How to prepare for a gig, you do you get yourself ready to play music in front of people? Here are 6 elements to consider before the big day: practice, check your gear, visualize, communicate, anticipate, and put bad stress away.
Practice
Well, I guess you didn’t see this one coming! Of course, you need to practice, you need to learn your parts and run through them without too much problem. The amount of practice needed is not a perfect science, everyone is different. Some are quick learners, some will need charts during the performance. There is the complexity of the repertoire, the time you can put to practice, the amount of band practice you got, your experience overall.
If you’re a serious musician, you always make sure you’re ready before band practices. These are not for learning but for fine-tuning the whole band together. If you put work before the band practices, first you’ll be appreciated by your band members. There’s nothing more frustrating than a musician that doesn’t know his parts at band practice. Also, you will reduce the amount of time you need to put to practice the days preceding the gig, you’ll only need to revise your parts.
Before the gig, put more time on songs or parts you struggle the most. Try to improve your memory of these difficult elements. But don’t forget to revisit easier stuff from time to time. It’s not impossible to forget the key of a simple three-chord song if you haven’t played it for months.
It’s important to practice but try not to over practice. If you think playing 8 hours a day will help you, you may be surprised that after a certain time, the fatigue will prevent you from improving. Rest is important, you’ll learn better after a break so don’t be afraid to stop when you start feeling tired. And don’t practice like crazy the day before a gig, at this point it won’t make a difference. Also, you risk damaging your voice or hurting your fingers just before your performance.
Check your gear
Your gear needs to be in order before the gig, it’s essential. You don’t want to get to the venue and realize your guitar amp isn’t working. Or you have to run for batteries for a wireless mic minutes before the show.
If you use wires, be sure to check them all, it’s one of the most common problems that can happen with gear. Plug them to see if they work, shake them a little to spot bad connexions that can create noise in your sound. If you use batteries, make sure they are new or recharged.
If you’re a guitar or bass player, change your strings if it’s time. I’m a guitar player and I change my strings every 3 gigs minimum (it could be every gig but I’m just lazy…). Very important, if you don’t bring an extra guitar, make sure you have a set of strings with you. And don’t leave it in your case that is in another room in the venue, you need it on stage, ready to use.
Visualize
Visualization can help you in many ways. If you know the venue you’re going to play, it’s even easier. If you’ve never been there and it’s not too far, it’s a good thing to go spot the place just to have an idea. Will you be playing on a big or small stage, in front of 50, 100, 500 people?
When you’re practicing alone, whatever your instrument, try to put yourself in the same position you will be at your gig. If you’re a guitar or bass player, practice standing up. If you’ll be playing on a big stage, try moving around while playing. Put your gear the same way if possible, amps, pedals, check the reach of your wires if you’re not wireless.
Speaking of pedals, spot the places in a song where you need them. You want to be conscious and not go too far from them when you need to change sounds. Visualize your movements if you need to push many pedals in a short amount of time. For example, if I need to put distortion, delay, and boost for a guitar solo when I’m on a clean sound.
Practice your moves, check yourself on a mirror, or film yourself. It may sound weird but it can be really helpful. You can allow yourself to look ridiculous when you’re all alone. It’s better to spot things that don’t work before doing it live.
Communicate with band members
Communication is important in all facets of life, social, or work-related. Being in a band is both a social and work relationship, so it’s essential to be on the same page. Don’t let things that bug you unresolved at the time of a gig, because it’s harder to hide the frustration in front of a crowd. And it will not help the performance.
Make sure everyone is aware of setlists if you make one, places where you segue songs, changes in the structure of songs, key changes. If you don’t do that, you open the door for disasters.
Anticipate potential problems
I don’t want to sound too negative, but problems will happen, it’s unavoidable. But if you can’t avoid them, you can anticipate them and have a plan when they happen. It’s not a good time to be clueless in front of a crowd waiting for you to react.
There are technical problems, those related to your gear, and the whole sound system if there’s no soundman. I’m a guitar player, I can break a string, I can have a wire that doesn’t work well, I can get out of tune. I need to make sure I know what to do quickly in these situations.
Also, there are performance problems, happening when you or someone else makes a mistake, forgets the parts, starts the wrong song. It’s hard to anticipate every little detail that can happen. But it’s possible to see a bigger picture and have a few guidelines. For example, in the case of the singer starting a verse too early or too late, does the whole band adapt to it or it’s the singer that needs to adapt to the band. Discussing that before going live may save a situation where you need to stop a song completely because everyone is lost. And you don’t want that to happen.
Put bad stress away
Finally, stage fright is a real thing and it may affect you at different levels. Some experienced musicians still get this, you may not avoid it but you can control it better.
Being prepared is the first step to avoid stress, that’s one thing every musician can control. Visualization is also helpful, seeing yourself performing well can reduce the stress level. Try to have a good night of sleep before the gig, stress, and fatigue is not a good combination. Of course, it’s easier said than done. Some people like myself have trouble sleeping ‘on command’, but you need to put yourself in a winning situation.
If you’re a starting musician and you have only a few or no gigs under your belt, stress is normal. You need to remember that we all need to start somewhere, even the most experienced musicians had failures and gigs they would like to forget. A bad performance doesn’t stop a career, it’s part of the deal, just make sure you learn from it and the next one is better. And I also want to point out that we are generally harder on ourselves than everyone else. In a crowd, 9 out of 10 won’t even notice the mistakes you make. If you make one, just smile and forget about it until the end of the show, there’s nothing you can do about it.
