Originally Posted by MarioD
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If you can't please your audience then you won't have a gig. <...>
Truer words were never spoken.

Play the songs the people want to hear, and pace the audience so you are playing the right songs at the right time, do a good job at that, and you will get gigs.

Find a good market, country, pop, oldies, hiphop, metal, or whatever and focus on it. Make sure there is a lot of work for the market you choose if you want to work.

I'd love to play jazz, but around here, the only jazz is a weekly 'black box' theater where I believe the house band does it for the love, definitely not the money. I gig for a living, so I play popular music. To me, a day job is a bigger sell-out than playing Mustang Sally again.

Mrs. Notes and I chose the retirement market. Here in Florida it is a big market and they prefer small but live bands. We learned the songs they wanted to hear. We did them to the best of our ability and paced the crowds, giving them soft music when they needed it and dance music when they needed that. Through the years we keep learning what is requested and the only time we were out of work was during the COVID pandemic's dark days.

When you practice, if you intend to gig, learn the songs people want to hear. Listen to your competition and watch what is working for them. Learn them at least as good as your competitors, and if you can, learn them better.

Then, when you are on stage, you aren't done practicing. You watch the audience, try different things, see how they react, and refine, refine, refine.

Sorry about drifting a bit off-topic.

Notes ♫

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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