apskarp
33 posts
Sep 15, 2009
3:37 AM
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Hi,
I just wanted to share my experiences from my first gig as harpist/singer two days ago. I've been playing in a band about six months. Actually in two bands - other with two guitar players and the other with full band.
This first gig however was with either of those bands. Instead it was an ad hoc thing at a little party that had also another band playing. I just asked one guy who was going to praticipate the party to accompany me as I knew he played it. As we had only one week time to practise I sent him mp3's of 4 songs that I've written to learn. Then we had one rehearsal where I found out that even though he was experienced with guitar, he had only played by himself kind of classical finger picking style - and he was very poor at accompanying or keeping up the tempo.. :)
Well, we decided to go for it anyway - as it was just pretty small party where we knew almost all the people. So I went in with kind of a "fail fast" mentality, where fail = learning. In the end we only had that one rehearsal and that was it - then to the stage.
I must say that it really was a good learning experience. I also videotaped the gig so that I can listen the playing and singing afterwards. Here's what I learned from that 20min gig:
-Good accompanying guitarist who can keep up the tempo is essential ;)
-Practicing the set properly is a must
-My singing has improved a lot and the nervousness doesn't sound (I started singing only 6 months ago as the bands wanted harpist to sing also.)
-Mark the key of the harps CLEARLY. (I played/sang one verse in the key of F when the guitar played it in E - I thought at first it was the guitarist but it was my own mistake..)
-My stage fright is "cured" (I used to fear public performances a lot when I was younger)
-It'd be good to plan the performance as a whole and add some "show elements" to it (costumes, lines between songs, etc)
-Being a singer/harpist is GREAT!
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