datamusicata

Having just come from the Folk Alliance International Conference, my mind is on the many people I met there and the many people I saw showcasing; not to mention the fact that I did fourteen showcases myself.  And I got work.  

I know everyone knows this, but just in case, a showcase is where you get up and perform for twenty minutes and hopefully generate enough interest in what you do to allow you to perform for a living. I’ve been doing that since 1963, so I’m starting to get a handle on it.

When you showcase, you are going to have at best twenty minutes. During that time, you want to demonstrate your abilities to relate to an audience, to entertain an audience and your skills as a musician and/or singer. For me there is the added facet of doing songs that I compose (as do most of you now, tho there was a time when singers sang and writers wrote…but I digress).

And that actually brings up the point of composition. If you’re not an accomplished writer yet, you can still do a bang up performance by choosing good songs and arranging them to show off your strengths and not your weaknesses. If your upper range is thin, then keep the songs in a lower range where your voice is flattered by the key. No one likes to see a performer struggle.

And by arrange I don’t mean learn note for note what someone else did and then regurgitate that. That’s a good place to begin…learn it note for note, but then make it your own by employing what ever it is that is unique about what you do. Put that into the song. Key changes, tempo changes, time signature changes, different chord progression for a familiar song is frequently interesting. Check out www.allwoodandstones.com to see what I mean.

After you’ve chosen the songs, whether you wrote them or not, now try to arrange them in such an order that there is an architecture to your show. A beginning, a building momentum middle and a finale that is clearly the end of the show. Perhaps your strongest song, or your most energetic performance.

After you have an order that you think works, sing and/or play all the songs in that order and if you have the capabilities, record it. Listen to it. See how it evolves. And if you are going to be doing any talking in between songs, that better be entertaining and not a personal history lesson, or mindless rambling or description of the song you are about to sing. If it’s a well written song, we’ll know what it’s about.

Talk about what it means to you, or what inspired you to write it or learn it. And it helps to be funny. You just learn this from performing, but I can tell you that if you aren’t that funny you should be brief. It really is the soul of wit.

Now that you have your twenty minutes arranged and practiced, you must go out and do it everywhere you can. Any where that has an open mic or on the stage of anyone that will let you have twenty minutes. If you practice that enough, when you go on stage for your showcase prepared, you are going to floor them. Nothing impacts an audience like a performer who has prepared to be there. Unprepared, you are simply arrogant, inconsiderate and unprofessional. Who’s gonna pay to see that?

And when ever you perform, you are bringing an energy into the room. Make sure that the energy level is higher when you are done by giving your all in the performance. Prepare; give it your best shot and bless and thank the audience for being there. They could be anywhere and they are there in front of you giving you the gift of their time…and nobody has enough of it.