Create Digital Music: Getting Booked - 10 Basic Tips for Getting Live Electronic Music Gigs
Create Digital Music: Getting Booked - 10 Basic Tips for Getting Live Electronic Music Gigs
So there is an interesting post over at Create Digital Music today by Quantazelle where she lists her ten tips for getting booked live. Now, I have known Quantazelle (not personally) for quite a few years now. She is from Chicago, and so am I. I was even a fairly active member on her former web magazine Modsquare.com.
In general I think she has some pretty good, if not obvious, advice for the live artist. As another artist though I think there are some thoughts that I would like to add to respond to this topic.
While most of her advice is pretty sound, I personally totally disagree with her third statement.
3. Make sure that you will avoid dead air.
Now, it is been my sort of personal crusade over the years to try to advocate to people that electronic is more then just dance music. The whole mix set only approach I think unfortunately perpetuates the idea that electronic music is only for dance, and cannot somehow compete on the same level of entertainment as other forms of music. Orbital is one immediately popular live act that succeeded in not performing mix sets.
Another point that I would like make is that the success of your music is largely dependent upon the scene that is in your particular area. Now Chicago IMO has a very strong underground IDM scene. Consequently, Quantazelle and her label is IDM based, and I think a large amount of the success one has is based upon the scene of your city.
As one might expect if your scene is strong in trance, and you are a trance artist, the promoters, the artists and contacts will naturally be more prevalent for you.
Overall however, the advice is a great starting point, but I think all the budding artists out there should keep in mind the fact that sometimes there is no scene, especially if your sound is off the beaten path such as ambient, noise or experimental, or if you live in "Bumble". I would also like to say however, that sometimes success comes not from working the traditional paths of promoters, and the dance music scene.
Sometimes the off beaten and ingenious artists are the ones who really strike it hot. For example, I have gotten at least three gigs through Myspace. I am sure there are artists who are more create then me out there as well.
For further reading be sure to check out the LivePA Blog's LivePA Getting Started Guide
2 comments:
Tits always help
I hear you, M.A.S. But speaking as a non-dance music person, I think the dead air advice holds regardless. It just means different things in different genres. It's just especially tough when laptops are involved, because people still don't know what to make of the technology. And it's typically a place where you lose your audience. Maybe that doesn't mean you keep 120 bpm pounding away, but using it to make some kind of connection to the audience -- there's some sonic transition, or some sense you're still playing, or some banter with the audience, or a combination -- is a good idea. And it's not just the audience. I used to try to do separate set files for songs, and it totally shattered my concentration when I had to wait for files to load.
I think it's just a matter of figuring out how to apply this to your own personal music. And since it's sort of a technological problem, too, I think it's something we'll have to look at more. :)
@anonymous, since you're not the first to try to say this. Cuteness, male or female, often does NOT help -- if we're talking live music and not DJing. There's an amazing music scene that doesn't even shower.
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