Got my final Uni performance next week, any words of advice?

[Kayvon]

So i've been playing for about 5 years now (i'm 26) and 2 & 1/2 years ago I started a Popular Music degree which next week is culminating in my final performance and to put it bluntly i'm kegging it.

 

I've never put on a gig where my playing is the focus & I don't know how it's gonna go but I thought i'd post here to get any last words of advice/do's don'ts as you guys have been a big help in alot of keyboard related ways over the past 4 years.

 

The performance is taking place in a cool pub in Kidderminster (The Taphouse) next Wednesday (come along if you're local ) and i'm doing it in a trio format with a vocalist and the odd solo guest player. The set list looks like this;

 

Milestones (new) trio format possibly with a sax player i've never met before(!)

 

Truly by Peshay. Vocal drum'n'bass seguing into

Candles by Alex Reece which is also D'n'B.

 

Changing of the Guard by Style Council.

 

Sunny by Bobby Hebb. The arrangement of this one is a little pedestrian, struggling to elaborate on the AAA(1) format a little.

 

West Coast Blues by Wes Montgomery. Doing this in a funky 4/4 hip-hop feel with a great guitarist.

 

Dolphin Dance by Herbie Hancock. Doing this solo, i'll nervous about this one, hope I can hold my nerve.

 

Strangers by Portishead. This one isn't sounding so great at the moment, it's a bit of a dirge but the vocal performance is good.

 

Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing by Stevie Wonder. Haven't practiced this one with the band yet, hopefully I can get this sounding good without stepping on the bassist's toes.

 

I've got four practices left so hopefully things will come together but I think i'm gonna be pretty nervous speaking to the crowd. I've asked some of my mates to heckle me to disarm my nerves a bit!

 

Wish me luck and thanks for all the tips over the years.

 

Peter.

[wjwilcox]

Know your instrument. Know your music. Play like your life depends on it.

 

No pressure.....

[Byrdman]

Luck. Try to relax. Don't think of a Polar bear.

[kanker.]

Smoke lots of pot before the gig. It'll go great.

 

 

 

 

 

Good luck man

[Tusker]

Great song choices.

 

Good luck from me too. Make sure you record it for posterity.

 

Jerry

[Ed Coury]

Since the performance is in a pub, buy several rounds of drinks for your instructors... You could also do the same for other patrons, as long as they promise to gush over your playing within earshot of the people judging your performance :-)

[DanS]

Bonne chance, try not to piss your pants.

[mate stubb]

Get drunk and stoned, and scream "ROCK AND ROLL!" a lot.

[Joe Muscara]

Don't forget to go "woo!" a lot too. Some short, some long, but do it a lot.

[ProfD]

Brush up on the tunes you are not quite sure about, go out and have a blast. Stay loose. Music is cool. Good luck. Stick around here too.

[montunoman]

If you're nervious about playing in public, just try to do it a lot. Play for some your friends/family, in old folks homes,social clubs, pubs and schools for free.

 

Also when you practice on your own, hone in on the sections,passages etc that give you trouble. Don't just keep running through the whole tune.

 

If you make a mistake during your performance just move on and don't dwell on it. Nobody is perfect!

 

Best of luck and enjoy yourself

[Kayvon]

Thanks for the words guys, especially the funny ones. No thinking about polar bears when i'm busy toking on my spliff and whooping! Oh Dans, I always make sure I piss myself before going on stage

 

It'll be recorded so if there's five seconds or so when I sound good i'll post them up here

 

We went through changing of the guard and sunny today, Sunny sounded a little rough as I was trying to solo through the modulations but hopefully I can get it sounding sweet. Just need to inject a bit of melodicism in my comping in various tracks.

 

Oh MontunoMan, if you have any good montunos to play over the Stevie Wonder track let me know

 

I'll post back here next week with a pre gig catch up.

 

Nice one guys

[Joe Muscara]

In all seriousness, don't worry about it. If you can do it, you can do it. Then it doesn't matter if you're playing it at home in your underwear or for a full house at Wembley (I was going to say MSG, but thought Wembley more appropriate) or for your harshest critics. Up to you if you want to do the latter two in your underwear as well.

 

Kick butt, dude.

 

Oh, one more thing, a quote I really like. "There is no pressure, only motivation."

[ikeaman]

hey peter im on the same boat! my final gig is on the 15th may. im doing a jean michel jarre tribute/influence thingy! should be fun. i havent rehearsed as a band yet only individual rehearsals (2 other keyboardists, a drummer and a bass player!). anyway ive got the whole gig sequenced so if anyone loses their place, the sequenced parts are there. the bass player and drummer are pros so theyll have thier bits nailed (hopefully!).

 

im also having to play with 7 other final gigs on different days so my head is exploding from trying to learn other peoples tunes (fusion, reggae, gospel etc)! ill youtube all of them incl mine for everyone to see! your set looks interesting. do you have a website with more details? gear? my gig is all on mine website so have a look if you have time (url on my sig). funny.. everyone in the year has left it till the last min to get the bands (and essays!!) together so its a mad rush to get everything done!

 

good luck to you my man and im sure itll be fine on the night.

 

i think ill post mine up as well just in case theres anyone around the area!

[Kayvon]

Hey ikeaman, yep same boat mate! I've already asked for an extension on my final essay Dunno if i'll get it.

 

My bass player is in about 6 other current bands and I thought that was bad enough but for a keys player 7 bands is crazy. Much respect I got asked to do a couple of other ones but I had to turn people down as the one is enough for me at my current level. I don't have a website atm, promotion is something else i'm getting marked on which i've yet to do.

 

Do post your gig up. My gear is a Kawai MP9500, Fantom XR, Emu Xboard49 and a Voce V5+ which i'm running through the Fantom for leslie and distortion FX though i'm having probs with that one cutting through the mix. The Muse receptor sounds cool, i'm def gonna pare my set-up down afterwards, a Nord Stage sounds like a good proposition although those new SM Pro boxes look cool as I fancy moving into modelling stuff for piano and rhodes (Pianoteq and Lounge Lizard possibly)

 

See you on the other side mate, good luck with it all. Luckily you won't have to contend with the tuning probs like JMJ did recently on his UK tour. He didn't bounce back from that very quickly on the youtube vid I saw

 

This summer is gonna be alot of fun much drinking and merriment to be done. I'll be playing one more dissertation gig for somebody else but then the summer festivals are calling.

 

Take care and good luck with it mate

 

Pete.

[ikeaman]

hey man, none of us here even asked for an extension but i just got an email today that our music history essay doesnt have to be in until the end of may as opposed to the 16th(day after my gig) can you believe that??!! im chuffed but to tell you the truth...i could be f*&%ed about all the essay writing.... i just want to do the gig(s) ;p. there are only 2 keyboard players in the BA year so we have been 'drafted' into playing pretty much everyones gig incl each others. yeah you got some cool gear there. im going to bring out the kitchen sink for my JMJ gig but i prob wont plug everything in...its all bloody sequenced anyway ha ha ha.

 

im having fun with the receptor. i know its not cheap but i recommend it if you have some spare cash. mine just arrived a few days ago!..so im frantically learning how to incorporate it to my real world gigs (wedding band hell) and the college gigs. that akoustik piano inside it is pretty awesome as well as the rest of komplete..frankly you wont need anything else for a while unless you want someting specific i.e. stylus. yeah i like that nord stage as well and the new roland fantom g looks cool. a friend of mine has a fantom xr like yours and i thought it sounded great.

 

yeah i saw JMJ on the 1st date on his tour..he didnt have tuning problems like his subsequent dates so i guess i was lucky.

 

i cant wait till its all over so i can chill. my fault, i left it all til the last min like everyone else ha ha ha. yeah try and youtube your gig. id love to see it..wish i was there in person.

 

im going try not to panic and chill..everything will fall in place and it should be cool (as yours will). im just going to have a good time at my gig and ill tell the rest of the band that im up north at perth btw. talk soon man!

 

[Kayvon]

Had the performance last night and overall, although it certainly was messy in places I'm fairly pleased with how it went.

 

It seemed a little doomed the day before. Our last practice which was vital to sort out endings for two tunes and run the whole set was missing our drummer which we were not happy about. Then I managed to persuade another student who was using our drummer to give us an hour of his practice about two hours before the gig but I was late because of traffic and couldn't make it.

 

We kinda winged the tunes and just did extended endings which weren't very definite, no doubt i'll get marked down for that.

 

I managed to get a sax player on Milestones at the last minute which worked out great and helped the set alot. Dolphin Dance solo went fairly well and the crowd seemed fairly attentive even though the set started to drag a little with extended solos and the like.

 

Our last tune Sunny which was set to be the best piece was a bit of a mess, I'd managed to put together a half decent arrangement but I was a little tired by the end of the set when we played that piece. My attention was wondering a little and I wasn't thinking about the chords I was playing. I think you lot would've gone to the bar for a drink at that point The set needed to be 45 minutes long, it didn't add up to that just going on the original length of tunes but the whole set was actually an hour and ten minutes long. I feel really bad because the tape ran out for my mates guitar set and they didn't get a large chunk of Inca Roads which he did I managed to record some of it myself though.

 

I have mixed feelings about the set and i'm really wanting to get the feedback and mark from the lecturer to gauge how it went from a musicians point of view. I don't think he'll be mightily impressed with the level of musicianship but at least there were a good few solo points where I managed to find the funk

 

Just gotta keep on improving now (and get about 5500 essay words out the way aswell ) Thanks for the tips everyone

 

Btw for the gearheads, there was a guy there with an L100, a Mellotron, Wurlitzer, Clavinet D6 and Nord Lead 2. I made an indecent proposal to him about the Clavinet and I can't wait to go round and have a play with it.

 

Good luck with your performance ikeaman

[DanS]

Hey you survived. I'm sure it went better than you think it did.

[Kayvon]

Thanks Dan. I guess you evaluate things from a musicians point of view so it's easy to be critical to the nth degree because you already have a very defined idea of what is good or not so good.

 

On the other hand, my non-musician mates who haven't heard me play and speak confidently to a crowd are just impressed that I pulled it off.

 

We'll see where subsequent gigs go though, this is a first for me so it was a big learning experience. It remains to be seen whether or not there is a place for my type of vibe in live performance. Peer approval is one thing but entertaining unfamiliar paying crowds is quite another.

[Byrdman]

Sounds like it went well. As for "forgetting" the chords there's actually a chance that was the best bit because you were actually subbing intuitively. One would have to hear it of course to tell for sure. There's a point beyond knowing what you are doing which is not knowing what you are doing and yet having it sound wonderful and if you can get there you have got something important.

 

When you are inside actually playing though, you really can't judge your performance because you are too busy just making it happen. Even if you are just sitting there watching your hands play (which is a weird experience in itself the first couple of times) your relationship to the performance is very different to that of a listener.

 

When you listen to the tape listen for the good stuff - its too easy to listen only for the bad. You need to hear what you do well as well as what can be improved.

 

Also, if your teacher is typical, he/she is looking for reasons why you should get marks rather than reasons why you should lose them. If you totally screw up and recover that's probably worth a mark by itself.

[kanker.]

How was the pot?