FEATURE: The Stage, My Playground

 The stage, my playground? Is that so? Do you like to appear in front of a more or less large number of spectators and hope for gestures of approval for your performances? Or are you more the person in the background, the mechanic who ensures that third parties get the credit for your achievements and that you are compensated for your work in the form of royalties, salaries or copyrights?

“What kind of questions are these again and what kind of strange article is this anyway?” I can already hear the first readers expressing their displeasure. Well, in addition to all the millions of technical aids that are intended to make it easier for performers to express themselves creatively, the question still remains: why? Why do you make music? Without drifting too far into psychological depths, we can ultimately be divided into the following groups.


1.) The coerced one

Mom and Dad have learned that learning an instrument promotes certain areas of their child's brain that will later make them a better person (a detailed description would go beyond the scope). So son or daughter receives guitar, piano, violin or trumpet lessons, which are to be placed alongside the three additional sports support measures and tutoring for the G8 Abitur.

The youngsters do well at first, but later realize that regular practice is a basic principle for further training and that they don't have/don't want to have the time. Good approaches then die out at the latest when the opposite sex is perceived during puberty.

Development opportunities: “I used to make music too”
Likelihood of being on stage: Only in a drunken head at weddings, company anniversaries or karaoke bars.
Entertainment value: borderline


2.) The latecomer

He/she has already completed vocational training and has successfully entered professional life. You run a company, have a family and have always been interested in music, but haven't found the time to learn an instrument. Since you don't want to let your childhood dream die, you finally decide to fulfill your wish in your mid-30s.

Due to the good economic situation, equipped with more than just basic equipment, you look for a good teacher or have the same person come home to start with full enthusiasm. After a few months, it also becomes clear to this copy that the time factor was not only the reason for the previous abstinence from an instrument, but will also ensure that in the future you will continue to play the same three songs in the study for an indefinite period of time will play which one you learned first.

Development opportunities: “I also have a guitar at home”
Stage probability: zero
Entertainment value: zero


3.) The eternal blouser

He/she learned an instrument as a teenager, formed a band, did a few gigs as a dance musician, played part-time in a blues band, then learned the job, played part-time in a blues band, then started a family, played part-time in a blues band, then built a house, played in a blues band...

Development opportunities: “Stevie Ray Vaughan is the greatest and I have all the records from Bonamassa”.
Likelihood of being on stage: 2-3 times a year at birthday parties and in the local pub.
Entertainment value: the family and close friends are happy...


4.) The nerd

He/she has always felt drawn to instruments, but the craftsmanship and the practice involved have always been a horror for him. The 10,000 hours of practice or daily practice over 10 years predicted by experts scares him, whereas hours of wiring, plugging, soldering, measuring and measuring, and fiddling with VCAs, VCOs, etc. are no trouble at all.

With the help of modern DAWs and various synthetic music styles, he/she can develop his/her own style through a combination of presets and creative mixing of different styles, which can be transported to large stages without much effort.

Development opportunities: depending on your own personality
Stage probability: comparatively high
Entertainment value: depending on light show, stage decoration, LED walls and pyrotechnic puppet show


5.) The ambitious one

He/she learned to play an instrument as a teenager and quickly realized that, deep down, this is exactly what you always wanted to do and always want to do. He/She believes that only disciplined practice and absolute focus will bring the desired success, so you learn and practice until the bars bend.

Unfortunately, in this status you quickly forget to look to the right and left, which often ends in you not only being able to effortlessly recreate all of your idols' output on YouTube, but even outdoing them in terms of technology, but still looking like a Gotha employee Mallorca vacation.

Development opportunities: good if the partner buys him/her new clothes
Stage probability: good, as long as you have a capable booker.
Entertainment value: jazz


6.) The songwriter

In addition to the music, he/she also listens to the lyrics and thinks about what the artist wants to say with them. Technical points only interested him/her peripherally, as the instrument is only the carrier medium for the lyrics and the singing.

Development opportunities: good if you remain open to personal development
Probability of performing on stage: very high, as you can actually perform anywhere and at any time
Entertainment value: folk


7.) The producer

He/she learned an instrument and sometimes plays it very well, but at some point he or she noticed that his/her skills behind the controls bring in significantly more money than his/her face on a stage.

Development opportunities: almost endless
Stage probability: zero point zero
Entertainment value: only via sound recordings

OK, we have now roughly listed our personalities without claiming to be complete. The question of how heavy lead is:

How do I entertain my audience?

Oh, if only it were always so easy to answer. For the sake of clarity, we will also roughly divide the artists into a few categories in terms of the focus of their preferences.


1.) Through craftsmanship

You can think what you want about jazz and its protagonists, but when it comes to technique and understanding of harmony, the ladies and gentlemen, who visually mostly sail close to unreasonable, are very often found in the higher leagues. The listener is usually very impressed by the artist's talent for improvisation; any sweatpants or other casual clothing on stage rarely bothers the listener.

Even in the prog varieties of rock and metal we encounter pioneers who are sometimes exceptionally skilled in their craftsmanship and whose rhythms can hardly be counted, let alone reproduced. Here, too, the audience is comparatively resistant to visual missteps, but it is important to the audience to still be in the heavy zone. There should be at least a few clichés typical of the genre, otherwise the rock fan will get it wrong.

Entertainment Recommendation: Big poses and over-the-top stage shows only distract from the quintessence of the craft. If you prefer this style of music, you don't have to worry about investing in a stage presence and can concentrate entirely on the music. However, this form of “hard listening” will always remain a niche product, the crowning achievement of which is the “Musicians Musician” award.


2.) Through show

As expected, the exact opposite of 1.) and with KISS as the protagonist it has already been exhausted down to the last detail. Even if the current line-up does a good job technically, the legendary first line-up rumbled and gurned their way through the set like a student band. Has anyone noticed? Yes! Did it bother anyone? Yes! Did it slow down KISS' career in any way? Not in the slightest! The Punch and Judy troupe is still among the top 10 most successful bands in the world and this will not change until their final demise.

An opulent stage show is still a guarantee for maximum audience effectiveness. The best guitar sound in the world and the most sophisticated vocal singing since Queen is only a description of the action after 10 minutes at the latest, but a bang, combined with an elaborate LED screen or something similar, stays with you for a lifetime. Unfortunately, our brain can only store visual effects, not acoustic ones. Unfortunately, optical effects always involve a huge financial outlay, so everyone has to calculate for themselves at what point the show, along with development and transport, mutates into a dime-sized grave.


3.) Through entertainment

Nothing is more embarrassing than a pedestrian Fips Assmussen on stage, who annoys and offends his audience more than entertains them with tired jokes. On the other hand, it's good for those who have an entertainer in their ranks who knows how to entertain people with pithy sayings and spontaneity in the mostly boring breaks between songs.

Can you learn to walk the ramp? No but …! Anyone who consistently works on themselves, perfects their function within the band/project and receives enough support from their colleagues will noticeably gain self-confidence, which in turn is reflected in their performance. Bands like the German melodic metallers AXXIS could easily overcome the failure of all instruments for over an hour, frontman Bernhard Weiß would confidently entertain the audience with jokes, stories, games and other things without even a hint of boredom.


4.) Through songs

Attention: danger of black ice! Even at the risk of being hit hard again by many readers, I openly represent the classic of all song reviews. No matter how loud synthetic music sometimes is, no matter how flashy an open-air concert with 100,000 people is, a real song of the highest quality can actually only be played with vocals on a guitar. OK, I'll allow piano as well.

Why? If you manage to block out all the impressive effects like volume, sound, arrangement, stage show and people still listen to you simply because you describe a theme that resonates with them or play a cadence that touches them, you've won! You are self-sufficient! Independent! The only thing that can slow you down is a hoarse voice or a broken string.

Can you learn songwriting? Yes and no! You can learn how to improve your songs and make them more interesting in terms of melody and arrangements. But what cannot be learned is one's own experience. Only if you are who you are, if you are authentic, can you create songs that reach other people. Kurt Cobain was just a real sausage as a craftsman, but his minimalist approaches, for example in a song like "Come As You Are", can only be seen as very good from a songwriter's point of view.


5.) Through personality

Very difficult because it's hard to believe. There are these guys who just walk on stage and have already won without even saying a word or playing a note. These can be top singers of the old school like Tom Jones, charismatic ex-drug wrecks like Iggy Pop or showman Steven Tyler, they all have the charisma that every artist wants.

Your question about learning this skill becomes superfluous very quickly. You can copy these people, but the only solution would be to mold your own personality into an original. As a consolation, Tyler was always seen as a “cheap copy” of Mick Jagger at the beginning of his career.


Oh yes, there are also...

Stage Fright:

A terrible mixture of fear of failure and excitement, combined with an excess of adrenaline in its purest form. There are relaxation exercises that can reduce the level of despair, but as far as I know there is no complete cure. All colleagues who shared the ordeal also told me that with the first note all worries vanished, so as late as possible to the show and as quickly as possible on stage...

Rehearse:

It may be subjective, but I almost only know bands that seem to ONLY rehearse and never play live, or bands that NEVER rehearse and only play live. If you're young and want to spend a lot of time with your friends with a case of beer, rehearsals together make a lot of sense and sharpen the feeling of togetherness.

What, on the other hand, always bothered me terribly was catching up on personal practice in the rehearsal room, i.e. everyone is prepared, knows their parts, only one person shines through his ignorance in addition to mistakes and holds up the entire band. Of course everyone can act as they want here, but if this happens repeatedly, in my opinion the colleague's priorities are elsewhere and he should be replaced.

Personally, I now see rehearsals as a nice human event, but otherwise just a necessary evil that serves to compare the individual musicians and should be kept as short as possible. In my opinion, perfect preparation is an absolute must, otherwise see above...

Interaction:

The word actually says it all. You play TOGETHER, which means you primarily listen to what the OTHER is playing. You should be able to do your own stuff perfectly and then drape it around the other person's game. If you prefer to hear yourself playing, you should think about a performance with backing tracks from your MacBook.

A band only makes sense if you enjoy listening to what the other person is playing and not just using them as an agent for your own performance, especially since the fan can immediately tell whether you like each other on stage or not.

Stage volume:

Anyone who has the misfortune of playing with colleagues from the “old” school who are used to providing the clubs with sound primarily from the stage will be familiar with the mush of sound that guitar and bass in particular love to emit from the stage. In collaboration with powerful P.A.s, the result is inevitable. You try to compensate for your colleague's noise with increasing monitor volume and at some point you sink into the feedback swamp. Just terrible.

In this case, I can only strongly recommend forcing your colleague to undergo in-ear monitoring so that he can blow his instrument up to his neck without burdening his colleagues. If you refuse in this case, see the “Samples” section. However, a stage volume that is too low is also counterproductive. All-tube amps in particular require a minimum load on the power amplifier, otherwise they sound terrible. But this is usually lower than you think :-)

Conclusion

Nothing has to, everything can. A convincing band performance only takes place when all musicians pull together. Nothing against solo artists a la Yngwie Malmsteen, who only sees the band as a vicarious agent, but in this case I would personally prefer a MacBook administrator and a few show dancers as stage fillers.

As I said, to each his own and always remember: “GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT”

In this sense …