Anybody do or done live solo gigs?

thecolourbox

Hi all,
As per the title, I'm hoping to find out people's experiences of solo live gigs with guitar (or other instrument, for eg piano) with vocals - as in, did it work for you, was it worth the bother, how blooming hard is it to find anywhere that does that kind of thing etc.

Replies saying "don't do it" or "it's an absolute disaster plan" are just as welcome as those encouraging it. 

I've been trying to find an outlet for my creativity for ages and failed massively. Responding to Join My Band or Facebook posts has just led to succession of mildly interesting things that aren't quite enough for me to want to commit. If "being in a band at all costs" was the aim then fine, but my whole motivation for wanting to do this is because I feel unfulfilled playing what everybody else wants in the somewhat cheesy soul-selling world of my piano job. So singing the songs of Nirvana or Beatles or basically being a piano ambience in a folk band are just going to be the same right?

Style-wise, I'd be best suited to what seems to be the entirely made up "cafe style gigs", me playing piano or guitar and singing. But not the usual strummy piezo pub singer style, more like mellow chilled style. My own originals and covers that aren't the usual. Doesn't seem like there's much opportunity to do that though - went to a gig last night at a tudor manor where the guy was doing that sort of thing, he was very polished and confident and even he only managed to get 17 of us there. And I almost turned around and came home to be honest. I doubt it even covered the hire cost, so I'm feeling like now is the time to coldly evaluate whether I will ever be able to do this as I don't feel like I'm enough to really make a go of this.

I'd also have next to zero family support for this, they don't like my non piano job music and would not be willing to help me or attend. I've no friends to call upon either. So "support" slots are hard too as they normally come with the obligation to bring people along

Also any suggestions on how to scratch this kind of itch would be gratefully received, unless you're going to say "go and do 3 songs at the local pub open mic" lol

Cheers all

Stratavarious

There are all sorts of venues...

Approach wine bars, trendy coffee shops, microbars & breweries, gastropubs and restaurants with bars, etc. directly with a proposition.

Have themes like your own interpretations of jazz, romantic, light pop, originals..

Got some reels on Facebook?

There are also smaller venues that will showcase non-mainstream music...ask/scan local Facebook musician groups to find them.

The benefit you have as a solo, is you are cheaper than a band and that is of practical value to some places.

Don't discount open mics.. yep.. some are just an alternative night to Karaoke for a pub but some will be rich with musicians that feel the same and potential mentors.

Snags

I've done it, as have various friends.

Originals it's hard to do it and get paid, unless you're excellent and have a bit of a following. At least around here. For originals I did a couple of "local band nights" where a local promoter sticks the evening on with a 3 or 4 artist line up, it's ticketed, and you get a cut of people who buy your tickets plus a cut of the general door. Think I got a tenner once  

Covers there are loads of opportunities for solo and duo, as it's cheaper for the venue but a better payday for the artist than a four or five way split of not much more. Pubs, bars, cafes around here all tend to do that, and you can weave in some odd-ball and originals but ideally they're going to want you to do stuff people know. Pick the venues to approach based on style - some go for Friday night party, some for cafe jazz ...

thecolourbox

Cheers guys for the thoughts, I'll process them and see what I think. Though I do have the lingering feeling it's my usual case of anything I'm good at being essentially useless to me. I'm not going to be arsed to do the usual pub covers gig though, I know that much.

My wedding gigs pay plenty well enough, so making loadsa money isn't necessarily what I'm after. Though it would purely be about money if I had to do the kinds of covers gigs I mentioned above, same with my piano gigs - the cheese premium

I suppose it's important for to me to fully work out what I want from it. I mean, essentially I guess it's a mixture of vanity and having nobody to talk to about things so I feel like I need an outlet to keep that boxed in rather than using other mediums to try and give myself therapy. I guess I just want something for me to enjoy, the counterweight to playing pop songs on piano for other people. The latter has its place certainly, and it's a nice job to have, it's great to be able to give people their music on their special days. But it's not artistically fulfilling.

I just wish I had any other skills or interests in order to have an alternative outlet as I don't think I'm ever going to be enough for this one

Snags

The originals gigs I did were pure vanity, and for the fun of it. A step up from open mic, chance to do a proper set on a proper stage, and no expectation on my part that I'd make a penny.

If it's the kind of thing that floats your boat it also gets you in with the people who look for local support acts for bigger bands that play on small tours etc.

thecolourbox

Thanks, I think what i might try and do is see how much this place down the road from me charges to book, and then seek out somebody else music would fit with mine and try to organise a split bill thing - then half the risk for us both and hopefully benefits each other

Moltisanti

Out of curiosity what do you play on piano at weddings ?

thecolourbox

Moltisanti said:

Out of curiosity what do you play on piano at weddings ?

I play whatever I'm asked to, so quite a wide variety of things. Classical, jazz, pop, rock, film music, have done Bollywood, Italian, danish even. I also seem to have found a little niche of doing emo, pop punk and metal tunes as the former emo kids are now old enough to afford getting married haha

it's 99% solo piano, instrumental. I do occasionally sing for it, but that's largely been the piano equivalent of the sort of strummy stripped back guitar covers of pop rock stuff i guess, bit of jazz etc

Stratavarious

Get a girl vocalist 

thecolourbox

I don't really want to be an accompanist in order to express myself, albeit as a concept that would be quite darkly ironic and appropriate considering how i feel in the world

Supportact

You will end up playing gigs to very few people,  there won't be much money, sometimes you'll be playing in front of people who aren't interested and will talk/shout over you, you may put everything into it only to find people you know are indifferent or worse, at some stage you'll be half way back from a gig in a toilet in London at 2am and the motorway will be closed and you’ll doubt your sanity. 

And of course there's also a negative side...

Seriously though I'd say go for it, but just be clear about why you're doing it and how you measure success. The scenarios I mention above are all likely but then you'll get the odd one where you have everyone in the room in the palm of your hand and it will feel like the best thing ever. If you have songs and you really want to do it then you put up with the negative side of it, sometimes things are bad but you just have to deal with that and keep going. 

benmurray85

I've been pondering this topic a lot recently and came on here to pretty much write this post word for word. I went to see an old mate last week and he has a little duo that he seems to be getting plenty of work in these days. To all intents and purposes though its largely his solo act and they went down great to a pub of younger and older people. 

The "angle" I want to put on it is doing it electric rather than acoustic. First and foremost, I don't have an acoustic but may add one in time. But I really like the idea of trying it on electric and throwing some interesting sounds in there. Nothing crazy, bit of fuzz, some long dreamy delays and tremolo. I'm just not sure if it would be a bit jarring in reality and don't really know how or where to test this out without committing to a few gigs and purchasing a PA etc. 

I'm also super nervous of singing again though. I used to be very good back in the day but really blew my voice out about 10 years ago and its not recovered much at all since but im hoping I can get through some acoustic-type stuff.

Good luck though, I really look forward to seeing some updates from you @thecolourbox ;

thecolourbox

Thanks guys for the inputs. A lot to think about and straighten out 

Interestingly Ben, I'm also in the camp of preferring to use electric though I would probably include some acoustic. I'm very much influenced by Jeff Buckley and love that palette of sounds more than acoustic which is always a bit of a compromise in a live setting. But I'm naturally better at playing acoustic so...

bobeffect

Would be interested to hear anyone who is influenced by Jeff Buckley @thecolourbox ... what a loss to the music world his departure was. I'll continue to hide in the relative safety of a four piece! Good luck with it.

TheBigDipper

@thecolourbox ;Apart from local open mics in a duo -  a social venture with my now dear-departed neighbour John (who left us last August and I miss him) I've been doing originals for the last 14 years or so in bands. When my last band fell apart about 18 months ago, I decided to see if I could scratch my musical itches as a solo performer - a singer/songwriter playing guitar. So far it's been OK. 

I've been writing new songs, and re-arranging old songs I wrote for bands I was in that were "parts" based rather than "here are the chords and try and keep up". So getting some of those "core" melodies into a single guitar part has been interesting. It's been a good experience. In the main, I've been playing those songs at open mics.

Local to me there is no market for unknown, old singer songwriters playing their own stuff. There are also a couple of local venues that feature local artists on slower days and that's been a rewarding experience. They are unpaid, but that relieves me of the requirement to entertain. I can express myself, and the people coming in (who have no idea who I am) respect me and don't demand "entertainment". One in particular, Chaplins (in Boscombe, a a district of Bournemouth) has been very supportive of people like me. 

I don't do it for income, and I don't want the responsibility of filling a venue and selling drinks, etc. I would still write and play even if I never got another gig in my life. But I do like to play my songs for other people to get my ego stroked and I enjoy performing them. I'm not a "performer" myself, though, just a musician who can chat to an audience between the songs. 

I've done some "opening act" gigs for local originals bands I know - including one I used to be in. That has been fun and I'll do more if I get the chance. Self-promoting bands often need someone like me to make their own event more of an evening. although it's usually someone else and not me because I'm not a good networker... :-) 

I'm not providing the PA at these gigs. The venue or the headline act does. I have a Blackstar Sonnet 120 for those infrequent occasions where I need to fill a small venue (like a cafe) with my guitar and voice. I've used it twice in the past 18 months.

I've been playing acoustic guitar, but my playing style and material means I could easily migrate over to electric for different tones and possibly a better impact. I'm pondering that right now, as it happens. I'me a picker, not a strummer.

I don't use loopers and I don't use backing tracks or drum machines. I've experimented with all of those, but decided it was too much faff and took away from the material by trying to do too much around it. 

Plectrum

benmurray85 said:

I've been pondering this topic a lot recently and came on here to pretty much write this post word for word. I went to see an old mate last week and he has a little duo that he seems to be getting plenty of work in these days. To all intents and purposes though its largely his solo act and they went down great to a pub of younger and older people. 

The "angle" I want to put on it is doing it electric rather than acoustic. First and foremost, I don't have an acoustic but may add one in time. But I really like the idea of trying it on electric and throwing some interesting sounds in there. Nothing crazy, bit of fuzz, some long dreamy delays and tremolo. I'm just not sure if it would be a bit jarring in reality and don't really know how or where to test this out without committing to a few gigs and purchasing a PA etc. 

I'm also super nervous of singing again though. I used to be very good back in the day but really blew my voice out about 10 years ago and its not recovered much at all since but im hoping I can get through some acoustic-type stuff.

Good luck though, I really look forward to seeing some updates from you @thecolourbox ;

I did loads of open mics using a electric, maybe 200ish and more than I did with an acoustic. The important thing to remember is that the guitar becomes primarily a backing instrument and what works well as part of a band might not work solo so be prepared to experiment. I started using electric rather than acoustic for open mikes just to do something different from what the other players were doing. A lecture from a twat who insisted that an electric can only be used in a band context just made me more determined. As ever, for both you and @thecolourbox ; I'd recommend trying things out at an open mike.

Gulliver

Do you have recordings of your solo stuff anywhere?  I would say that is more important than ever - because if you go and grind out some open mics for a bit, you need somewhere to send people.

Saw a guy this week who is trying to play 365 shows this year, by travelling all over the country playing at any and ever open mic he can.   He wasn't local, so was plugging his music online and social media too.

Maybe look at approaching a pub that has an established open mic - and offer to run a monthly originals-only open mic for them?? 

thecolourbox

Thanks everybody for the thoughts, stories, info and advice. Even if it leads to nothing it's very interesting to see what you guys have done and how you made it work. 

@bobeffect ;;; I didn't necessarily say I was good at sounding like Buckley haha just that there's an influence there. I'm obviously not his range or level but I enjoy the textures and try to put some of his delivery into mine. 

My reasons for doing this are not to make money , my piano job is a well paying side hustle so this doesn't need to be - if it happens then that's great but it's not the motivation. As long as i don't lose too much on a vanity project, that's fine. As with my piano job, it's nice to have something I could "scale up" if the need arises, and then I could consider the chord bashing pub covers or get a more attractive vocalist, but for now I'm fine. 

My reasons are therapeutic - i have chronically shit self esteem in myself as a person, but in things I am actually decent at I do feel some esteem. The piano job has given me that, it's been incredible actually having something I believe in myself for. So i think I'd like to do it to build on that, and to play the music which i find soothes my soul, and hopefully that it might do the same for at least some other people. I also tend to write with more urgency if I have a gig or slot somewhere as I like to write something new specially for those gigs. 

I do have my demo music on Soundcloud and some on YouTube (and the covers and composition challenges here!) but I've been working on remixing and rearranging (and finishing off) a couple of albums worth of music to publish as a bit of a sampler. One of originals, one of covers. So my SoundCloud may well get wiped soon to be replaced by those two collections if I can work out how to change my username on there. 

For now I've just gathered what I think the best ones to represent me in a playlist
https://on.soundcloud.com/0ySBQ6ICx6K4M4XCit

thecolourbox

I also anticipate doing a collection of straight through live stripped back versions, a mix of the two tracklists I would think but maybe some others in there, so could use that to illustrate what a gig might sound like

bobeffect

Had a listen to your soundcloud stuff Matty. I can see why you it would give you self belief! I'd love to have the ability to do what you've done there. 

thecolourbox

Thank you that's very kind indeed