[Harp-L] Advice on getting gigs

[Jim McBride <jpmcbride@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm looking for advice from the more experienced players on the list about getting gigs. I play in a guitar-harp duo and we've been playing gigs for about 2 years now. The thing is, for most of that time we played at the same 2 or 3 places (for free) that knew us and liked us. These were restauraunts and coffee shops and we played on the off nights when business was slow and no one was ever booked to play. It was great experience for us and we learned a lot. Circumstances have changed now:
  1) Most of these places are not readily availabe to play at now for various reasons.
  2) We've gotten much better and want to branch out.
  3) We started playing open mics around town and have gotten good responses - and have learned how much fun it is to play for an actual crowd :-)
  4) We actually got a paying gig with a decent audience and it was a lot of fun.
   
  So, what I'm looking for is some advice on the right way to aproach getting gigs. I want to do this in a professional manner - any advice? Call? Walk-in? What should I give to the manager/owner? By the way, if it matters, we are doing all cover songs, mostly classic rock and a few blues. We're looking at coffee shops, cafe's, restaurants that have bars, that sort of thing.
   
  I have a funny story about how we got our very first gig. We had played at an open mic about 4 times and we heard there was another one nearby. My partner found out where the other open mic was at and stopped by and talked to the owner. We showed at the new place the next day expecting open mic and there had been a mis-communication and the owner thought he had booked us for the entire night! Now realize that we had just started playing together, hell we really had just started playing at all! We only had about 10 songs we could even pull off halfway decently. We had never been in front of an audience except for a few friends at open mic for 2-3 songs. We swallowed hard and said OK we'll do it. On the very first song my partner gets nervous and falls apart on the guitar and forgets the changes ... has to stop the song about 2/3 through. By coincidence the only customers at a table near us get up right then to leave. He's convinced they think he sucks and are leaving
 because of him :-) But we pulled it together and played our 10 songs, took a break, then played them over again. We got through it and it wasn't that bad. Been doing it ever since and having a great time. Getting better little by little. But if that simple mis-communication hadn't happened, who knows how long it would have taken for us to ever get up and do it.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

 		
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