Resources for Performing Musicians
Choosing the correct music for your audience.
It’s tough finding sure hits for your live band to play. You want songs that are going to fill the floor every time you play them. I’ve been playing the Billy Idol version of Mony Mony since 1985 and it’s STILL filling the floor when my band plays it. Am I sick of the song? Yes I am. Am I sick of seeing a crowd of people dancing and yelling and having a great time watching me play the song. No I’m not.
Continue reading “Creating A Setlist Using iTunes iMix – Dance Set List 1”
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. Continue reading “Choosing Current Music, Grammy Winners”
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. Continue reading “Song Selection by iTunes Top Songs”
Ahhh, the question that has made or broken many a band. What music should we play? Well, I’m going to tell you right now that Dance music has made me more money than any other kind. I’m a rock guitar player and I sing lead quite often as well. I love Rock-N-Roll. That’s my music. Especially the hard stuff like AC\DC, Led Zepplin, Dream Theater and The Who. But it’s hard to get people on the dance floor playing that type of music. I still play Won’t Get Fooled again by The Who, but mainly at the beginning of the night or during encores. Continue reading “What music should my band play?”
“I know what music I like, and I’m going to play it!”.
Man, if I had a dime for every time a band member said that to me I’d be rich. We all have our favorite music and we’re all partial to it. But is that what you need to play to keep an audience happy? Well, it really depends on where you’re playing.
If you’re playing in a dance club, you sure better be playing music that the audience can dance to. If you don’t, you’ll hear about it and it usually won’t be kind.
In the Song Selection category, I’ll be discussing how to choose music to suit your audience. There are a lot of tools out there and a lot of reference material you can use to increase your chance of playing music that people are going to get out of their chairs for. Check back often, as I’ll review song collections and make suggestions as to what CD’s should be in your collection.
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