|
Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
OMB Notes..
OMB Notes..
Page:
1
HarpNinja
2018 posts
Dec 20, 2011
6:45 AM
|
This past Friday I played a two hour solo gig over Happy Hour (during a snowfall that resulted in dozens of accidents in the immediate area...just my luck). Before that, the most I'd every played solo was 50min.
I just want to report that this wasn't as painful as I thought it would be. I was really concerned that anything more than an hour would be too much of the same thing, but I was wrong. I was also worried about not letting songs go on too long, but that wasn't an issue either. I played five fewer songs than I had planned for.
I knew the crowd would be between 20-50 people during that block, and brought about 10 on my own including a harmonica player in the MN Music Hall of Fame, the town's leading blues radio personality, a regionally touring jam-band musician, and a few friends from work who'd never seen/heard me play anything before.
I took a 10min set break in the middle an mingled with everyone I could - which included groups ranging in age from their 20's to 50's (pretty even mix). Everyone stayed into the 2nd set - including several tables that said they were only stopping for one drink, but liked the show enough to stay longer. I know the bar ran out of New Belgium Snow Day, and that was because I was hawking it from the stage, lol.
Being totally honest, it was a lot of music for me to be ready to play. I had to use a few cheat sheets for lyrics, and I played a couple of parts wrong and had to work around those loops. It wasn't anything anyone else noticed, but it wasn't how I rehearsed it. However, I was VERY organized with the setlist, song structures, and addressing the crowd. I didn't have dead time between songs, and I made sure back-to-back songs weren't too similar. Other than the occasional joke or spontaneous comments to the crowd during songs, I only used one time per set to talk about what I was doing (the first about using a chromatic for the last song of the first set, and then explaining how I was creating the songs midway through set two).
My point is, it was totally doable and just as likely to grab the audience as any other type of act. I don't know if I'll be invited back, and I don't plan on calling right away as I have other gigs booked through March.
This was a great venue for my style of what is essentially trance blues (huge amount of Otis Taylor and RL Burnside inspired material), but I didn't get a good read from the owner what he thought. He tends to be very intimidating and a bit cold regardless of the act.
The evening band came in during set two and camped out right in front of me (had no clue they were a band until after my set) and were really into it too.
Again, I am not posting this to brag. I just want those interested in this stuff on the board to hear a small success story and feel that they can make it a viable option beyond YouTube, busking, and the random set for an audience here and there.
Right now, I am trying to do one solo gig a month. So far, every venue I've contacted has agreed to a show where I play 1-2 hours. Actually, one coffee shop never got back to me, but it was also the only club with no monetary guarantee, so I didn't hound them.
----------
Mike
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas
VHT Special 6 Mods
|
superchucker77
339 posts
Dec 20, 2011
8:35 AM
|
Sounds like your really making progress with your solo skills. 2 hours as a solo act is definitely some serious work but is very doable if you have everything organized. I will often finish a gig and realize that I didn't have to play every song on my set-list. Just keep the audience as engaged as possible and don't let redundancy set in.
----------
Brandon O. Bailey
Official Website of Superchucker
|
HarpNinja
2019 posts
Dec 20, 2011
9:07 AM
|
Great points. I intentionally write my setlist with how I start each song listed. I then avoid any back to back songs with the same start or format.
I also reorganize the song structure on the fly. For example, I wouldn't do back to back songs that were intro - verse - verse - solo - verse - outro.
For this show, I don't solo very much. I definitely don't go off on long jams more than once or twice a set. I would say every third song as a solo beyond playing a melody line or playing fills. I also try to avoid filling the same between songs. Sometimes I beatbox, use an effect, or use hand percussion for fill instead of harp.
I am a very mathematical thinker, so it is easy to keep things varied.
As a slightly OT side-note: A high-profile harp player was dissing my format for not including more crazy effects. I've kept that in the back of my mind, but I find many of them just ruin the song. I use a phaser and chorus a couple times, but really stick to delays, reverbs, and rotary. I don't even use the rotary much.
I do think, though, the delays and reverbs are super important to filling space. I only use delays of different lengths (no modded delays) and I use a plate reverb and a particle verb 1-2 a night.
Another think I try to plan out is stage and body position...avoiding sitting for a long time or having to stick close to the vocal mic for too long, etc.
My preplanning made it a lot easier to suck at playing without anyone noticing.
----------
Mike
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas
VHT Special 6 Mods
|
mr_so&so
486 posts
Dec 20, 2011
2:19 PM
|
Mike, thanks for taking the time to let us know about your OMB experiences. I'm finding it very interesting.
----------
|
eharp
1624 posts
Dec 20, 2011
2:56 PM
|
sounds like you are makin' it happen!
i thought the notes would be something like:
1) do not forget the harps
2) make sure fly is zipped
glad i was wrong.
|
HarpNinja
2022 posts
Dec 21, 2011
8:04 AM
|
Really, it is...
1) do not forget the harps
2) have a plan for immediate action should you screw up a loop
A huge advantage to the Boomerang III is you can learn to serial-sync loops and not worry about timing loops wrong. Well, you can still do them wrong if you don't do the math right, but you can have loops automatically start and stop on the one of any measure so long as it is a multiple of the master loop.
----------
Mike
VHT Special 6 Mods
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the heart...
Last Edited by on Dec 21, 2011 8:04 AM
|
Post a Message
|
