The fifteen minutes between one artist’s final note and the next group’s first “hello” are precious. How you handle the transition can set you up for your best performance at your next music gig. Read More.
When working toward your music career goals, the big question I want to focus on is: “How do I know if a gig is worth playing?” Read More.
Touring is such a valuable learning and career opportunity. See the sights, play great shows, connect with industry, and make your fans feel special. Having a genuine attitude and hard-working ethos on the road can only lead to bigger, better opportunities. Read More.
Excerpted from our updated Indie Artist’s Guide To Gigging, this section focuses on booking strategies for acts trying to gain momentum and widen their base. Read More.
If your goal is to get more gigs and play better venues, these five tips can help you make the most of your time and energy and give you a plan of attack. Read More.
Here are some practical tips to help you deal when stars (and germs) align to make you sick for the gig you’ve been looking forward to play. Read more.
Being intentional with different visual presentations for the variety of moods your songs invoke is part of what Tom Jackson calls changing the pressure on your audience during your live performances. “I’m not talking about acting or choreography, I’m talking about thinking, “What should this song look like?'” Read more.
There’s an advantage to concentrating your live performance development in local music venues as you plan for future tours in new and wider territories. Start your career in a central place – your hometown or a town nearby – then expand outward from that central point. Read more.
Growth is good, but grow with awareness as you move to the next level. The truth is, most acts move too quickly. They think they’ve reached a level of success that they simply have not. Carefully assess every step of your success before charging ahead thinking you’re ready to move on. Read more.
Have you ever felt frantic about getting more gigs on your schedule? Depending on your goals and where you are in your music career, that may be exactly the thing to do. If you are in this to create a lasting career in music, one that builds momentum and progresses from one level to the next, you need a plan when booking music gigs. Read more.
One way to expand your audience is to serve as an opening act for a better-known artist on multiple tour dates or one local show. Sometimes you can get lucky and be in the right place at the right time, but if you’re more interested in strategy than chance, here are three suggestions to help you land some of these choice performance slots. Read more.
When jazz pianist Vijay Iyer scheduled the New York City release show for his 2015 album Break Stuff, he didn’t choose a standard venue. Iyer’s concert was staged in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Iyer isn’t the first artist to eschew traditional clubs and concert halls in favor of more unique performing grounds. Read more.
If you want to perform live more than just once a month, there are plenty of ways to fill up your performance schedule without saturating a particular market. Four basic strategies you should consider include: 1) A club residency, 2) Alternate format performances, 3) Dual territory performances, 4) A tour. Read more.
When people come to me for band practice tips, one of the questions I get asked a lot is, “What’s too much rehearsal? We want to keep it spontaneous.” Well, spontaneous is one thing, and winging it is another. And most people wing it. When you’re making it up as you go onstage, instead of in rehearsal, you’ll never be great, consistently. Read more.
Most bands, when they rehearse, even for a big show, will rehearse for a couple of days, run through the songs to make sure they’re “tight,” work out the musical parts, and then go out onstage and hope something good will happen. They have no idea what they’re trying to accomplish. Read more.