Music Knowledge
1. Get your basics right
It is important to learn the correct techniques and fundamentals right from the start. To build your knowledge on hear-say is probably going to kill you on stage. Why? Most of the time, you would be bringing all your bad techniques and habits onto the stage. If you wish to improvise on a piece of music, make sure you know your fundamentals before you do so.
We have a lot of members here with realistic performing experience. It is not too hard to ask for advice, as long as you are willing to use your precious golden mouth and ask politely.
Always be willing to learn, no matter how established you are. Superstar like Andy Lau commented over the recent Global Chinese Music Awards, he is still learning and he too, also have to improve on his singing compared to what he has been doing previously.
Learning never stops! You learn different things at different stages of your career. Even Tiger Woods (golf) have to go through a special course to curb his arrogance when he starts to see success and his new found fame.
2. Know your music
If you want to perform, this is probably one of the most important aspects that an artiste should accomplish. Why are some artistes or cover bands performing so well? They study their music!
No, I don’t mean enrolling in Vienna Music College or anything like that. It simply means, go through the piece of music again and again, understand what is that piece of music about before you try to perform it. How do you suppose an artiste can perform a track well, if he/she does not understand the music?
3. Practicing
Practise and practise before your show. If you know you are not prepared enough to perform a certain track, drop it and perform another track which you are more familiar with. This is by far; better than screwing up on stage.
The audience is not interested to know which is your favorite song, so primarily that is not your priority. Your priority should be how well you perform for each song that you are going to play for the audience.
Amanda Ling
Electrico
Singapore
It's never easy especially music in Singapore, though it's slowly thriving. Confidence is a must, determination will see you through and.... PRACTISE PRACTISE PRACTISE!!!!!!!! Most importantly, have fun rocking out!
4. Technical
If you have the concept that an artiste should ONLY sing and play instruments on stage, it’s time you erase this misconception from your head. An artiste is involved in much more issues than just being able to dish out a track or two.
Take the effort and time to also understand how the sound equipments and soundman is directly related to your performance. You can’t afford to dump everything all in the hands of a soundman, so you will have to know how to compensate in areas where soundman has overlooked. For eg. Volume control, pitching etc…
Amanda Ling
Electrico
Singapore
To avoid miscommunications, misunderstandings etc, do have a standard "Tech-rider", listing all their preferred equipments and send them to the organizers prior to every whichever event they are involved. (Of course to a point its reasonable!) So there's time to let the other party sort out what they can provide. And if in any case some can't provide the exact one, at least the musicians could have a second best option at the back of their head. Flexibilty goes a long way!~ Example, if i dont have enough keyboard stands, alternative solution is to use tall stool or some sort...
5. Be prepared for the worst
Not all shows goes without a glitch, I guarantee you. Even the latest Rolling Stones concert in Rio, Brazil, one of the spotlights was down without warning until 3 minutes before the first act and nothing can be done. (Rolling Stones were already making their way into the backstage at that point)
As an artiste, you have to be mentally prepared for any unforeseen circumstances. If you are not the first artiste to perform, you are already having the benefit of assessing the sound system when others are performing. Don’t waste your time chit-chatting when you know obviously, you’re going to perform that night.
Rehearse for abnormalities during practicing sessions, making sure every member on stage knows what are their individual parts to do should anything goes wrong. If the microphone volume is too soft, you may have to place yourself nearer to the microphone or raise your vocal volume a little. (This is similar life-saving concepts for ships, when told to abandon ships, each crew know perfectly whether they are supposed to jump from the starboard side or port side.)
6a. Recording Albums
With internet these days, it is not hard to find a whole list of recording studios that are able to do the job for you. Wait! Before you walk into just any studio, you have to first understand what is this studio focusing on. There are studios that does voice-over massively, while that will help you in presenting the best vocal for your recording, that also means the quality of your instrumentation may suffer. Ask around for feedbacks on whichever studio you are interested in, and also look through the portfolio of that studio carefully. The kind of clients a studio has and her projects, will give you a slight hint how accomplished this studio is.
After that, balance it with your budget and see which is the best studio that gives you the sounds that your want and at the price that best fits your pocket.
It is also essential that you do a little reading up and research on copyright issues for your own benefit. You may want to leave it totally to your record label or publisher if you have one, otherwise all the more you should go through the legal groundwork as an independent artiste.
6b. Your demo and you, The organiser and publisher.
Alright, since I mentioned this is one of the important factors, then please spare me a little section on this too. This is also one of the key fundamentals that many composers and bands tend to overlook. Many of us have the impression that since it's a demo and not actual recording, why make it that good?
Demo are extremely important when you want to be heard. Imagine one day that you have to furnish your demo, do you think a lousy demo will impress? You can be absolutely good on stage live, but before that, would you even be given a chance to show off your skills upon hearing a lousy demo? Put yourself in the shoes of gig organisers, would you have the confidence to try out a band with their muffled demo, or perhaps a demo with all the sounds clipping?
To me, a demo should be as good as any published CD, or close to it at least. In modern days, technology is readily available, CD burners, DVD burners for videos - make full use of it.
I read some threads from experienced SOFTies that says, do a few runs of your music and choose the best to be recorded as the demo. They don't say this without a good reason. Before I forget, LABEL YOUR DEMO CLEARLY. You name, your band's name, track/s, contact numbers etc. This will make reference easy for the one receiving it. Imagine after receiving a demo for some time, and I have to go through the fuss just to recall who sent it and I have to call more than 5 parties just to locate this band. Event organisers don't have alot of time for this. So, help them.
