"Why Do We Play The Gig?"

Published: Fri, 06/03/22

Casa Fretboard was poised to make tracks for New England when some non-specific, non-Covid virus with a serious entrepreneurial streak decided to set up an all-you-can-catch buffet inside my older kid's bloodstream. As I write this, the Dauphin seems to be more or less out of the woods, but not exactly flightworthy either. In between rearranging the terms of our trip the other afternoon, I listened to an interview with saxophonist Bob Reynolds on one of my favorite podcasts, Leo Sidran's The Third Story. Granted, I never traveled to the extent someone like Reynolds does, but by the time he got to the part about finishing tours of Japan and Europe just as Covid was shutting everything down in early 2020, I found myself noticing just how little I miss getting out of the house to play around the corner, much less around the country.

Maybe that's the pandemic talking, maybe it's having plenty to do in my own proverbial backyard, but the idea of trucking hither and thither to play music one could just as easily play on the front porch or in a friend's living room seems to have lost a lot of its luster. Could be I'm just rusty, could be the old conflict between the pleasures of playing live music versus the effort it takes to show up, set up, tear down and leave. Or it could be the aging process – maybe I would just rather, as my 11th grade English teacher would put it, get into bed at 9:30 with some Robert Browning and a glass of warm milk than start piling gear into my car at 10:30 to play some bar at midnight.

Would it make a difference if you promised me said bar would be wall-to-wall with stone-cold David Hamburger fans familiar with my latest records and comparing notes on the virtues of the various members of my utterly kickass band before we even played a note? Oh, probably. The optimism and imagination that enable a person to try carving a livelihood out of the music business are also what enable that same musician to suppose that this time, they're driving to a gig that's going to be absolutely packed. Having discovered the hard way this is not always the case, at some point I stumbled upon two rituals which have greatly increased my enjoyment of whatever actually happens.

The first ritual is really more of a mantra, and it goes like this: "Play the gig you're at." As in: don't walk in expecting it to be like the last gig, the one where you totally connected with the audience, where every bit of banter landed like a Steve Martin punchline, where the gear worked like it's supposed to, the monitors were perfect (or simply existed), the solos played themselves. That would be trying to play the last gig, and you're not at that gig anymore. How do you feel now, how does this room look, how does your gear sound tonight, how is this audience responding? Play this gig – the one you're at right now.

The second ritual is a kind of call-and-response I like to have with myself on the way to the gig (granted, this really works best if you're playing solo, or meeting everyone else at the venue). It starts with the question, "Why do we play the gig?" And the answer can be anything. Sometimes I answer myself with, "Because playing music is fun." Or "because it's fun to play with these particular musicians." Or sometimes I just think, "because I love playing guitar."

The thing these two rituals have in common is that they both take the focus away from external factors – viz, the things you can't really control – and put it on the internal factors you can control. It's not that the audience doesn't matter or that you can get away with only playing for yourself. It's that putting the focus on something internal provides a way to find joy and satisfaction regardless of the circumstances. If, for instance, the answer to "why do we play the gig?" is "to get to hear and interact with my fellow musicians," I feel like there's a much better chance of rating the evening a success than if the answer is "because it's going to feel really awesome when 200 people show up, and they all want to tell me how amazing we sounded afterwards."
 
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From time to time, when I have managed to get out of the house and play, someone has occasionally characterized aspects of what I do as "ragtime." Which has prompted me to clarify, at least for myself: what is ragtime guitar? In this week's lesson, I go over three steps to start playing an essential eight bar guitar rag: the chord progression (and voicings), the right hand groove, and a few classic syncopated moves you can put on top. Plus a few additional things I couldn't help but try and squeeze in along the way. You can find it all at the link below:

Ragtime Guitar In Three Steps

More soon,

David
 
For organized, ongoing weekly lessons that help you learn tunes, turn them into complete songs, and start improvising, register for the Fingerstyle Five membership at www.fretboardconfidential.com