How to choose songs for your repertoire.

Start your Engines:

One of the most difficult things that musicians are confronted with is choosing songs that will appeal to a crowd.
In most cases your choice of songs will be defined by the following guidelines:

• The type of gig you are going to be playing
• Your musical ability

What's the Gig?

To address the first guideline is fairly easy. Although this may seem fairly obvious to seasoned professionals, for the newbies out there pay attention. If you are going to be playing in a jazz lounge common sense should prevail...learn as many jazz standards as you can.
Pick songs that are popular within the genre that the venue has asked for. This really is a no brainer guys n gals. I have mentioned this in a few of my previous posts. If the client asks for South American Bossa give them just that. Learning to follow specific directions can really assist you to progress and please the client.

Your Musical Ability:

This is where it gets interesting. Musical ability is so much more than how fast your fingers fly over the fretboard, or the amount of double kicks that you can deliver in a minute. It covers a vast range of skills such as:

• Sight-reading/notation/chart reading etc
• Education
• Experience
• Memory
• Stage presence

In this day and age working musicians are having to become increasingly knowledgeable across different genres to stay employed. So any abilities you have should be utilized to the fullest. 

Borrow and Blend:

An astute individual or band can pick tunes that are can cross over into several genres. For example songs by Sade or Norah Jones can easily cross genres. There are many others that lay on the fringes too. The primary reason for choosing songs in this manner is so that the number of contracts that you could do increases.
Also you may find that a lot of your songs can be changed and manipulated to resemble songs from other genres. I have heard Iron Maiden tunes being played in a Bossa nova rhythm, jazz versions of Pink Floyd tunes and numerous other examples. So you could look through your repertoire and devise other ways to play the songs that you already know.

Dull Wins the Day:

As dull as it may sound you can't really go wrong with picking easily recognizable songs from any given genre. It is nice to pick obscure tracks but the risk of displeasing the crowd increases. The reason for this is due to the fact that most people you entertain are not die-hard music fanatics that know every track ever written by Metallica, or Michael Jackson's birthday. They are simply general people that enjoy hearing and seeing a band play stuff that is regularly played on commercial tv or radio stations.

Some gigs are really quite specific about what they want played. I saw a recent request for a jazz trio that should only be playing Charlie Parker type jazz. For those of you that don't know Charlie Parker was one of the prime movers and shakers for the 'Beebop' era of jazz. In a case such as this there is every possibility that the crowd or possibly someone in management has detailed knowledge about the genre. A request that is so specific almost inevitably means that you need to really understand and be able to deliver a convincing performance within that narrow, well-defined genre.

Get to Know the Locals:

As time passes and you get to know your audience and see the requests coming in then you can adjust your repertoire accordingly. Get to know the regulars and ask them what they like to hear. The regulars are your guiding light to success at a venue. With most contracts the regulars are there before you and will probably be there long after you and your band have departed. Managers always give their regulars special treatment as they are the lifeblood of the business. You can do yourself huge favors by getting to know the regulars and getting to know what music they like and playing it for them, possibly even giving them a shout out before and/or after you play the song.

New Kids on the Block:

If you haven't done a contract and you're wondering what to put into your repertoire you must firstly decide what kind of gigs or contracts you want to do and then go from there.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What type of music do I want to play?
• What songs do I already know?
• What kind of venues/clubs/cocktail lounge etc do I want to play in?
• Where are my musical strengths and weaknesses?

Answering those questions honestly and comprehensively will help you to decide what you can and can't play and what is likely to be suitable and unsuitable for any given venue.

Summary:

Repertoire lives and breathes. Try to pick your songs wisely and do your due diligence. Research well and apply the information to create a practical repertoire that will serve you well.

Be a Pro not a Schmo!

Recently, a good friend of mine sent me a message on facebook. My friend is an established musician. She has travelled the world playing Top 40 music and she has also just released some of her own original music. Her message to me outlined her utter disbelief at the lack of professionalism displayed by a lot of musicians out there. She asked me if I could write an article about her experience. So here it is.

The Case of the Misbegotten Schmo:

To give you some background on the subject matter. Her complaint was centered upon musicians general lack of organization, laziness, and apparent inability to put all of their promotional material into one easy-to-access place.
She gave me some examples of some replies she had received from various musicians.
Below are two replies she received from two applications for an ad she placed looking for 'Pro' musicians to work with her.

"The agent already has my passport copy"
"I think my last band put up some video on YouTube"

You may be thinking to yourself 'hmmm that seems ok' and you would be wrong.
Lets get something straight: A Pro musician would not send in an application with that content.

The Schmos approach...

Let's discuss the two comments that my friend received:

1. "The agent already has my passport copy"

That is not going to win you any friends and worse- any contracts. If a potential employer asks you for that information you need to give it. This reminds of school when someone who hadn't done their homework would exclaim "my dog ate it". This answer means that you can't really be bothered providing your potential employer with the necessary info and you are just giving them another job to do, or you don't have it, or some other equally horrible and lame excuse. A candidate that has provided them with all of the info that they ask for without sending them off to find it from someone else is going to look a lot more attractive to them.

N.B Be wary of scammers who are trying to steal your identity. It does happen all of the time, so make sure you trust the person that is asking for sensitive and private information such as a copy of your passport.

    2. "I think my last band put up some video on YouTube"

Hmm, this reeks of poor organizational skills and a lack of care and consideration towards the profession which you purportedly take so seriously. To make matters worse this person didn't even supply a link. Mind you I suppose you can't supply a link to something that you're not sure exists or not!
This is really shocking. A patient agent or employer may reply to you and ask for a link, but in reality they probably wouldn't bother unless they were really desperate. As a real life example, I recently contacted several suppliers in Indonesia to supply me with some products for an import/export business. To cut a long story short the supplier that I hired wasn't the cheapest, it was the supplier that replied to me in a timely manner, was able to supply me with the necessary information I required, and was willing to help me get whatever I needed to get the job done.


The Pros approach...

Before I continue let's just have a look at my definition of a 'Pro' musician.

A Pro musician is defined by two things:

1. Decent technique and performance ability
2. An ability for conscientious, advanced planning that is well-organized, focused, and executed in accordance with deadlines.

Musicians that have all of this sorted out (especially the second bullet point) are constantly in work and are usually always being offered work and contracts because employers, agents, and venues know that they are on top of their game in most or all aspects of their profession. In short- they take care of business.

A Pros' answer to my friends' advertisement would resemble this:

1. I have uploaded a copy of my passport to my Skydrive account. It is up-to-date, has one year validity remaining, and plenty of spare pages. You will receive an email notification allowing you to view the shared file.
2. I have several links to my promotional videos. Here is the link to my website, where you will also find my repertoire, promotional photos etc etc. Here are some links to the same videos on Youtube. The video is recent and was filmed at etc etc

Transform from Schmo to Pro...

1. Decent technique and performance ability
2. An ability for conscientious, advanced planning that is well-organized, focused, and executed in accordance with deadlines.

If you are lacking in one these areas then you need to take stock of where your weakness lies and turn it into a strength or at least raise it so that is on a par with your strongest trait.

I know so many musicians that have incredible technique and ability. Unfortunately, I also know a lot of musicians that are terribly disorganized and have no idea where any photos are of themselves, and or videos of themselves, a written-down repertoire, references or anything of that nature. Great people, but they are often scrambling around doing a million and one other things instead of just taking care of the basics.

In itself there is really no problem with that if you are working steadily. However, if you are trying to break into this scene or land a job with a touring band or a solo contract or whatever you will need to ensure that your promotional material is in order.

Some tips to aid your transformation:

• Assemble all of your promo material in one online place
• Do not expect agents or managers or employers to run around searching for your stuff
• Try to be helpful and considerate of other people's time
• Keep your promotional material up-to-date
• Do not assume anything

I have all of my relevant promotional material in two online places. The first is a dedicated website and the second is in my Hotmail Skydrive. A website is great as it is a one-stop-shop that contains almost all of the information that someone may need. Skydrive is great as you can upload one-off documents that are of a more private nature and unsuitable for your website(such as contracts and passport copies) and share them with the necessary people when you need to.

Summary:

An application is not just words online, or pictures and video links. It is an indication of how 'together' you are and it relates your abilities on and off stage to employers. Think about brilliant sales assistants that have helped you in a store. They knew exactly where the product you wanted was, they could tell you the price, the day it came to the shop, the available colors, discounts, they were pleasant, and bending over backwards to help you out. That is what you should emulate- after all we're all selling something...