Once you think you’re ready to go from jam sessions to live performances, with an audience, you have a number of options to consider. You can take part in music competitions, play at local music venues and/or hold your own private performances.
Taking part in music competitions is a great way of starting out with live performing. It’s also a very inexpensive way to kick-off as most are free to enter. Most importantly, music competitions are the best way of getting your bands name known to the public and to gain you fan base. Keep in mind that any publicity is good publicity, so even if you end up last, it doesn’t matter. Performing live isn’t the same as playing in jam sessions. The confidence and stage presence you’ll need to develop in order to be a successful live performance artist / band, comes only with practice, and playing in music competitions will lay the foundations for this.
An additional way to get your name known, and to gain that necessary experience, is to volunteer to perform at public community and charity events. It’ll cost you nothing and if you’re lucky, you may even get paid for it, although likely not a lot due to the limited budgets that the organizers have to work with. Many walks of life show up at such event; who knows, maybe even a talent scout that could help to launch your band to stardom.
Try to stick to cover songs during your first few live performances. Cover songs are songs with lyrics derived from current/past musical hits. This makes them safe to perform. Leave the material to the professional songwriters to start with! That’s not to say you can’t pick cover songs that represent your bands style, sure you can. If you’re a rock band, choose some classic rock cover songs. You can also modify the song a little to give it a little of your bands own unique flair.
Once you have done a few live performances and are happy and confident performing in front of an audience, then is the time to consider introducing some of your own songs. You can do this step-by-step by dropping in 1 or 2 songs into each performance you do. Let the audience be the judge of your songs. If they like them, they’ll let you know, and then you can start to introduce more and more of your own works. If the audience doesn’t seem to appreciate your own material, it may be because you aren’t playing the right gigs, in front of the right audience.
Taking part in music competitions is a great way of starting out with live performing. It’s also a very inexpensive way to kick-off as most are free to enter. Most importantly, music competitions are the best way of getting your bands name known to the public and to gain you fan base. Keep in mind that any publicity is good publicity, so even if you end up last, it doesn’t matter. Performing live isn’t the same as playing in jam sessions. The confidence and stage presence you’ll need to develop in order to be a successful live performance artist / band, comes only with practice, and playing in music competitions will lay the foundations for this.
An additional way to get your name known, and to gain that necessary experience, is to volunteer to perform at public community and charity events. It’ll cost you nothing and if you’re lucky, you may even get paid for it, although likely not a lot due to the limited budgets that the organizers have to work with. Many walks of life show up at such event; who knows, maybe even a talent scout that could help to launch your band to stardom.
Try to stick to cover songs during your first few live performances. Cover songs are songs with lyrics derived from current/past musical hits. This makes them safe to perform. Leave the material to the professional songwriters to start with! That’s not to say you can’t pick cover songs that represent your bands style, sure you can. If you’re a rock band, choose some classic rock cover songs. You can also modify the song a little to give it a little of your bands own unique flair.
Once you have done a few live performances and are happy and confident performing in front of an audience, then is the time to consider introducing some of your own songs. You can do this step-by-step by dropping in 1 or 2 songs into each performance you do. Let the audience be the judge of your songs. If they like them, they’ll let you know, and then you can start to introduce more and more of your own works. If the audience doesn’t seem to appreciate your own material, it may be because you aren’t playing the right gigs, in front of the right audience.