Do your audience always like what your playing?

[newtone]

Just played this past weekend and you could see in their faces whether they are enjoying the music or not. It never bothered me before but it does now.

 

Does your playing get affected if you see some people now enjoying what you're playing? How do you handle it?

 

newtone

[BiC]

Originally posted by newtone:

Just played this past weekend and you could see in their faces whether they are enjoying the music or not. It never bothered me before but it does now.

 

Does your playing get affected if you see some people now enjoying what you're playing? How do you handle it?

 

newtone

Once at a club while playing "Enter Sandman", a fight broke out between 2 folks.

 

I thought it was "cool" at the time... thinking our playing may have wound them up a bit..., that in turn "stroked my ego" a little...

 

I still have it all on video.

 

Peace

[Tedster]

Oh sure, if people are having fun, either I play better, or I don't notice my mistakes as much.

 

If people are sitting there like warts on each others' asses staring at me, I'm extremely conscious of everything I play, and consequently (IMO) don't play as well.

 

And no, I don't believe they always like what I'm playing.

[strat0124]

Well I've always been the picker who plays to the one table or four, who are diggin it. If the rest aren't hip to it, sorry, wish I could have juggled something to make you all happy! But you can't. Most of the time though, we do such eclectic shit that somebody is howling. I wouldn't let it bother me. Play to that one table or one person who is diggin it. You'll be happier!

[Dak Lander]

Geenard Skeenard of Strats past is right on. You'll seldom play where EVERYONE likes what you're playing, even if you bring the crowd. You just locate the group that's digging you and what you're doing & play to them.

You want something hard, try playing an outdoor gig where folks are walking through & past constantly. That's a tough crowd & as Ted alluded to, there are times when a crowd all have sore boils on their asses & would't enjoy anything.

[Caevan O’Shite]

I haven't played a whole lot of bona fide "gigs", but I think that I can draw on the many times I've played in front of people, many times people I didn't know.

 

I have from time to time found myself looking at someone looking at me as I'm playing, and they have seemed particularly unenthused, or worse. I've sort of fooled around with the feel and embelleshments and such while doing so, and tried different pieces of music based on trying to guess what they would like better, and when (if) something seems to briefly brighten their countenence, then I roll with that, milking the living Hell out of it.

 

I was invited to a party once, by a girl I knew who was a student at a nearby University, who came from Kashmir. There was a large contingent of stunningly beautiful young college girls from India present; at one point, my friend asked me to follow her, and she led me down a hall, to her bedroom...

 

She had herded all those young Indian girls into her room, and had insisted that they were to be my audience... "I knew you'd never show up without your guitar," she said to me; so, I grabbed my acoustic, which she correctly assumed I would have on hand.

 

Well, feeling very put on the spot, I played whatever I could think of, and the longer I played, the more tighty knitted their brows became, and I tried harder and harder to impress them with all my fingerstyle might. I damn near tied my fingers in knots! Still they all seemed to be politely enduring me and my guitar. In utter exasperation of what to do, I absent mindedly let my hands go on auto-pilot as I was about to try to think of something to say, playing a "D" chord in the familiar campfire grip, going "ding;dinga-dinga-ding; dinga-dinga-ding; dinga-dinga-ding; ding-ding-"

 

They all suddenly lit up like lightbulbs, clapped their hands a bit, and let out a variety of "Oooh! Oh! Oooo!" sounds! I had stumbled upon it! The key! I faked my way through a number of bastardized Bob Dylan songs, which they gladly sang for me, I only had to play my guitar. Whew!

[Teahead]

What happened next Mr. Cassanova O'Shite???

 

Playing our own music means a lot of the crowd have never heard our songs before. Understandably you get mixed reactions.

Personally, I do feel myself become conscious when a crowd doesn't seem to be enjoying the show. But overcoming that feeling, and turning in a better performance because of it, is the only solution.

If I can see even one persons foot tapping, then I'll play every note to them.

For this reason, I think touring bands playing to sold out houses have a much easier time of it, as they know the crowd paid to hear their music. Making for an atmosphere much more conducive to good music, confidence is the key.

[Caevan O’Shite]

Oh, I hit the bars, looking to pick up a girl.

[Teahead]

Those keen instincts of yours know a good opportunity when they see one!!!

[Caevan O’Shite]

Oh, yeah! There were several bars, very close to my friend's apartment! No flies on me!

[Boggs]

I honestly don't think I have ever had anybody actually "complain" about what I was playing or how I was playing it. Probably the best compliments I ever received were when I played bass for a couple of pieces... One was a cookin' Charlie Daniels piece in church and one of our older parishoners told me, "You know, Greg, that is definitely NOT my favorite style of music, but you did it so good that I really enjoyed it!" The other was for a Triumph piece called "Fight The Good Fight" that I accompanied the choir and piano on with my bass (the first time I ever had a bass in my hands and it was borrowed...) that the choir had done before and HATED to do before I had ever gone to this church. The choir members told me afterwards that they had hated it before but I brought so much to it that they actually enjoyed performing it for the first time! How cool is that?! Boggs

[Caevan O’Shite]

Boggs, that is cool!

[yamsa2000]

I used to go and watch my older brother play gigs,and hated the whole idea of playing to a bunch of people who couldn't give two hoots about you or your music.I always found it much less intimidating to play on the streets - people can make their own choice whether they stay to listen or not. Making money though depends on playing what people want though - you still have to connect with your audience. If someone wants to pay to hear Gloria played over and over - who am I to argue?(A guy gave me $40 to play Gloria once - that's more than ten bucks for each chord!) Sure beats working! If things are going slow and no-one's paying much attention - play fast, especially if you know some flamenco licks. And the opening riff to Johnny B Goode has never failed to grab people's attention, if only for that portion of the song. In recent years I've done a handful of 'proper' gigs,but I have always managed to throw in a couple of surf tunes like Walk Don't Run and Pipeline as well as Albatross -these tunes are always popular.Probably singing as well as playing guitar would be much harder - you have to 'sell' yourself as a personality to put a song across, no matter how well you can sing. I leave singing to the experts!

[yamsa2000]

Originally posted by Caevan O'Shite, who 8 the Pilgrims.:

............. No flies on me!

You guys have that expression??????I could have sworn that was one of ours!

[Caevan O’Shite]

Not only that, we have the flies, too. But I think you've got us beat in the spiders department...

[demarc]

I don't play out, but I can also see Geenard's point to play to people who enjoy it

 

My cats seem to like acoustic stuff, classical is their fav! Turn on the amp, though, and they hide far away. That prolly helps explain why I gave up electric for ten years. I was chasing away my audience....

[tim byrnes]

To me the audience is the least of it. If yr playing in a bar the crowd is more interested in getting drunk and hooking up then the music the band's playing. We are all beer salesmen in this situation, so my advice is play yr heart out regardless of the bleary eyed pod people asking (for the 3rd time with slurred speech) if you "do any Steve Miller, maaaaan.")

peace and noise,

tim byrnes

http://www.punkrockblues.motime.com

[strat0124]

A good shout over the PA..."WHO'S DRINKING" or "WHO'S PARTYING"......in a drunkathon bar goes a long way. If that doesn't work, the obligatory "GIMME 3 Steps" works in a pinch, even if it makes you gag a bit. Doing impromptu performances of songs you don't normally do, based on the moment work too. It helps that your band is able to do that with a modicum of precision! In fact a couple of those impromptu songs have worked themselves into our setlist, based on overall crowd response. All you gotta do is lead em, they'll do the rest!

[Gruupi]

People that don't dance or seemingly show like they are enjoying your music aren't always not having a good time. As a spectator I am fairly sedate. I can be completly captivated by a performance and will clap afterwards but during the song i may be stone faced and motionless in concentration. Lots of music fans are probably this way. I guess it depends on what type of band you are in and what kind of music you play.

I while back I was in a party type band that played lots of Beatle, Elvis and other fun songs. We weren't very tight and sounded pretty bad but the lead singer was very dynamic and people tended to have a really good time when we played to the right crowd. If there were musicians in the audience they probably were cringing.

Another band I was in played more introsective and serious music and the crowds were much more sedate. But towards the end of the night we played our "soul set" and people would suddenly come alive and start dancing. I am sure some people enjoyed the more sedate moments as much as the rocking ones.

Some of my favorite shows to go to these days are singer/ songwriters or instrunmental performers (including classical) and I am very much enjoying the music but know one in the audience expresses there pleasure till the song is over.