I had a show this evening. I made 18 dollars. It was a good night. I made up an awards-acceptance speech (I'm just going to admit that I do this) on the way home, a speech in which I made people stand up and beat their chests and weep on each other in fits of passion. It was a speech about the Art that lies behind everything we hold dear in this world. It was a speech that shamed the government for the Musician's eighteen dollar paycheque and free glass of beer. I don't remember the speech now, but it was memorable to all who heard it.
Anyhow, I was going to say that the gig was actually quite fun. (I don't care about the money - 18 dollars is just a good joke. Why bother? It's like getting a tax refund from the government for 18 cents.) There were half a dozen people listening very attentively, and a few times during my set, I realized that the whole room was quiet. That's a special feeling when you're in a room full of strangers who are audience members by accident. After the show, 4 people told me, with sincerity, that they really liked the music. I gave them free CDs and we became friends. That's what it's all about. Some people might think it's stupid to give music away for free. But those kids weren't about to buy those CDs from me, and if I let them go home empty-handed, they'd probably forget all about my music. This way, they might tell a friend about me. 10 or 12 bucks for a CD - it's just as inconsequential as the 18 bucks for the gig, in a way. I'm not interested in selling my music like that. Yeesh. It feels so tawdry.
Tawdry!
This is probably not a wise entrepreneurial philosophy. I guess I just hate to bring money into the picture at all unless it's really worth it. Like if someone said, "I want to help finance your next album - here's 5 grand." I'd accept that, graciously.
Anyhow - I took away some good lessons from my gig this evening. Task: I need to somehow simulate the common performance scenario of not being able to hear my voice, and practice with that handicap. Sometimes there are no monitors, or the crowd is too loud, etc, and you hear your voice bouncing back at you from the speakers in the corner of the room - a split second too late to adjust the pitch. This is really tough. Especially when you're a born and raised unplugged singer. You rely so much on the sound your voice makes before it's even left your mouth - hearing the pitch in your head, and using all those tiny mysterious sensors in the brain and in the body to place the tone. You forget that you might walk up to the microphone and suddenly become vocally blind. It's a bit like touching your face after you've had freezing at the dentist - your fingers can feel your skin but your skin can't feel your fingers. In a loud room with loud speakers, you can't hear your voice coming out of your head unless you shout. Instead, you hear it at a distance, just a ghoulish echo of your musical intention.
How to practice like this? Maybe I just have to blast some other music in my room while I'm playing, anything to drown myself out. Fill my ears with cotton? Put my monitors in the other room and shut the door? I'm going to admit something else about myself, and that's my frequent Holodeck fantasies. I don't qualify as a Trekkie, but I challenge you or anyone to come up with a more brilliant concept than the Holodeck. I would walk in there, and say, 'Computer - gimme a room full of belligerent drunks, gimme the worst sound system invented by man, gimme a blown-out monitor, and gimme a stage set back 50 feet from the speakers.' And there I would practice. I would rotate through scenarios of course, because there are other challenges that must be faced. Pity that the only way to practice dealing with these horrors is by throwing yourself into the great unknown of real live performance, over and over again.
Well, not a pity really. Ha. It's what I'm here for.
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