Improve Your Music

Sounds like a daunting task already.
Firstly, lets get to the bottom of the term ‘professional’. The Macquarie Dictionary gives the definition ‘following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain’. Many out there seem to think of it as how many records you have sold, or how big the concerts are that you perform in or how famous you are. Sure this is professional, but I believe this is more of a level of success that is achieved in the journey of being a professional musician. I found you don’t have to do any of these things to create a comfortable living as a working guitarist and there always are opportunities to achieve greater goals and ambitions which in turn will create more success for you.

Being a fingerstyle instrumental guitarist is probably one of the more difficult areas to be working in general, or make the superstar category, but there is a lot of work waiting for you out there – seek and you shall find. I have found that you have to be prepared to do more of the ambient types of gigs like weddings, corporates, restaurants etc. The solo instrumental guitar concept works perfectly here, as it does not intrude on the audience. The job is about setting the right mood for the occasion. A lot of the time you tend to perform in rooms where you can barely hear yourself play. With these kinds of gigs I found the softer you play the more powerful your music becomes and it adds a greater touch of class to the occasion. Frustration may creep in, you feel you are playing to a brick wall, but believe it or not, a lot of the audience are listening to you. Sound system setup and speaker placement in these rooms plays an extremely important role and is vital, as you don’t want it to be too loud in one area and too soft in another, the sound level needs to be spread uniformly to create the right impact.

The next category of work that is available lies in the pub and club scene. Although most of the work created here is more for the vocal type act, the instrumental concept can work extremely well. I’ve found these types of gigs to be challenging, you have to be prepared to entertain the audience which means you have to play louder, communicate and be more diverse in your performance.

Finally, opportunities arise where I perform in festivals and concerts and these gigs give great exposure to showcase your talent. Unfortunately, they don’t come along often enough and therefore difficult to totally rely on them to make a good living. Ultimately, this should be the goal one should aspire to, as this is where great success can be achieved.

I’m sure every professional musician has a informative and interesting story to tell on the road to their success. I’ll outline a brief history on how it all happened for me.

In the early 70’s at the age of 12, I discovered the guitar – there was something about the sound and appearance that got me deeply fascinated and something deep within my soul was telling me to master it. I would sit there for hours with a turntable and work out the songs that I heard of the day. Would listen to guitar players like Neil Young, Eric Clapton, John Fogerty, Steve Howe, Jimmy Page etc and steal as much as I could from them. For some reason I was always more interested in the fingerpicking side of guitar playing – I learnt tunes like ‘Mood For a Day’, ‘Needle And the Damage Done’, and was amazed how much sound and beauty could be created out of only six strings. This has always been my fascination and still is, and soon discovered the great fingerpicking legends in the guitar world, the likes of Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, Leo Kottke and the list just keeps going on. Strangely enough I never envisaged in becoming a professional guitar player at the time – I just enjoyed the fun and challenge of mastering all those great sounds. In the last year of high school I was employed as a part time guitar teacher at the local music school. This was the beginning of my guitar tutoring career. Having taught the next fifteen years at various high schools and music schools, and also private tuition, I found myself in a bit of a rut, wanting to get out and perform more but due to lack of gigs had to fall back on the tutoring.

As far as my first performances were concerned, which was in the early 80’s, I remember initially I would just play to friends and family. Back then I also tried a bit of street music, which at that time was illegal and fortunately didn’t land me in any serious strife. Also played in cafes just for a meal and did the talent quest trip for a short while, where I was lucky enough to win a few. I sent out demo tapes to various entertainment agents. Being instrumental, they unfortunately couldn’t grasp the power of it; it had to be that vocal sing-along thing. They seemed very disinterested and had a very shallow attitude about it.

Having said all that, what do I do? Joined a band and did duo work from the late eighties to the early nineties, and did exactly as the agents wanted, and we managed to get quite a bit of work in the pub and club scene. This also gave me an opportunity to feature in a solo bracket from time to time, doing my guitar pickin’ instrumentals, which always were always well received.

That part of my musical journey ended in 94 and so I decided to go back on the solo guitar adventure again. I just so happened to be playing at a friend’s dinner party in 95 and the entertainment manager of the City Tattersalls Club who was present and happened to hear my music, asked if I wanted to gig there. Well the rest is history; I ended up playing there for the next ten years on a regular basis. This job also generated more work such as weddings, corporates and private functions.

While all this was happening I was lucky to score the job in transcribing and notating some of Tommy Emmanuel’s great songs in the book ‘Note for Note’ (Australia), ’Solo Guitar Style’ (USA).Working on this project with Tommy really educated me about the world of guitar playing and generated enormous amount of inspiration to improve and play better.
In Feb 06 I was performing a short solo bracket for The Tee Jays at the Sydney Rowing Club as I do from time to time. The management of Dedes Restaurant must have heard it, because the next thing I know is I’m performing there five nights a week and its now been going for over a year.

I’ve now reached that nice point as a guitarist – no shortage of work and enthusiastic students that want to know the secrets of the world of solo acoustic instrumental guitar playing.

Here are some important tips that I’ve discovered over the past thirty years that may be of use on your journey as a solo guitarist:

• If you’re not working, never knock back gigs even if the money is poor. You never know who is listening and there could be a chance of some good work waiting for you.
• Listen to audience feedback; take note of what they want to hear. Remember you are playing for them, not yourself.
• Build up a large repertoire and have diversity. Perform suitable material for the job you have been booked for.
• Turn up on time and don’t play too loud.
• Develop a business sense so you can negotiate the right price for the job.
• Ignore negativity, follow your heart and believe in yourself.
• Always have some merchandise you can sell, like CDs.
• Make sure you have public liability insurance. Many jobs require this.
• Being a volatile business, there are times when it gets tough out there. Be prepared to tutor and street performance always works.
• Remember why you chose to play guitar in the first place-to have fun. If you’re having fun doing it, the audience will have fun listening to you.

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