----- I suck, I tell you, I suck. ------

[Bruce Steinberg <bruces@xxxxxxx>]

re:

>From: BEERE_MARK@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: ----- I suck, I tell you, I suck. ------

//////////////////

Brother Mark, why beat yourself up assuming that the audience 
heard you any better than you heard yourself?  Under the 
circumstances (at least considering how the experience left you 
feeling), look on the bright side -- maybe they didn't hear you at
all! ;)

I bet your whole weekend would've felt ~much~ better if just one 
person from the audience had come up to you afterwards and said 
those magic words every club performer has heard at one time or 
another, "Man, you were playing your ass off up there but we 
couldn't hear a damn thing on you out front!  You were ~way~ down 
in the mix, plus all that feedback!  Freaking sound system -- 
couldn't hear ~nothin'~!"  (Most folks would much rather blame 
the PA than you.)

Now, wouldn't that have sounded just like music to your ears, all 
things considered?  As close to redemption as you can get in this 
life is to play what you think was the worst live performance of 
your life and to then find out that no one heard it.

Well, just assume for now that that's exactly what the situation 
was, and that someone simply didn't have the courtesy to come up 
and tell you.  

And then keep some things in mind for the next time you get 
slam-dunked into the middle of a live tune with no warmup or 
sound check at all (especially if there's no sound person 
offstage):

(1) If the mike you grab suddenly causes feedback, and you can't 
effectively eliminate it through handling or placement right 
away, don't fight it -- forget about holding it immediately.  Put 
it back on the mike stand like you found it and go close-coupled, 
open-handed "acoustic."  If it's that hair-trigger to feedback, 
chances are the vocal gain is plenty high enough to get over in 
the house.  (It's already been doing that for someone's wimpy 
background vocal, and besides, for at least one tune you can 
hopefully sound more like Sonny Boy than Little Walter. :)

(2) If you can't hear yourself in monitor (or house PA), play 
basically only what you can "hear" in your own skull.  Even if 
it's only simple, long notes, as long as they're soulful -- and 
you're confident in what you're playing.

(3) If that's not enough, stretch one hand so you can stick your 
index finger in your ear (preferably on the same side :), just 
like any self-respecting vocalist, and play only that which you 
can comfortably (and confidently) hear in this private 
head-monitor of your very own.  This is where having decent throat
tone is essential (in addition to having something to say 
musically in the first place) -- no hands, no cupping, no pet 
mike or amp, no nothin'.  Just you and a harp and an uncertain 
universe -- very existential.  Dig it.

(4) At this point, don't even think about how it sounds to anyone 
else.  First, it's out of your hands, literally, and if it's 
really meant to be, someone onstage or off will fix the level. 
(Your job is to make them ~want~ to fix it, based on whatever they 
do hear -- and see.)

(5) Be *excited* about your own playing, and everyone else will 
catch it, onstage and off.  (Even in the very worst case where 
your mike goes stone dead, or you lose a couple of reeds at once, 
the ultimate zen performance is when you can silently play 
~nothing~ and everyone still swears they heard it and loved it -- 
work on it, grasshopper. ;).  Have fun, B*