Meaningful Performances, Not “Gigs”

Gotta getta gig.  Gotta keep gigging.  Had any good gigs lately?

The word “gig” has the same connotation as the word “job” for me.   It’s something you do to get by, something you do just for the money, not because you love it or find meaning in it.

If you have a “job”, chances are you need to do something else in your free time to instill more meaning into your life.  Conversely, if you’re in a “career” instead of a “job”, if you find joy and purpose in your work, you probably feel better about spending the largest portion of your day doing that work.

For a musician, a gig takes many shapes.  Some of them include:

• Playing Jimmy Buffet covers all night at a beach-side bar during tourist season.
• Competitive open mics that last for hours and may or may not get you a weekend slot.
• Taking the stage at 1 am during a “battle of the bands” for a $50 bar tab.
• Coffee shop shows that pay a small amount, but no-one can hear you over the smoothie blender and steaming milk.
• Any show where anyone yells “Free Bird!” at you.

When you start out, it’s natural to take as many gigs as you can get.  You want exposure, you just want to play and have people listen.  You also hear lots of people tell you that you have to “pay your dues.”  I think that’s fine, as long as you are still having fun.   If it starts to feel like crap to get up every day and drag your stuff down to a smoky bar where they never remember your name and you have to beg the bartender to get your pay from the office…it might be time for a change.

I’ve set up a small system whereby I can decide whether or not to accept a performance at the drop of a hat, without feeling guilt or shame about it.   (I am a recovering guilt-addict, which we can talk about another time.)

Christine Kane taught me about the Pro-active No, which is what I used to set up my system.   It goes like this:

I only accept free shows under the following circumstances -

1. Is it for a charity that I respect, admire, and want to be part of?

2. Does it make up for the lack of pay in significant exposure and/or guaranteed merchandise sales?

3.  Do I respect and admire the people involved with the event?

If a show does not meet two out of three of those requirements, it’s pretty easy for me to say no.  If it meets all three, it’s probable that I will accept it.

I’ve also changed my language about performances.  I hardly ever use the word “gig”, and I also speak about booking shows in terms of “accepting” them (as you may have noticed above) rather than “trying to get” them.  I don’t “try to get gigs” anymore.

I won’t say that this has resulted in my phone and email box instantly blowing up with requests for me to play amazing paying performances every day, but you know what?   Even though I have played fewer shows so far this year than I typically would if I were “trying to get gigs”, I’ve made significantly more money with my music, and I’ve had much, much more gratifying experiences.

In my next post, I want to talk to you about an absolutely lovely experience I had last weekend.

Thursday Poetry: Mending Wall

Thursday Poetry is on Friday, again!

I really need to spend some quality time with my Google calendar again so we can re-establish our relationship.

Anyway, coming out of yesterday’s post, I thought I should share Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” with you today, in case you’ve never read it, or you haven’t read it since 8th grade English class.

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Mending Wall

ROBERT FROST

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors’.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Out here with no walls.

Last week, there was a small feature about me on the Ourstage blog.   Being written up there was a nice surprise and it really made my week.   The post itself also got me thinking.

The post draws attention to the fact that I am out there, way out there, for you.  This made me wonder why this isn’t a more common approach, and also made me think about why it seems so natural to me.

I love to communicate.  I love to connect.  Every word I write, every performance, every post, status update, answered question — all of it is an effort to connect with you.  I want to be heard, and  I want to hear your stories.   I want you to know I am listening, because you find ways to let me know you’re listening to me.

Robert Frost wrote,

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

I am one of those “somethings” — I don’t ever want there to be walls between you and me.  Yes, I have personal boundaries, but I wouldn’t feel as though I was doing my job as a creative person if I shut myself away from all of you.

So thank you for reading, for listening, for laughing and sharing with me. Let’s hang out here with no walls together.