tell me that he knew he was a good musician and he really wanted people to watch him play. I think in his mind, he envisioned people on bar stools, all turned his way and hanging on every note. He was actually angry that he wasn’t getting the respect he felt he deserved.
Several times in the conversation, he mentioned other solo guys out there and how he didn’t want to be like the masses, singing Brown-Eyed-Girl every night. The thought of playing Jimmy Buffett songs horrified him. He thought this was beneath his artistic level. I understand his frustration. He really is a good musician and should be playing to audiences that watch him and give him their undivided attention. The problem is that he has no right to expect that from THIS audience. People don’t go to bars and clubs to listen to the musicians. They go to talk to their friends, drink, laugh, hang out, dance, and have a good time. When you hear people say they’re going to a club because some band’s there, they’re not going there to listen to the band. They’re going there because the band does something that helps them have a good time. The entertainment is there as a way to get the party going, or at least to enhance the customer’s good time. If you’re paid to play in a bar, you have an obligation to do everything you can to add to the patron’s enjoyment level. It’s your job to serve them and if you want their attention, you have to get it by doing something that rings their collective bell.
I feel bad for the really excellent musicians who can’t find their audience. There just aren’t many paying venues for “sit down and watch me” type artists. But please, if you’re one of those frustrated musicians, please don’t blame the club audience. Your thing and theirs is not the same, and you have no right to expect anything from them, because they are your customers and you provide a service to them. If you pay for a meal at a restaurant and the server refuses to bring you what you ordered, insisting instead that you eat the meal she just cooked herself, (her favorite dish), you wouldn’t return to that restaurant. The owner of the restaurant, in turn, would do well to tell that server to go open her own restaurant and find her own customers… people who like her cooking.
In short, if you’re hiring yourself out as an entertainer, it’s your job to entertain the patrons. They have no obligation to you.
Professionalism
Additionally, always be professional. Show up on time, keep your breaks short
(one an hour, 15 minutes tops), and show respect for every single soul, drinkers
and owners alike. I have seen so many unapproachable singers, its a wonder
they work at all. People have to like you, (Sad but true) and that's impossible
if you act like an unapproachable asshole. It's ALL about customer service.
Service to the patrons, and service to the club owners. Memorize your songs.
Never read the lyrics. This might seem like entertainment 101, but the guy
I saw last week used a music stand. That's okay for Billy Joel, but not for
cover singers. This is especially important if you're using midi, because
you already have to overcome the perception that you are a karaoke show. Reading
the lyrics sends all the wrong messages to people.
Consider putting out
a song list
One thing I do that helps me immensely is put out song lists for every table.
I print my 200+ songs on both sides of an 8 1/2 X 17 paper and have the local
Staples store laminate them for me. People who don't know me think it's going
to be karaoke when I hand them out (one to a table), and I tell them they're
welcome to come up and sing with me if they like, but usually I do the hard
part. People enjoy being able to pick the song they want to hear. On the song
list I have an area devoted to the top ten ways to request a song. Tips range
from "Write your request on the back of a $5 bill" to "Wait
till I'm in the middle of a song, hand me a note and engage me in a conversation
so I have to sing, play, read, and talk to you at the same time". Believe
me, the night goes much smoother when you sing requests all night and don't
have to wonder if you're performing the right mix. This suggestion, however
may not work for you if you're entirely midi, because you need to put as much
distance between your show and a karaoke show as possible. Think it over.
Wireless
is the only way to fly
I play totally wireless. Wireless headset mic, wireless guitar. You wouldn't
believe how much this helps you make contact with an audience. When you're
wireless, they can't run from you. I get in their faces, rarely stand in one
place and never stand on a stage. If there's a stage, I work from in front
of the stage, on the floor, as close as possible to the audience without sitting
at their tables. Yeah, it takes balls the first couple times, but you'd be
amazed at how well it works. This eliminates the "barrier" imposed
on you by distance if the stage is far from the audience... especially if
the audience is small. Even if you don't move around the room, just being
able to move your head or pivot in place to make eye contact with the audience
makes all the difference in the world. The first couple years of my career
I became known as The-guy-who-stands-on-chairs. When the crowd was really
with it and all singing along, I'd spice things up by climbing up on a chair
and performing from there.. This audacious feat is loved by drunk people far
and wide. Remember, drunk people. This won't fly at Ladies Auxiliary Meetings.
I don't do this too much any more because the audience, seeing me do it, often
tries to dance on their tables and chairs. You don't want drunks dancing three
feet off the floor. The point I'm making here is not about chairs. It's about
being entertaining.
Sell the performance
Force yourself to smile the entire evening. Smile when there's nothing to
smile about. Look for people who are paying attention and smile at them from
time to time. This simple discipline makes it appear that you're having a
ball. Often, I pick an imaginary spot on the wall and smile at it. People
think I'm making eye contact with someone in the back of the room. Every night
I play, someone tells me that I look like I'm having the time of my life up
there (even if it was a sucky night). Watch professional ice skaters for a
lesson in this. These guys always smile, even though their bodies are on fire
and their lungs are aching. I think they call this "Selling the performance".
Do you remember the old Barbara Mandrell variety show? Now there's an entertainer.
I learned a lot from watching that show. Mandrell is an excellent musician,
plays about every instrument known to man (she's a world class steel player),
but she was outrageous on stage. She danced, she played, she let the male
dancers throw her all over the stage. The national audience ate this up every
week. Something about her reached out to people. She was accessible. Sort
of had that Oprah thing going on, only with music. Barbara had several hit
songs, but most people never gave her the time of day... until they saw her
perform. That changed everything.
Bruce Springsteen also comes to mind. This guy struggled for years to get
his records played on the air. The whole time he was struggling with record
sales, he was packing venues all over the country and being hailed as one
of the most stunning entertainers of our time. He was packing huge venues,
but no one was buying his records. I don't particularly care for Springsteen's
music. I don't think he can sing worth a damn, but I'm amazed at his entertaining
prowess.
You may have never heard of JR Mangan, and I only ever heard him play one
time, back in the early ' 90's, but that one show was instrumental in developing
my approach to this business. I've actually had two careers at this solo entertaining
thing. A failed attempt in 1990 and the successful one that began in 1995
(with a three year hiatus in between, where I didn't even touch the guitar).
When I first got started in 90 I couldn't get it right. Played all the wrong
songs, hadn't learned to work the crowd. I'm a good singer and a passable
guitar player, but talent wasn't enough. I had a bar owner tell me that, like
our musician friend mentioned earlier, I wasn't what he was looking for. He
told me I needed to be more like JR Mangan, another guy he had in there every
Thursday night. I had never seen JR play before, so I came back to that same
club a week later and watched his show. The place was packed. I couldn't wait
to hear JR play to find out what all the fuss was about. So he comes out,
plays his first song, and leaves me totally unimpressed. He doesn't sing or
play any better than anyone else I had heard play in town. What's the deal?!
His guitar work isn't fancy, his harmonica playing uninspiring, but the crowd
goes wild. He has them singing and clapping on the first song! For the rest
of the set, he talks to them, gets people up to sing with him, plays songs
everybody knows, and pretty much owns the whole place. I was stunned. JR wasn't
just a musician, he was an entertainer! The light came on. By the way, JR
was the highest paid performer in State College (Yeah, the home of Penn State)
in 1990 . He raised the bar for the rest of us so it wasn't unheard of to
ask for $200 a night (Remember when that was a lot of money?). Because of
his success, every performer in town benefited. When I realized I was doing
something wrong and work was hard to find, I took a couple years off to lick
my wounds. When I got back into it in '95, I had thought about that JR performance
for three years, and here I put my observations to work. Bang! Instant hit.
Wireless, Wild, and Upbeat opened the doors immediately. If you're ever in
the State College area, you owe it to yourself to go see JR. He now works
with a great vocalist in a duo called JR
and Sharon.
Try using a guest mic
Never underestimate the power of getting someone from the audience to sing
with you. I always have a "guest" mic available. You have to control
this. There's always some clown in the audience who wants to be a star. Try
to keep that guy away from the mic. Look for intoxicated girls (no, not sloppy
drunk, just having a good time) or non assuming guys. The crowd won't respond
well if you bring some asshole to the mic. Sort of defeats the purpose. When
the guest is singing, Do your best to make her look good. Smile at her while
she sings so the audience sees you supporting her. This makes you look like
a good guy. Sing with her, helping her out with the lyrics, but keep your
vocals way back so the audience doesn't think you're being a spotlight hog.
Discourage the guests from singing "production" numbers like they
would at karaoke. Ideally, guests should sing songs everybody knows and can
join in with. Upbeat, upbeat upbeat. Guests are rarely good singers, but they're
entertaining as hell. You'll look like a hero if you pull it off right. I
find this good to do only once or twice in a night. If you do more than that,
you loose control of the show, and you NEVER want to lose control of the show.
I feel this way about other musicians in the audience. Real musicians. I occasionally
invite visiting entertainers to play during my breaks, but rarely will I put
another musician in in the middle of my set. I work too hard to establish
control of the room to let it slip out of my hands like that. This isn't an
ego thing. It's all about keeping rapport with the audience.
Develop a core list
of crowd pleasers
I mentioned that I have a song list with over 200 songs on it. You know, it
looks impressive but out of those 200 songs, there's only about 50 that I
ever really play. When you do requests, you always hear the same songs requested
over and over. The trick here is to have just 25 - 30 songs that kick ass.
Songs that are tried and true crowd pleasers. I'm always looking for songs
that meet this criteria. Sometimes you can't tell for sure if a song's going
to work or not. It can be very frustrating to spend the time learning something
only to have it fall flat. Here's a case in point. Paul Simon's "Call
Me Al" (midi) is one of the best crowd pleasers I have. People jump out
of their chairs and form conga lines. This song works so well, that I invested
my time in another Simon song "Late in the Evening" (also midi)
that has that same Latin feel. Amazingly enough, Late in the Evening falls
flat while Al still brings them to their feet. How come? I don't know exactly.
If I had to nail it down, I'd say that people like the African feel to Al
while the Cuban feel to Evening doesn't grab them. They LIKE the song, but
they just don't leap out of their seats for it. I was surprised by this.
Song selection is critical. I'll spend 3-5 hours remixing (using Sonar) every
new midi song before I play it, and as much as a week trying to memorize the
lyrics for it. This is a lot of effort for one song, so I'm always careful
to choose songs that are going to be worth the effort. Every tune is an investment.
It must pay off in audience reaction. I don't waste time on songs that won't
have a big positive effect on the audience. If the song doesn't make them
want to dance or sing along, I don't bother.
The right songs span age differences. I play the same songs for college crowds
that I play for mid-lifer's. Take a look at the photo gallery on my website
at the pictures for J's Tavern. This place is right next to Juniata College.
Last weekend the place was so full of college students you couldn't get from
one end of the bar to the other. Know what they request? Brown Eyed Girl,
Piano Man, Me and Julio, and American Pie. They dance to Skynyrd, and sing
along to songs that were popular before they were born. In the past I've learned
and performed songs from the Top 40 list only to have them fall incredibly
flat. I love the song "Hero" from the Spider-man soundtrack, a top
10 hit last summer. I played it out a few times, got no reaction from it,
and dropped it. Haven't played it in months. How come? It doesn't make drunk
people want to dance or sing along. Simple as that.
Develop an on-stage
personality
Amazingly enough, I am the most reserved, quiet, introverted guy you ever
met. I hate crowds and prefer not to talk to people if I don't have to.
I hate small talk, so social settings are not my favorite event. I mention
this in case you're thinking that a guy has to have a type "A"personality
to be entertaining. Not so. I did take the Dale Carnegie course years
ago and learned a lot there about carrying on a conversation with strangers,
skills I use to talk to people between songs or during breaks. I use what
I learned there very night I'm playing out. I've worked at picking up
communication skills that make me accessible to people without me having
to talk a lot (I ask them questions about themselves). I've learned that
there is a switch you can turn on that lets you be someone else when you
strap on the guitar. It's like putting on a mask at Halloween. You can
be anyone you want behind the mask. This difference in personalities is
so pronounced that I had a lady sit in one of my adult computer classes
(I teach through the week) for three nights without realizing that I was
the same guy she used to come to see every Friday for happies. Summerhill
is a stage name and I use my real name when I'm teaching. Without the
backwards ball cap, she never made the connection until I gave her my
email address, which of course contained SteveSummerhill.com. "Do
you know Steve Summerhill?" She asked me. My point? Develop an on-stage
personality that does what you need to do, regardless of your own social
limitations.
Be sociable
Talk to people during breaks and after the show. If I find a table that stays
with me the entire show, I always thank them for hanging in there at the end
of the night. If I find a group of people having a great time, I make a point
to walk over and say hello during a break and thank them for their requests.
When people leave, if they have to pass me to get out the door, I always either
nod or break the song and say goodnight to them. I smile and nod to new people
who enter the room. Every Friday I play from 5-7 at Don Pablo's Mexican Restaurant.
I play in the bar there for Happy Hour. I make a point every week of going
to every table that stayed for the entire two hours and thanking them for
being there. Usually just a quick walk by and a couple hand shakes. This way,
if people have questions or want to chat, I'm accessible. This requires a
certain amount of tact and an ability to read people. Obviously, I don't want
to break up a conversation at a table, or hit some grumpy people who were
annoyed by the loud music.
I keep a pocket sized spiral notebook with my gear so I can write down people's
names. I keep a list of bar tenders, waitresses, and patrons. Occasionally,
I'll jot down little notes about specific conversations or points of interest
so when I see them again next week, I can call them by name. I have the world's
worst memory. This has helped a lot.
Know your own market
I know a very fine musician who plays contemporary classical guitar. He doesn't
sing. He works regularly playing out at places where men wear ties and ladies
wear skirts. He plays the same places every week and isn't lacking work at
all. He wouldn't enjoy playing the venues I play, (I just can't envision Rich
Wiley standing on a chair and singing Brown Eyed Girl) but he doesn't need
to, he has his own niche. State College has several fine dining restaurants
where Rich is perfectly at home, sitting on a classical guitar stool and playing
instrumental Beatles numbers. Conversely, I wouldn't want to play Rich's venues
either. Even though I know enough mellow, low key songs to keep that kind
of audience happy it's just not my market. My strengths are all geared toward
audience involvement. It's what I do best. I try to play to those strengths
and don't actively seek out white table cloth events.
I work all the time, but I've been fortunate enough to find places where there's
a match between what the owners like and what I provide. I've also played
places that didn't result in an invitation to come back. It's my regular customers
who keep me working and book so far in advance. My best customer, the US Hotel
has had me there twice a month for nearly six years now. the US has a tiny
bar. If you get thirty people in there, they're standing shoulder to shoulder.
Some nights there are just enough people to fill the five booths they have.
Other nights it's standing room only. You never know. My point is, that I'm
not playing to huge crowds every night. That's not what it's all about. It's
finding customers who believe in you and see you as the kind of performer
they want to offer to their clientele, owners who will keep inviting you back.
