Here’s my
little story of moving towards ‘entertainer’…
Well, after
I completed my personal Song-Of-The-Week challenge for the 2012 year, I was
pulled away from recording for most of 2013.
I was exhausted from the SOTW challenge for January and February, then
followed a lovely month-long vacation trip to NZ, then followed by losing my
recording studio when a daughter came home for 6 months.
After the
2012 SOTW challenge, my next big personal challenge was to get a couple of
friends together to perform at Porchfest in September of 2014. I had started playing guitar back in December
2007. Well, I spent a couple of years
hacking away at the guitar back 30 years ago trying to learn some children’s
songs for my kids – and never had much success at that time. I started performing in prisons, retirement
homes and hospitals about a year after I started learning, and this has been my
#1 motivator. I love to see the smiles
as people enjoy the music. The Porchfest
challenge was a big step in three different ways: (1) It’s a music festival,
not a ‘captive audience’; (2) It would be a group effort – a band of sorts; and
(3) It would need to be amplified. All
‘firsts’ for me.
So in the
Fall of 2013, I was able to pass the first hurdle – talking two good friends into
joining me in this Porchfest adventure – so now I had a drummer and a female
vocalist. I started picking songs for a
3 hour set and I started practicing like crazy!
By March we had agreed on the set list of 20 songs and we scheduled
monthly practices for the three of us together starting in May. My co-vocalist and I practiced once a month
for April, May, and June (we couldn’t do more frequent practices including the
drummer because he lives a 2 hour drive away). I was spending a couple of hours every day
working on the songs by myself.
I realized
fairly early on that I’d need to amplify the sound in order to get a good mix
and volume. So I started researching
after Christmas, and started out with buying a good, portable PA. I went with the Yamaha Stagepas 600i with 10
mono inputs into the mixer. Great sound
quality. Lots of headroom. Great local dealer and service. Nice and portable. I got a great deal on the carrying cases for
the speakers, and they’ve been a real lifesaver. I’ve been very happy with the Stagepas and it
will serve well for many years, I’m sure.
But as big
as this investment was, it was just beginning.
I was fortunate to receive some very nice hand-me-down speaker stands
for free. I already had a good vocal
mic, an AKG D-5 and mic stand, but I ended up buying 2 more D-5 mics and 3 more
stands. Aftermarket pick-ups. Cables.
Looper. I’m looking at it as a
long-term investment, because I’m sure we’ll get lots of use out of this gear,
but all together it all made a big hit
on the credit card!
In the
Spring of 2014, after getting the PA system, I started playing a monthly retirement home
gig – solo. It was a great way to
practice performing plugged in, and it helped me to polish up the set list and gain
more confidence. On June 28th
our trio boldly set out to play a live gig at the invitation of the local
Farmer’s Market. That was a real
eye-opener. I used a Zoom H4N to record
the full 2 hour gig, and we sounded good - but we quickly realized that there were
lots of issues for us to work on. My
vocalist and I stepped up our practices to every 2 weeks, and we kept up our
monthly full ‘band’ practice. And of course, a couple of hours practice every
day for me.
Wow. Is it ever a lot more complicated to get 3
people sounding good together! Trying to
work out vocal parts that are effective; trying to get a groove that fits well;
trying to get the sound mix right – it’s certainly much more work than getting
a solo guitar/vocal performance sounding good.
I guess the payoff is that the group sure sounds sweet together, once
everything is all worked out.
We ‘rocked
the porch’ on a beautiful sunny day for Porchfest. I recorded the whole thing on both H4N and
video recorder, and we really sounded quite nice. All that practice certainly paid off.
I’m really
glad that we started practicing early. I’m
glad that we had that early Farmer’s Market gig – it was a great ‘test’. I’m glad that I recorded all of our practice
sessions – it helped us to iron out the rough patches and focus our
practice. I’m glad for the solo gigs at
the nursing home – these made me feel more confident. I was really glad that we had someone (a pro)
take care of our sound mix – one less thing to worry about.
Now the real
question is ‘where do we go from here?’
