The Murphy Method Blog

When you’ve performed live bluegrass for over 40 years, as I have, you’ve seen a lot of different performing situations. Sometimes, as at a big festival or concert, you have a big crowd who are all there to listen to you. But sometimes you have a small crowd to play for, and sometimes you have very few people present, or at least, few who are listening. But if they are listening attentively and responding, that makes a big difference.

What all this means is that you have to adjust your performance according to the situation. You may have a big set list made up of your group’s very best numbers, all arranged so that you’ve got the best variety and entertainment in the show. That’s what you need to play if you’re in front of a big listening audience, but what if you’re not? In our experience, “What if you’re not” falls into two categories:

1. Sometimes, especially playing at parties or in bars, there may be lots of people there (making plenty of noise, too) but few or none of them are listening to you. In a case like that, you can exhaust yourself trying to play and sing your best show numbers (or even just trying to be heard), so a change is in order. Relax and play easy stuff, and concentrate on hearing each other on stage and getting the picking and singing right. This is also a great chance to practice your newer material, if you can hear each other— but if you can’t, just relax and pick. Don’t wear yourselves out trying to do more. Nobody’s listening, and it’s not worth it!

2. The other kind of small audience is the group that’s really listening to you, and interested in your show. This is actually a really good situation, and often you can often present your best material to an audience like this. (I once saw the Lewis Family do their full, high-powered stage show for a Sunday-morning festival audience of about six people. The people were there to listen, and the Lewises gave them a great show.) With a small, quiet audience, especially if you are not using a sound system, you can establish a familiar rapport with the listeners, talk to them about the songs and tunes you’re playing, tell some stories if the situation’s right, and have a good time all around.

This just came to mind because at a Florida festival recently, Christopher and I played a Saturday show for an audience of eight people. Why just eight people? Well, our set that day wasn’t in the festival program, but had been hastily scheduled in the last couple of days before the show. So not many people knew we were playing, but the ones who showed up were REALLY ready to listen and enjoy our music. We did a quiet, intimate show for those folks, and we had a great time playing and singing. And at the end of the set, we sold eight CDs— one for every member of the audience!— a record which I never expect to break. That statistic, by itself, says a lot about what a good time the audience had. This was the ideal small audience!

The next day, Sunday, we were in a different situation. We played on the festival’s main stage for hundreds of enthusiastic listeners, and we stacked the set with several of our best crowd-pleasers, both bluegrass and original material. And we all had a good time there, too. So there are plenty of ways to enjoy yourself playing for an audience, and at that festival, we found two of them!

Everybody pick purty–

Red

I recently agreed to play a charity fundraiser with some friends, Charlie and Charlotte and their Sweetwater String Band. I’ve have played quite mandolin on a few gigs with Charlie and Charlotte over the years, but for this show, since one or two of their regular pickers weren’t available, they needed to include a couple of folks I hadn’t performed with before, Troy on banjo and Larry on fiddle.

Now, when you have a public performance coming up, what do you do to get ready? Along with your own individual practice, to make sure you’re warmed up on your own instrument, the whole band needs to get together and rehearse to make sure they can play their best together. So we all got together last Sunday to practice at Charlotte’s house, and started running over the material for the two sets which Charlotte planned to play at the show.

These five musicians had never performed together before, but we all knew what to do: WATCH and LISTEN. To know when to play lead or sing harmony, LISTEN to the bandleader’s instructions and preferences, and remember them. To know when to play backup or be quiet, WATCH and LISTEN to what all the other people are doing, and don’t step on them. To know when to split a lead break, WATCH and LISTEN. Be ready for the subtle, sometimes almost-instant “handoff” from the other lead player, so that you can take over the second half of the break without hesitation.

This also brings up some “Don’t’s” which you can figure out well enough: when playing, DON’T pay attention just to yourself as the rest of the band listens to each other and tries to sound their best together. DON’T throw in all your favorite licks at every opportunity, but play (1) what belongs best in the song and (2) what sounds best in that particular group. DON’T make the show all about you, but concentrate on making the bandleader(s) sound as good as you can– they’re the people who hired you. Back them up. That’s what you’re there for.

This isn’t hard, but you do need to have the right attitude. I’m glad to say that everybody knew what to do in the rehearsal, and we sounded fine. I’m looking forward to the show.

Don’t worry, you’ll get a report.

I’ve written a couple of articles recently about how it is when things go wrong on a gig. This time, I get to write about a time when things went RIGHT!

Murphy and I live on  a wooded mountainside in rural Frederick County, Virginia. But we’re not in the middle of nowhere, because North Mountain Volunteer Fire Department is less than a mile from our house. That’s reassuring. The fire department exists largely on donations from the community, though. Murphy and I, being musicians, can rarely toss much cash into their “Boot Drive” each year, so we donate by playing music for their annual yard party. We get to play music and have fun and see a lot of people, and make our contribution to the fire department at the same time.

When the fire department called this year, asking for a couple of hours of music at their yard party, I agreed to play. But I hadn’t taken the precaution of making sure that Murphy would be in town on that date! It turned out, a few weeks ahead of time, that she had to be out of town. Still, we were scheduled to provide the music. I’d hate to call the fire department back and cancel. I could do the performance solo, but it wouldn’t be much fun. Not only would it be good to have two people on stage instead of one, but I needed help moving the sound equipment and setting it up! What could I do?

Well, I started calling up a few pickers we know and like, and to my relief our Cousin David could play that day. Cousin David is best known for his mandolin picking, but he can also play guitar, bass, or banjo (or fiddle, or drums, or cello) with equal facility. So I was set—whether we found any more pickers or not, we could play a lot of music and have a good time.

On the day of the gig, David called. He said, “My friend John would like to come along to the gig and hang out.” But, I remembered, John is a bass player! I said, “Ask him to bring a bass!” David said, “Would you like him to play?” I said, “Two hundred per cent!” So John came along and brought his bass, and we had a band.

We arrived at the fire hall an hour before we needed to start, and began unloading our sound equipment from the van. We had the customary deluxe bluegrass-music stage (a flatbed truck), so we were in familiar surroundings. We went to work running cords around and hooking all the microphones, amplifiers, and speakers together. Now, both Cousin David and John are quite experienced musicians, and I didn’t have to tell them what to do—like Murphy and myself, they’ve both set up sound for decades. We had our sound system set up, turned on, adjusted, and ready to go in 11 minutes! —a record. We had over 45 minutes left for tuning up, relaxing, and getting ready to play.

(more…)