When I do solo performances I create a folder of songs that I plan to use. Most shows are 1 hr. in length which is about 20 BIAB files.
On my MacBook, I then select the program "text edit", which has the lyrics to all of the songs, and stack the lyrics in the same order as the songs that I intend to play. Text edit is set up on the left 1/3 of the screen and BIAB on the right 2/3. The songs are set to play in jukebox mode with pauses between each until I hit the spacebar.
I sing and play tenor sax during the performance. The lyrics and Biab are there for reference only for 95% of the time as I know the lyrics and melodies for all the songs.
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Hi jazzsax That looks very nifty. Is "text edit" a program that will automatically bring up the lyrics of the next song as soon as you touch the space bar?
We just played two 4 hour gigs at the same venue this weekend. We do 4 hours straight - no break (we're compensated for that) and probably repeated fewer than 10 'club favorite' songs from night to night that were requested or we know they will definitely want.
When we play our weekly marina gig, we'll probably play a dozen of the most currently popular ones and the others will be all different, because the needs of that audience is different.
Later in the week it's an RV park, and it depends on who is in the park, but it's usually much harder rock and country than our retirement community gigs.
I don't do set lists, but call songs as my intuition and experience tells me is the best for the moment. I can switch to the next song with a couple of key taps and start the new song without a seconds hesitation if need be http://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html to keep dancers on the floor.
In order to make a living playing music around here, we found job security in being chameleons. There are a few gigs we won't take because it's worse to be mis-booked than not booked; (1) we can't do an all Country gig, while we know a lot, we don't know all the latest country hits and (2) we can't do a young person gig, we don't have the desire to learn EDM and Rap - not that there is anything wrong with it, I just think we are not able to do a good job of it.
I'm not a rock musician, I'm not a country musician, I'm not a blues musician, I'm not a jazz musician, I'm not a classical musician, I'm not a salsa musician, I'm a musician. I can learn just about anything.
And it's fun putting on different musical 'hats'. It takes a different expression and an interesting head shift to go from a Country song to a Standard to Hard Rock to Reggae to Easy Listening to whatever. It's like having a varied food diet, but instead of food for my waistline, it's food for my soul. And variety is the spice of life.
So its 550 songs and counting. Had a request for some Dylan and Patty Page's Fever (although I like the Elvis Presley version better - and it's close enough). More musical adventures.
And back on topic. The first laptop will have the backing track which I will make myself (I tried buying them, but I find if I make them myself, I understand the music better, which substitution chords are used, and it's in our key and our arrangement), and the second laptop will have either the words/chords oar a sheet music chart that I made in Encore.
Plus all the data will be on both computers so if one fails, I can play the track and read the music/words on one computer if need be.
Am I embarrassed to have the music/words in front of me? I was at first, after years of being in memorizing bands, but I got over it.
It's no worse of a tool than putting a capo on a guitar. The only tool I refuse to use is auto-tune, but that's another thread.
I plan to scan in all the bits of paper I have lying around. For my "backtrack" gigs I still plan on using my scrolling chords and lyrics which scroll along in time with the backtrack.
I think iPad-type technology is cool, and could be used liberally for those "wedding" type gigs as you mentioned. (Others here have covered that enough.) But then there is the other kind of gig, the gig that makes your jaw drop. I remember a series I played outside of Phoenix in the middle of the desert some years back where Noe Venable showed up.
She just walked on stage in a petticoat and black railroad boots from San Francisco with an old Martin, didn't even say hi, just walked up the mic and sang for an hour and left everyone in a total state of awe. I literally had no words. It was an hour of sheer stunning memorized genius delivered with the force of an exploding comet. One woman. One guitar. One mic. Then she just walked off and disappeared in a thunder of applause.
That's the kind of stuff I live for when I attend a show--all originals that just blow you away. Those that say "I came here to conquer and take no prisoners. Just sit still and listen."
Here is a link one one of her tunes. You should check out her stuff. I think you will like her. Summer Storm Journals is an album you would probably love. She plays the drums with her mouth as a human beatbox on some songs. The mixing is incredible and all basically acoustic and done at home.
I ended up being a backer of her last album and she sent me an oyster shell with the lyrics "What kind of creature shall I be?" written in her handwriting. I keep it in sight on my desk when I am writing lyrics. It's my magical talisman.
David Snyder Songwriter/Renaissance Man Studio + Fingers
Neither I do live gigs other than with my barbershop groups and in that genré you always have to memorize the words to a song because the style requires that you are free to interpreat the lyrics from your heart and not from any paper that will distract the listeners and viewers attention to you and the message that the quartet is trying to convey !
Joanne, how many independent outs do you have on your sound-card?
I play 2-3 times/month at church; either on electric guitar, electric bass, or Hammond & keys.
We play to a click track, and on some songs, the worship leader will also add in some pre-recorded synth tracks that play through the mains.
In addition to the click, he will also put in some verbal cues (which we call Siri!) on song section changes, where there is a change in feel (all in!), etc.
It seems like you should be able to do with BIAB, if you can send individual tracks to individual outs of your soundcard. Perhaps even L/R separation.
He has all of our songs memorized, but then again, it's his job. I have about 1/4 of our songs memorized.
Prior worship leader would occasionally use his iPad with OnSong with autoscrolling. He really liked it - mostly when it was just him leading and no band backup.
Some great comments on here and a wealth of experience.
If I'm playing with the band, we do it from memory. We have a 2 hour set list with about 25 solid songs, rock covers.
If the audience is dancing and rocking along and we think we can get another few songs in, a couple of "requests" appear to play one or two that we've already done
If I'm playing solo and using backing tracks, I make a karaoke file for each song and then render the audio and lyrics into a movie file (one for each song) and play that on the iPad.
That way I know everything is in synch and in one place and guaranteed to work as it's only one app running and movies play pretty solidly.
The lyrics are there for occasional reference.
One thing though if you're using a tablet / iPad, it's worth putting it into airplane mode before the gig as I was in full swing once and an email came in and muted the audio whilst it informed the audience "you've got mail".
Loved that video David. Thanks for sharing the link. I am definitely getting into both types of gigs. The ones where people come specifically to see me (such as at our National Arts Festival) or at the folk club, where we have about 5 artists each playing a 1/2 hour set. For these I am memorizing everything (or at least trying to).
Then there are the "musical wallflower gigs", like a private function, a pub, or the farmers market. These I am using scrolling lyrics for my backtrack stuff and good old fashioned paper for the acoustic stuff. I am going to try the iPad app for the acoustic stuff.
Joanne, how many independent outs do you have on your sound-card?
I play 2-3 times/month at church; either on electric guitar, electric bass, or Hammond & keys.
We play to a click track, and on some songs, the worship leader will also add in some pre-recorded synth tracks that play through the mains.
In addition to the click, he will also put in some verbal cues (which we call Siri!) on song section changes, where there is a change in feel (all in!), etc.
It seems like you should be able to do with BIAB, if you can send individual tracks to individual outs of your soundcard. Perhaps even L/R separation.
He has all of our songs memorized, but then again, it's his job. I have about 1/4 of our songs memorized.
Prior worship leader would occasionally use his iPad with OnSong with autoscrolling. He really liked it - mostly when it was just him leading and no band backup.
Hi Scott. This sounds like higher grade stuff to me. Are you taking about having the prompts and the click track coming out of the monitors while you are playing? If so, unfortunately the types of gigs I am playing I am the singer, the guitarist, the sound engineer and the general groupie (and sometimes even the audience )
If I'm playing solo and using backing tracks, I make a karaoke file for each song and then render the audio and lyrics into a movie file (one for each song) and play that on the iPad.
That way I know everything is in synch and in one place and guaranteed to work as it's only one app running and movies play pretty solidly.
The lyrics are there for occasional reference. Mike.
One thing though if you're using a tablet / iPad, it's worth putting it into airplane mode before the gig as I was in full swing once and an email came in and muted the audio whilst it informed the audience "you've got mail".
Ha ha! I have not been caught out like that yet but it is only a matter of time. I have all my karaoke tracks on my phone so an actual phone call can really mess things up!
What an excellent thread this has turned out to be.
There is a wealth of knowledge here. All sensational and very worthwhile ideas.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
What an excellent thread this has turned out to be.
There is a wealth of knowledge here. All sensational and very worthwhile ideas.
It's what I like about this forum and the BiaB community. There are a lot of nice, generous people here willing to help each other out.
I think I've gleaned a lot more helpful information from this forum than anywhere else I visit.
A friend of mine uses http://onsongapp.com/ on his iPad. Says it works fine. I've not tried it myself, I just use my iPad for couch surfing and bring my ThinkPad laptops to the gig.
You can do the same by having a mixer out routing to some channels that would feed in ear monitors which sound expensive but really are not. You probably already have all of the year except the earphones.
"That looks very nifty. Is "text edit" a program that will automatically bring up the lyrics of the next song as soon as you touch the space bar?"
Joanne, Text Edit does not automatically bring up lyrics. It is a very basic Apple program. What I do is to have all of my lyrics in one folder. When I decide on my BIAB set list I set the songs up to be played in Jukebox mode usually 1-20 for approx. one hour set. I then go to text edit and open up the corresponding 20 lyric files and stack them in the same order of the BIAB songs. As the jukebox is loading the next song, I close a previous lyrics file to reveal the next lyrics. As an aside, 95% of my sets are set up ahead of time. If I get requests, I have the complete folder of all songs and another of all lyrics open in back of the BIAB chord sheet. I can go to the to each and fill the request.
Here's my simple setup, Joanne: 1. Lead sheets with chords, lyrics and melody on iPad Pro (large enough for even my 69-year-old eyes to read). They're in pdf format on Documents 5 File Manager, which lets me flip to the next song. (I don't sing, but I like to "hear" the lyrics while I play.) 2. BIAB on regular iPad, using BIAB's iPad/iPhone app. (Now if PGMusic would just update it so I can flip to next song on that!) It all sits on my music stand so that the audience sees no computer screens, and the BIAB highlighter reminds me where I am when I'm interrupted or suffer a senior moment. Memorization's not for me. I play mostly jazz standards. In my opinion, it's a lot harder to remember chord changes for those than for most pop songs.
That is all so interesting. That's why they make chocolate and vanilla I guess. (Alistair, I'm definitely not talking about jazz, below. That is complex and I see your point.)
Speaking only to lyrics, (and having access to a teleprompter aside, and not including piano where sheets are well hidden and right at eye level), at a base level like mine where I wouldn't need sheet music for the melody's sake, I find anyone reading lyrics distracting and it sucks the soul out of the song. It is so obvious when they have to return to the sheets, find their place, and read-sing for a while. I use a set list on the floor, and if I have the foresight, I include the first few words, and/or the one #$(% word or phrase I always seem to have problems with, or recently changed.
I think as long as you depend on sheets, you will never learn the lyrics. I like the "I'd love to but it's not in my set list right now and I'd hate to screw it up for you," and the above, "We don't do that one right now, but I think you will like this one."
Now, someone who can do it in a seamless way is another story, but I've rarely seen it. Last summer at an outdoor event a gust of wind blew dozens of pages off a well known touring pro's stand, and it stopped them cold, and she could not continue with any songs until they were gathered. She was super pissed (at the wind and at stage hands and anyone nearby), but I'm sure she was extremely embarrassed. They were her standard songs.
Andy
BIAB 2017 Ultra Windows 8 and 10 Scarlet 18i8 Reaper and Mixpad
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
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