 These are guiding principles that I developed over the decades. Will every rule apply to you? Probably not, especially if you are opening for Carrot Top in the Boom-Boom Room. But for most basic gigs, these guidelines tend to make the night go smoother than bumpier. The first ten were: Gig Rule #1: The client is always right – in real time. Gig Rule #2: Gently smile – not grin - at all times. Gig Rule #3: You were hired to play music – not to be funny, tell stories, teach, or be therapeutic. Gig Rule #4: Have a set list with more songs prepared than you will need. Gig Rule #5: Get the venue’s wifi password and log on before you start to play so you can look up a requested song’s lyrics on the fly. Gig Rule #6: If you have never played the venue before, bring extra extension cords as well as a few ground lifts in case of sixty-cycle hum issues. Gig Rule #7: Pack an emergency bag with extra strings, extra bridge pins, an extra XLR cord, nine volt batteries, and _______________. Gig Rule #8: Start on time and play an extra song at the end. Gig Rule #9: Before you finish a song, know what the next song will be and start it as quickly as possible. Gig Rule #10: The only person you are allowed to make a joke about when the mic is live is yourself. Anything else is an unnecessary risk. Onward to #11! Gig Rule #11: Don’t swear. Imagine that everyone in front of you has the morals of a born-again Christian. Don’t think that swearing will offend anyone? Throw a few F bombs in your patter and you’ll find out just who is a member of the moral majority. Chances are, they won’t complain to you. They’ll be much more passive-aggressive and go right to the management. Gig Rule #12: Find out what songs people what to hear and then play them. There is a reason why the wait staff ask diners what they want to eat. They know customers have an idea of what they want to order and as servers, they want to please the customers by providing food that reflect the customers’ tastes. It’s not all driven by altruism. Servers want to get a good tip at the end of the meal. They cater to the choices of their customers. Extra napkins? No problem! Too many musicians come into a gig with a mindset that they know certain songs and that is what they are going to play. Period. The taste of the customers doesn’t enter their work equation. It’s almost as if the audience is there to serve them! They have one set list and one batch of songs they like and that’s it. Take it or leave it. People like to have choices. They are already used to requesting what they like to eat. You have to provide that same level of choice and control with music. As far as tips go: you are being tipped not because you have a three octave range or because you can play sixty-fourth notes at 120bpm. Music and performing is not just about technique. Music starts with connecting with the audience. If someone smiling walks up to you, it is because you have created an inviting space where people feel confident and secure enough to approach you and pay you a compliment. You are being complimented and tipped because your music emotionally touched someone to the degree that they wanted to thank you with a kind word or a monetary gift signifying their emotional connection. People like what they like, whether it’s food or music. Find out what they like and serve it up on a silver platter. Tip: Look at the venue’s menu to get a clue what you should be playing. Is the menu filled with typical offerings, like appetizers, salads, burgers, sandwiches, drinks, and desserts? Or do you see things like fried squid, sautéed scorpions, or morpane worms in swakopmund? If it’s the former, no matter how much you love the catalogues of the Dead Kennedys and the Pixies, your musical offering should be mainstream as the menu. If the menu and environs are edgier, that’s a sign that you might be able to expand on your traditional song offerings. No matter what, ask then customers what they want to hear and then play it. Gig Rule #13: Make eye contact with the audience at least every ten seconds. It's easy to get in a hypnotic rut looking at your music or your hands while gigging. If you are going to be in your own little world, don’t be disappointed if your audience decides to do the same. Music is about connections and communication. Nothing establishes both of those like eye contact. If you are playing for people who are visually impaired, you MUST add descriptive bits in between your songs that paint a picture of the room, the occasion, the reactions of others, and most importantly, how happy you are to be playing music for all of those in the room. Gig Rule #14: Understand and perform to the lowest common denominator in the room and only deviate when fulfilling requests. If you’ve taken the temperature of the audience before you play, you’ll have a good sense which genres and tunes will work on any given night. Do what will work – not what shows of your chop. Gig Rule #15: Solicit requests on a face-to-face basis and then play them. Saying something into a mic like, “What do you want to hear?” is risky. While you might get a few decent requests, you leave yourself open for lots of insulting responses, including the classic “Freebird!” And what if you ask for requests on mic and all you get is crickets? What does that say about you and your music’s ability to engage listeners? Talk to people before you play as well as in between sets on a conversational basis, take their requests, compliment them on their impeccable taste in music, and then play what they told you that they want to hear. Next stop: Rules #16 through 20.  These are guidelines that I developed over the decades. Will every rule apply to you? Probably not, especially if you are opening for Cher in Vegas. But for most basic gigs, these precepts tend to make the night go smoother than bumpier.
The first five were: Gig Rule #1: The client is always right – in real time. Gig Rule #2: Gently smile – not grin - at all times. Gig Rule #3: You were hired to play music – not to be funny, tell stories, teach or be therapeutic. Gig Rule #4: Have a set list with more songs prepared than you will need. Gig Rule #5: Get the venue’s wifi password and log on before you start to play so you can look up a requested song’s lyrics on the fly. Onward to #6! Gig Rule #6: If you have never played the venue before, bring extra extension cords as well as a few ground lifts in case of sixty-cycle hum issues. New venues are always fun. The biggest problems that I have ever run into are power outlets that are far away and 60 cycle hum in the electrical system. Gig Rule #7: Pack an emergency bag with extra strings, extra bridge pins, an extra XLR cord, nine volt batteries, and _______________. I bring the above . . . plus another Shure SM58, many extra cables, a flashlight, a “guit-tool”, cough drops, extra business cards, promotional material, black drapes to cover cases if there is no closet space, and often a second guitar. Gig Rule #8: Start on time and play an extra song at the end. I always play a little extra unless the venue is anxious to close and clean-up. Tip: I always start and end on two of my strongest songs. Gig Rule #9: Before you finish a song, know what the next song will be and start it as quickly as possible. You have to be able to simultaneously hold at least three thoughts with the two most important being the song you are preforming and the next song you will perform. Nothing says “unprepared amateur” like excessive fumbling around, looking for the next song. Gig Rule #10: The only person you are allowed to make a joke about when the mic is live is yourself. Anything else is an unnecessary risk. Nine out of ten attempts at humor that performing musicians make are feeble at best and a total buzz kill at worst. You’ve trained to be a musician, not a comedian. Remember, every successful comedian has spent thousands of hours getting their material to the place where they can present it on a gig. Unless you’ve done the same, be very careful when you try to be funny – primarily because the effect that will come across is that you ARE trying and not convincingly funny. Next time: rules #11 through 15.  These are guidelines that I developed over the decades. Will every rule apply to you? Probably not, especially if you are opening for Clapton at the Royal Albert Hall. But for most basic gigs, these precepts tend to make the night go smoother than bumpier. Gig Rule #1: The client is always right – in real time. Do everything possible to not get into a contentious situation with the person paying you. If you do, there is no winning, especially if you get your way. If the person paying you feels like they “lost”, they will hold it against you in a myriad of ways for a long time to come. Deal with issues AFTER the gig and think "win-win". Gig Rule #2: Gently smile – not grin - at all times. When I am asked what to wear to a concert or a gig, my first response is usually “A smile and a good attitude”. A musician’s attitude is infinitely more important than their aptitude. Once you walk under the transom, the gig has started. It doesn’t matter if you’re setting up, playing your first or last set, or waving good-bye as you walk out the door after you’ve done your "idiot check", the gig is on-going. Your smile says you are there to be positive and make things better, not worse. If there are any variables about the job that stop you from smiling before the gig starts or while you are still booking it, you’ll probably be conflicted during the gig. If that is the case, don’t take the gig. That in includes if you think the compensation is too low, the travel is too far, or the hours are too long. If the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, walk away and leave that gig for someone else. Take comfort that while you are walking away without a gig, you are walking away with a smile still on your face. Gig Rule #3: You were hired to play music – not to be funny, tell stories, teach, or be therapeutic. Once you start playing, don’t preface every tune with a story, nervous breakdown, skit, or wax poetic how you felt the first time you heard it. Play the material. You’re a musician. Gig Rule #4: Have a set list with more songs prepared than you will need. Don’t think you are so good and have done it for so long that you don’t need a set list. We all benefit from a set list. You always want more options than fewer when it comes to tunes you’re ready to perform. Gig Rule #5: Get the venue’s wifi password and log on before you start to play so you can look up a requested song’s lyrics on the fly. I’ve loaded about 1,700 pdfs of lyrics into my lyric app. The music to the songs are not that much of a problem but things like the second verse of “The Tennessee Waltz” are not residing in my hippocampus. Even so, there are times when someone requests a tune that I don’t have the words for.That’s when I open a browser tab for “Lyrics AZ” and find the words for the song. It can be a real “tune saver”. Tip: make sure you adjust your screen time-out setting to something larger than five minutes. Gig Rules #6 through #10 are next up.  As music educators, not much of our college experience is aimed at songwriting.
So here are some thoughts for teachers who want to get started, either writing songs for themselves or for their students. The first thing is learn as many songs written by others as possible. I’m talking about songs where you sing and accompany yourself. The more songs you know – and I mean REALLY know – the easier it will be to progress as a songwriter. So set a goal and aim for a number, say, learn at least one song a day. In a year, you’ll have a pretty extensive repertoire. From jump street, start cataloging your song data. Stay away from paper and create PDFs. Gone are the days when I carried a milk crate with FOUR three-inch-three-ring binders with tons of music. Now I just have my tablet. Get an app where you can keep all these PDFs organized. I’m an Android kind of guy and have been using Zubersoft’s “MobileSheetsPro” and love it. Keep an ever growing list of songs and the artists who popularized them. Create PDFs of the lyrics, including the song title, the composers, and thee year it was composed. I start with creating a Word doc and then import it as a PDF. I keep two folders, one of Word doc lyrics and the other as a PDF folder. If you need the music to play the songs, find a lead sheet and create a PDF of that too – but have a doc title ending with “music” so you won’t confuse it with the lyric pdf. Find the best key for your voice and work hard at nailing the song down in that key. It might not be in the lead sheet’s key but learn how to transpose it into YOUR key. Transposing is a key skill for songwriters and you might as well start bolstering that skill. With every song you learn, learn the song in at least three other keys. Eventually, you want to play any song in any key. This is not just some kind of macho music chops thing. As a songwriter, you need the flexibility to shift into any key that a song pulls you, even if just for a few measures. Without a strong knowledge of keys and transposing, you’ll always be ruled by the song. You need the upper hand to be able to put any song into any key on a second’s notice. |
AuthorBoyd Holmes, the Writer Archives
February 2025
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