an0va's busking and performing thread (Page 3 of 3)

Sorry, I didn't mean that to be offensive.  I always intend to make dance music.  My point was not everyone has to go all out and jump all over the stage.

Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I was trying to say how the type of music I make is ironic because I'm not a dancer. Trust me, I'm really hard to offend

personally, I believe that you should be completely honest with everything you do. if you have some sort of "persona" on stage, then it should be who you REALLY are in real life, all the time. a lot of the time, i hear a lot people saying that they aren't interesting enough for that sort of thing, but the truth is, if your life isn't all that interesting, spice it up. if music is just a hobby for you, then whatever, a lot of hobby musicians are really fantastic, but when it comes to embodying a full on art piece, with an image, personality and a substantial amount of integrity, then it's gonna require as much as a really good marriage would. your time, passion, soul, everything. not to be meant in a cheesy way either. i hate the way people get tattoos for "meaningful" reasons and all that, but my one and only tattoo is my logo. I look at it every day and I'm reminded of what I said I'd do with my life. All of this is literally the reason I never went to college. the reason I've spent months homeless in places that I'd never been to before. the reason I dumped my recent manager (turning down lots of money) so I could make all of my music as weird as possible. most of the time, I'm proud of myself. I really really really do like my music. I listen to it regularly because i just actually like it... a lot. it's embarrassing how much I love to listen to my music, but whatever, I do; but sometimes, it actually is a bit much to handle. most of the time, I wish I could just start all over. I wish I could go back to where I wasn't past the point of no return, so I could like, go to college and become a civil engineer or something. it sounds SOOO stupid, but being a musician (or an artist in any SERIOUS sense) should not be a thing you do, but it should be you. if you're an asshole to people you work with, then you're just an asshole. I'm actually not convinced that even 80% of people that like my shows actually feel passionately about my music. I'm pretty sure they just like to see a crazy show most of the time. I can also guarantee that most of the shows I've gotten are due to me being easy to work with, and friendly. if a show isn't working out as planned, and all the other bands are complaining about every stupid thing, then you REALLY should be easy to work with. the booking person is going to love you. be nice.. seriously. work out your personal, real life stuff before you perform. have a lot of energy, have a lot of balls, but don't be angsty. when you perform out of aggression, a lot of the time, you can end up causing a LOT of problems. lots of assholes are famous, but the honest, true, cool, calm, collected, original, creative, intuitive, developed, eager-to-learn, fun, friendly, people are the one's that get people to show up to their funerals.

this is why I wear my blue glasses whenever I perform. plus, the fact I have trouble seeing through them prevents me from focusing on the crowd, which would probably make me very nervous.

A story: A couple years ago I was fortunate enough to catch a certain very accomplished chip musician playing a live set. This is a guy who almost never plays live shows. The music was insanely good and everyone was very into it, dancing like crazy and cheering a lot. While the whole crowd was going wild, the guy on stage pretty much stayed rigid, shrugging the whole time, and whenever he looked up he had this look on his face like "what are you guys looking at please don't look at me." Some months after the show, a coworker of mine mentioned that he had worked with this musician in the past and that this musician has the worst stage fright you could ever imagine. Apparently this guy abhors being up there. But it honestly didn't matter what he did because like I said, the music was outrageously good and we all got into it.

That being said, this won't work for most people. What I will say is that the advice that's already been presented is very sound: be honest. People can see through this kind of stuff. Case in point, I saw another performance where the musician had a keyboard and a mic and she was playing and singing, and her music was OK, kinda moody lo-fi dancey stuff, but she also had a couple friends in these blue bodysuits with glowing balls standing behind her, and they should probably have been dancing or posing but they didn't seem to know what to do, so they did a kind of half-dancing, half-posing routine that was just too awkward to go along with. It was like, what's the point of having people in costume up there if they aren't really doing anything? And to make things worse, I think they were distracting from the musician's playing and singing, which was actually pretty cool to see at a show where you usually just have some guy leaning over a gameboy the whole time. Furthermore, if you are going to put on some kind of show, you should definitely be prepared. It's gonna be obvious otherwise.

Anyway there is a lot to be said for stage presence, and I think some bands / musicians get a lot of points for putting on a good show live, even when their music is mediocre. Some people prefer to see that sort of thing... after all, some people respond more to visuals than others. Lastly, I would say that if you want people to dance or clap or jump around to your stuff, maybe you should do it too. If the crowd isn't dancing enough, show them what they should be doing. Maybe they just need that first person who is going to "break the ice" so they can feel comfortable dancing too, and maybe that first person should be you.

Okay, enough rambling. Just go with your instincts, put yourself out there and nobody can put you down for trying