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The Easy Guide To Booking And Planning A Gig For Your Band

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When you are in a band, many times the biggest hassle is booking a gig. If you have a manager, then you don’t have to worry about it. The manager handles all of that hassle. However, most bands just starting out don’t have a manager. They have to do everything on their own. If you are looking to book a gig, follow this simple guide to make things easy on yourself.

Have a Press Kit

You want to have a press kit that you can give club owners and venue managers. This press kit will have a lot of information about your band in an easy-to-read package. The press kit should include your contact information, a brief biography of your band, an example set list, your musical influences, a band photo and a CD of your music. If you want to make things really simple on yourself, you can have all of this information available on your band’s website. You do have a website, right? If you don’t have one, then you need to set one up right away. No booking agent at a venue will take a band seriously these days without a website. One page on your website can have an electronic version of your press kit.

Find a Venue

Whether you are looking to book your first gig in your hometown or are looking to go out on the road for the first time, it is important to choose the right venue. Set your sights on somewhere small when you are just starting out. Even if you are only playing for a couple dozen people, you have to start somewhere. Find a coffee shop, bar, pub or club that looks like it would appeal to fans of your type of music. Once you find the venue, then you can contact them. Either give them a call or shoot them an email asking who you need to speak to about booking. When you get the booking agent’s contact information, then go ahead and send them a short email. In this introductory email, tell them that you are interested in playing at their venue. Ask them which dates they have available in the next few months. Include a link to the electronic press kit on the band’s website. Keep this introductory email short, somewhere in the neighborhood of 35-50 words. Once you have sent this email, wait three weeks for a response. If you haven’t heard from them after three weeks, send a follow up email asking them if they received your introductory email. After that, keep sending them follow up emails every three weeks. Don’t stop until they either give you a solid rejection or ask you to play. Being persistent is one of the keys to landing gigs. You never know when a follow up email will land in a booking agent’s email box at the perfect time to get you a gig.

Equipment

When planning for your gig, remember that you need the right equipment to sound your best. Scout out the venue to see if they have all the audio equipment you will need. Use the house PA system if they have one. If they don’t, then you will need to bring your own. Depending on the scale of the show you have in mind you may need amps, microphones, speakers, stage equipment, lighting and/or a sound board. You can rent this from an audio visual hire company if you don’t have it. Make sure to include the cost of the rental in your calculations for the gig fee.

Negotiating

Once you receive an offer to play a gig, then the most aggravating part of the process begins. Negotiating a fair deal is one of the biggest headaches in the music business, and it is the primary reason most bands have managers once they can afford one. The booking agents will lowball bands as much as they can get away with. Don’t be afraid to ask for more money than they offer at first. You want to receive enough pay to make the gig worth your time. It should be enough to cover food and drinks for the band for the evening. There should also be enough to pay a fair hourly rate to each member of the band. If the gig is out of town, you also want there to be enough to cover gas and lodging costs. Add all this up and make sure that you are receiving enough dough to make the gig worth your time. Keep after it and you will land a gig before you know it.

Attached Images:
  •  License: Royalty Free or iStock source: http://stockfresh.com/image/809665/show-time-concert

This article is written by Aaron Edwards, a Perth-based musician who has been gigging locally in his spare time for over six years.




How To Turn Scales Into Solos

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For beginner guitarists, starting to turn scales into solos can be difficult, but is important to developing as a player. Mastering scales, and being able to adapt them through major, minor and pentatonic variations means that you have the foundation on which to experiment with different chord progressions and phrasings.

In this context, solos represent notes and riffs that are played over the chord progression of a song, and are relative to minor and major key scales and notes, mixing phrases within the same basic finger positions and combinations of half and whole tones. It’s worth briefly reviewing scales, chord progressions, the uses of pentatonic and blues scales, and how solos can be refined through actual songs.

Understanding Scales

Scales represent variations on a set of twelve basic notes that are are laid out in ascending to descending order of pitch on a fretboard. Whole steps and half steps comprise the difference between the notes, with a scale consisting of a sequence based on a root note, such as G, and a number of sharps and flats. A basic guitar scale is the chromatic scale, which moves down the fretboard of a root note. Other scales include major, melodic and harmonic minors, whole tones and pentatonic scales. The major, or heptatonic scale is among the most popular for songwriting, and has seven notes. For example, a D major scale can basically consist of D, E, F, G, A, B, C, and D, which is played in the pattern of a whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole and half step.

By contrast, a pentatonic scale consists of just five notes per octave, which can be played in a major and minor key, and tend to involve less frets and changes in finger position along the fretboard. Pentatonic scales can be understood as major sales that have some notes removed, while the minor pentatonic scale is taken from the major pentatonic, and can use complementary keys like G major and E minor, or C major and A minor. Different scale patterns apply for different keys, so try to practice as many as possible.

Chord Progression Variations

Solos work around variations within a scale, in which series of notes are phrased according to the chord progression of a song and its minor and major equivalent. A G major pentatonic scale can be played over a song written in G major, or can be played in the key of E minor. Major, minor and pentatonic scales played by a lead guitarist are generally easier to play over a full chord progression being played by a rhythm guitarist

Using the Pentatonic Scale

The pentatonic scale can be varied through a major and minor key progression, and through a blues progression, which rearranges the order of notes in a scale. The focus should be placed on combining different notes within a scale pattern into a solo melody, which can be varied by alternating major and minor scales. A solo can consequently be matched to the tempo of a song, and can maintain progressions based on a scale within the same key. Solo phrasing can be varied for longer intervals within notes to establish rhythm.

Adjusting for Blues

In terms of blues music, minor pentatonic scales are varied through the use of ‘blue’ notes, which use flattened thirds, fifths and sevenths in scales to alter the pace of a scale’s progression and its transformation into a solo. Twelve bar blues solos depends on varying a five note scale through root, minor third, fourth, fifth and minor seventh patterns.

Understanding Individual Songs

The main thing to focus on is developing solos from scales  and the difference between half and full tones, how scales create a series of notes based on a key, and how this series can be varied and played in a corresponding minor, major and pentatonic scale at its simplest levels. Listen to different songs and see how solos work for respective songs. Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix are ideal starting points for working out the use of different pentatonic and major scales

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Chris is a rock guitarist who has played since 1993. He began learning from a variety of sheet music but soon found that the musicians community at LickLibrary.com was a fantastic place for guitar lessons. His guitar influences include Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Val Halen, Ritchie Blackmore, Chuck Berry and many more!

How to Find Classic LPs without Breaking the Bank

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Anyone looking to save money on classic LPs are probably thinking of scouring flea markets. There always seems to be someone with several boxes of unmarked records. Sometimes prices can be pretty good, but some dealers are from record stores and expect to turn a profit. This is why wily shoppers will sometimes carry a cellular phone or pocket PC with a price list, though this behavior isn’t always tolerated.

Looking in Libraries

Library book sales sometimes have records, as well as other types of media. People who are used to going to these sales are probably already familiar with the idea of an ex-library copy. Those who really just want to listen to a record probably won’t mind if there are some markings or a library security tag on the cover sleeve. These don’t affect the playability of the disk at all. On the other hand, people looking to resell their materials wouldn’t be thrilled to see stickers permanently affixed to the front of the slipcovers.

Garage Sale Hunting

A box of records is always a fixture at a garage sale, and these have gotten an undeserved bad image in the last few years. Garage sales themselves aren’t bad, but those who want good deals will need to do a little bit of work to find them. Many records sold in this manner are damaged, so one should be sure to take them out of their dust jackets and ensure that they’re not scratched. On the other hand, it’s possible to find records for half a dollar or less at such venues.

Bidding Online

Online auction sites are probably what most people immediately think of when they think of buying classic albums. Popular bands are always going to be in abundance on the Internet, but what makes these pages really useful is their ability to find otherwise rare releases. Users should be sure to set a limit when they bid on online auctions. Some artists are known to really fetch top dollar on these websites, after all. A recording by Alabama Blues singer DA Hunt famously went for about $10,000.

Retailers Still Sell Them Too

There are few things to keep in mind when shopping for records in these places. While it seems like vinyl is usually associated with the past, there are some companies that continue to produce records. Some of these releases are recordings of underground rock and jazz acts that couldn’t be confused with any big name classic releases, but it’s a good idea to check the copyright date on the album before assuming that something is rare. A few reproductions of classic LPs will sometimes show up as well. Collectors will want to avoid these copies.

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Eric Blair writes about vinyl records and turntables like those found at www.soundstagedirect.com

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