One way to stay current with your bands song selection is to keep an eye on the yearly Grammy Awards. The Grammy Awards are presented annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States for outstanding achievements in the record industry. Debate has raged about whether the Grammy Awards actually represent the sentiments of the public at large and I’ve knocked the Grammys many times. I feel like they really miss the best of industry a lot of the time. But I have to say that the Grammys do get the public interested and they get those of us in the music industry talking. (more…)
Category: 3. Improve Your Live Band Skills
Become a better player, singer, showman and Live Band.
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Stage Banter, Speak To The Crowd!
This is just a quick tip on Stage Banter. When you’re up there onstage and you’re not playing, don’t forget to talk to the crowd! You’ll lose them quick if you’re up onstage having a discussion amongst yourselves. The crowd will see you as either confused or simply uncaring that there’s a crowd of people there to watch you.
If you’re not sure what song you’re going to play next make sure you have somebody on the microphone talking to the crowd while the rest of the band decides what song is going to be played next. That’s why you want to make a set list at the beginning of the set so you don’t have to fill too much airtime with stage banter. (more…) -
Song Selection by iTunes Top Songs
It’s tough deciding on what songs to play for a lot of reasons. There’s always going to be somebody in the band that absolutely loves a song. They’ll bring it to practice and say something like “We HAVE to play this song”. More often than not, somebody else in the band will hate the song or be very ho-hum about playing the song. (more…)
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Dressing For The Stage
I like being comfortable. I’m the most comfortable in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I have to tell you that I don’t like wearing costumes and I hate dressing up. So for a long time I just wore jeans and a t-shirt onstage. Then I started opening for other bands and I really began to notice how cool they looked creating a look for when they played onstage. I remember thinking once at a gig that the band that opened for us just looked cooler than we did. They just seemed a lot more hip even though musically we blew them away. The real bummer was, the crowd was louder for that band than for us. (more…)
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Learn Music Theory
I can’t stress enough how important it is to know some music theory. It’s really not that hard to understand music theory and once you get a basic knowledge you can apply it in many ways. Having a working knowledge of music theory has helped me in my songwriting and my ability to communicate with other musicians. Music theory is like learning to speak the language of music and it’s a very easy language to learn. Once you know it then you can really communicate with higher level musicians. Knowing how to determine what key a song or chord progression is in has helped me immensely when I’m jamming with other musicians. (more…)
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Why Do I Want To Give My Music Away For Free?
Why do we as musicians want to give our music away for free? The business term is Marketing. Music is what we do and our music is our offering to the world. Our music is what we hope that people will want to listen to and ultimately buy from us. Our goal is to make the most amount of money from our music. To do that, our music has to be heard by as many people as possible. (more…)
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Practicing to a beat…not a metronome.
One thing that most musicians struggle with is playing accurately in a groove. It’s a huge necessity to be able to play things on the beat especially when you’re playing with other musicians. That rhythmic pulse is what keeps us all on the same page when we’re playing together in groups. I’ve played with bass players and guitar players that have a tough time even playing an eighth-note rhythm consistently. I myself struggle to play extremely fast guitar solos on the beat from time to time and it used to be a real struggle for me until I started practicing with a metronome. The metronome did me well but boy is it boring and irritating after a while. (more…)
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The Importance Of Recording Yourself
I still remember the first time I heard a live recording of a gig. I was horrified! There I was thinking I was a rock star and then I heard the recording and I couldn’t believe people had stayed through the whole show. My singing was off in places, my stage banter and interaction with the crowd was aweful and the mix left a lot to be desired. After I listened to that recording a few times, I did start to hear some things I liked. I was able to pinpoint the things I had done well and also the things I had done badly. Now after all these years that recording is a precious posession because I have a record of how I sounded at 15 years old. And I’ve grown to really love it. Warts and all. (more…)
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Music Is Your Business
When I finally got out of high school and first started doing club gigs a good musician friend of mine gave me a book. I read it cover to cover and it has proved to be a valuable resource even after all these years. That book is no longer in print but I want to suggest another book that just released its 3rd edition in 2007. (more…)