Getting on the bottom rung

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Jul 12 - 06:05 AM

Thanks Al, but I'll let you do it!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: johncharles
Date: 12 Jul 12 - 05:39 AM

This does not seem to me to be the subject for a silly season approach.
It is all to easy to either trample on someone's dream or to give false hope which will end in tears sooner or later. i have done both of these in the past. I now try to stick with the view that the best thing one can do for a friend is to give them clear and unambiguous feedback. John

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Jul 12 - 04:31 AM

Looks like Folk has sucked the Fun out of this thread. Twas e'er the way, alas! As the old saying goes As long as there's dog shit in the street, Folk 'n' Fun shall never meet (or is that another Penguinism?) A perfect reflection of the summer really - I had this one tipped as this year's Silly Season Thread, but seems the awful weather has dampened our spirits to doom & gloom. Still, looks sunny enough out there today though, with lots of reasons to be jolly cheerful indeed, like my New Penguin Book of English Folk Song which arrived earlier in the week reminding me of what this folk thing is all about really & what attracted me to it in the first place. And not a ladder in sight, much less a folk club, just the wide open pastures of our commonland and the clear vistas of nebulous humanity floating as fair weather cumulus in clear blue skies.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: zozimus
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 07:42 PM

If you are an unaccompanied singer I think you are trying to climb the wrong ladder. You need to find a club that is predominantly unaccompanied, where listeners are more interested in the songs rather than fancy guitar picking. Otherwise, get yourself a guitar picker to support you.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 07:41 PM

Okay, Inverness for a fiver....!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 06:16 PM

Read my lips. Make me an offer if you want to. Make it an honest one. And stick to it.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 04:34 PM

So you don't want paying Richard?

"Be careful who you tar with your own brush." I'm primarily an organiser, definitely not a professional act. Read my posts above.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Vic Smith
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 03:22 PM

Will Fly wrote:-

Without publicity no-one will know who the devil you are. How would I know what goes in Sussex without being able to look up the Sussex Folk Guide?
If no-one paid for an ad in the Guide, it wouldn't exist - and we'd all be none the wiser!

Strictly speaking, Mike, NOBODY pays to get an ad in the Sussex Folk Guide. I know, because I am the one that compiles it - and I don't get paid for the several hours it takes me each month to put it together. I do it as a labour of love because I am passionate about the music.

Now, all the adverts are taken from the paper magazine that I share the editing of, The Folk Diary, where you do have to pay for your adverts. Sometimes, I get people approaching me with info asking me to include it in the listings website. I explain to them that this listings are taken from the magazine and is considered a free extra service for advertisers and that if I gave free listings to everyone, we might not have a magazine. I sometimes give these people a a one-off listing depending on the merits of each case.
Several Sussex-area newspapers and other listings websites lift their listings directly from the paper copy of The Folk Diary; we send a copy to each of our newspapers in and around our area.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 03:21 PM

Oh, and where said I say I wanted to be paid? I ask only what I was offered and promised. Be careful who you tar with your own brush.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 03:11 PM

I want to get it right. You haven't asked what we do do with the fees we get offered, have you. About par for your course.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 03:00 PM

So you don't want to be professional in your attitude but you do want to get paid Richard?

Oh dear, no wonder folk clubs aren't as well supported as they used to be.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 02:51 PM

Oh I tend to think that asking for a gig is a bit vulgar. I'm sorry that what follows may sound a bit conceited. But I can't tolerate this Princess Pushy stuff any more.

We usually wait until someone asks us. I do however get a bit pissed off at the "Loved your singing, if you do a free support slot for (insert national name) then we'll give you a real gig the year after" - and then, like jam for tea, the year after never comes. And the "I've been watching you for 3 years and you get better every year - would you like a gig at our club?" followed by - "Here's a flyer (stating a location about 80 miles away) come and see us on a club night and we'll talk about it".

These remarks are typified and do not refer to any specific club. No reference to any specific club should be inferred.

Do I want to be "professional in my attitude"? NO. I prefer my folk song singing to be (as I would a girlfriend) amateur, not as a prostitute. I still want to get it right - but that is about perfectionism, not more.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Like a complete unknown
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 02:45 PM

Can I just say I'm feeling a lot better--more self-confident & less resentful--now. And in a different place in terms of what seems like common sense, if that doesn't sound too wifty-wafty. Seamus K--no, of course I hadn't asked, I was waiting for THEM to ask ME, because they would if they REALLY liked me... Bollo to that.

Mr Bland is right--sour grapes are no good for anyone. But I think I needed to indulge my inner Kevin--instead of repressing him and telling myself to think positive--in order to realise that.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 01:52 PM

Guest LACU - have you in fact actually gone to a club, done a good floor spot and ASKED for a gig?
If they don't ask you, you ask them.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 11:39 AM

In my young day I split my time between Punk, Free Improv, Early Music & Folk. Mostly Free Improv & Folk. All the others were cool, friendly, co-operative, encouraging, but once you entered a Folk Club you found yourself in a very differnt world - hostile, righteous and quite depressingly MOR. It was the exceptions that kept me going - the love of Traditional Songs & Traditional Singers - the opportunity of hearing Ray Fisher sing Every Thursday Night (and almost talking her into the letting us back on the Bonny Birdy, but it never happened, alas!) - but there was a lot of sourness around which was only confirmed when I got word than one of Hapless Booked Guests at the Bridge in Newcastle wasn't offered a doss as part of the deal. The next day I was complaining to a friend (Raymond Greenoaken) out in his cosy drum in the far flung wilds of Slaggyford in the South Tyne Valley.

'You know,' quoth I. ' - They had a guest on at The Bridge last night and they didn't offer him anywhere to stay. Got so bad they suggested he stay with me - poor bastard had to come upstairs looking for me - a complete stranger - asking people who I was - even as asking me who I was. Are you Sean?'
'So you weren't in The Folk Club then?' quoth Raymond.
'No - we'd been out felling trees all day and were feeling jubilant so I didn't make it down - didn't even hear the guest - poor sod. I said he could stay but it meant a long bus journey and several miles of muddy fields at the other end. He seemed into it, but later on he came up and said he's been offered a doss closer to town. Nice bloke - I felt really sorry for him.'
'Who was it?'
'Someone called - Peter Bellamy?'

To this day I remember Raymond's expression, as he fell off his chair then headed for his Wall o' Choice Vinyl and proceeded to intitiate me into all things Bellamy. Epiphany does not begin to describe it.

So - friendly folk, eh?

Otherwise - age has little to do with it. I know hoards of Second Life Folkies who've only started singing as a retirement hobby & a bit of social crack; spending their kid's inheritance on camper vans and setting up gatherings and singing weekends all over the place. I heard one singer one time and assumed I was hearing some choice vintage. Turned out they'd only been singing two years. I doubt they have any aspirations as to ladders though, they just like a good old blow.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 08:25 AM

Let the young bands do their thing - good luck to 'em, I say. Youth will have its fling - and so will Age, given half a chance.

Spare a thought for the ageing newbie! My biggest regret in this area is that I started singing out regularly at the age of 42, instead of 22 (or 12). My second biggest is that I didn't find my way to the trad repertoire (and Mudcat!) for quite a few years after that. It meant that I was doing my growing-up-in-public (you know the kind of thing - "This is a traditional song by Nic Jones", "This one was collected by a guy called Frankie Armstrong"...) at an age when I should have been having my mid-life crisis. (On second thoughts maybe that was...)

Young newcomers seem to get a different kind of attention, probably because it's just so nice when the average age in the room goes down. And it's usually true that if a newcomer's young they're also new to the stuff, and would welcome the odd pointer - but it's not true that older geezers aren't new to it. So the next time you see a shy-looking middle-aged guy in the corner mumbling something about how he might know a song or two, don't assume he's just being modest and he's been singing at the next folk club but two for the last 20 years - maybe he actually does know a song or two, and maybe he'd like to be pointed towards some more.

I was OK, though - I had Mudcat to fall back on, where I could ask as many stupid questions and admit as much ignorance as I liked ("so, what's Paul Bellamy doing these days?").

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Jul 12 - 05:55 AM

some emergent bands start plastering their dates everywhere

Well, why not, Richard? You have to speculate to accumulate, I suppose. Without publicity no-one will know who the devil you are. How would I know what goes in Sussex without being able to look up the Sussex Folk Guide?

If no-one paid for an ad in the Guide, it wouldn't exist - and we'd all be none the wiser!

Let the young bands do their thing - good luck to 'em, I say. Youth will have its fling - and so will Age, given half a chance.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jul 12 - 07:02 PM

keeps them off the streets, Richard.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 10 Jul 12 - 06:54 PM

I might point out that some emergent bands start plastering their dates everywhere and all over facebook and it does look a bit self-aggrandising. Certainly puts me off.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jul 12 - 06:44 PM

Twenty songs.

Concentrate on the first one. or maybe if you're a hit the ground running type - the second.

Now what are you going to do that will make the audience hear that song with new ears, What piece of background information - that will show YOUR response to that song and get your audience to understand and empathise with your enthusiasm for the song.

Easy enough, if your martin Carthy - all folksongs are putty in his hands - a formidable guitar talent, a truly divergent thinker (could no more do a bog standard rendition than he could fly) - people are attracted by the mercurial talent and the mind behind it.

Easy enough if you're derek Brimstone - funny stories about serious songs for the main part - but all very pointed, showing he's thought more than average about the material.

Just knocking out twenty songs like a machine gun isn't what makes folk music, into folk music - even if its point of origin of every song is cecil Sharp House. There has to be some way of communicating your PASSION to give the audience the song.

IMHO

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 12 - 06:22 PM

Jacey's advice is excellent. She is an agent and has run a concert venue as well as working for get gigs for her own band, so she knows the business from both ends and the middle!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: BobKnight
Date: 10 Jul 12 - 06:25 AM

Guest 999 - thank you for your comment. Sometimes I feel like packing it in, but I keep trundling along, and every little bit of encouragement helps.

Getting down to practicalities for "Like a complete unknown," you will need about six songs for a half hour spot, and around ten for a 45 minute spot - so two 45's equal about 20 songs. Depends on the length of your songs of course, but most of mine are about 3-4 minutes long, and I don't mind running over a wee bit. Always keep one in reserve in case you're asked for an encore.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Juju
Date: 10 Jul 12 - 04:16 AM

Wooops guess they're not PDF files (anymore??). But save 'em.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Juju
Date: 10 Jul 12 - 04:11 AM

Download these (PDF files), read, and take to heart:

Jacey Bedford's help guides on www. britfolk.co.uk

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 03:24 PM

excellent post Don!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 02:44 PM

". . . but where's the first GIG going to come from? And if so, where did it come from--what changed for you?"

Well, as I mentioned in my post above. I sang a lot at informal gatherings—parties and jam sessions with other singers. These were in peoples' living rooms. Nothing structured. They were generally open, so anyone who wanted to drop in could, anybody who felt like singing could. This got me used to singing in front of other people.

Then, I volunteered to sing at hospitals and retirement homes. These were free. But MY pay was that I got practice in performing, with a pre-planned program of songs, just as if I were doing a recital at Carnegie Hall.

And if I didn't want folks dozing off while I was singing, I had to learn to be entertaining and informative.

The point is that I sang a lot here and there, and people heard me sing. And one of those people was Jim Gilkeson. Jim was a jazz musician, and from time to time he would drop into the informal songfests, and that's where he heard me. His day job was to plan programs for the local educational television channel, and he thought a program about folk music would be good. So he asked me if I'd be willing to do it. The idea of doing television was pretty intimidating, but Jim convinced me that I could DO it. So I agreed.

So instead of singing for a dozen people at a party or seventy-five or a hundred at a retirement home, every Tuesday evening I sang for, quite possibly, several thousand people. One of those people was the man who was opening a new coffee house, and he was looking for a folk singer.

Don't make a pest of yourself, but sing anywhere. Sing everywhere. Let people hear you. And again, without making a big issue of it, let it be known that you are for hire.

But—while I was doing all of this, I was also taking voice lessons, not to sound like an opera singer, but to learn how to use my voice properly. And took classical guitar lessons so that I would know my way around a guitar and be able to do, say, lute-style accompaniments on older songs or be able to quickly learn things like "Travis-picking." And I practiced.

At the same time, I learned songs from song books, records, and other singers. But I was selective, choosing songs that I could do well, avoiding others. For example, I like blues, but I'm lousy at it. I'm best with ballads and some of the more lyrical songs, so that's what I concentrated on. I also educated myself about the songs, where they came from, how they may have related to historical incidents, etc.

I had made up my mind that I wanted to do concerts, recitals, sing in clubs and coffee houses, and in general, make a career of singing traditional folk songs and ballads.    I had decided that I wanted to be a modern day minstrel or troubadour and set about to train myself to do it.

But it wasn't just the lucky break of having Jim Gilkeson ask me to do the "Ballads and Books" television series. Whenever I sang someplace, there was always a chance that someone would hear my and decide to hire me for a party, concert, entertain at a banquet, or do more television.

####

How far do you want to go with this? Do you just want to get a few gigs? Or do you want to make a lifetime career of it? If the latter, remember, it's necessary to prepare yourself if you want to be successful. This is sometimes referred to as "paying your dues."

By the way, here's an important tip:   record yourself. Not with the idea of making a CD—yet. But to listen to, and critique yourself. I used an open-reel tape recorder back in the Stone Age, but now I have a small digital recorder (Zoom H2). As someone said, "You can hear a lot by just listening." When you listen to your playbacks, constantly ask yourself, "Could I do this better? And if so, how?" Or, "If this were somebody's CD, would I be interesting in buying it?"

Another VERY important point:   One of my voice teachers had me bring my guitar to the voice lessons. Then, after we had gone through the various vocal exercises, he would have me pull out the guitar and sing whatever song or songs I happened to be working on at the time. He would often stop me in mid-verse and ask me, "What does that line mean?"

He knew perfectly well what it meant. But he wanted to make sure that I knew what it meant. He said that far too many singers learn the lyrics of a song by rote, and they haven't a clue as to what they are singing about, they're just mouthing it. Be sure you know what every word and every line in the song is all about. That's the only way you can put the song across. And putting a song across is what it's all about.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 02:27 PM

My first paid gig was a concert at my school. I'd been doing floor spots at the school folk club, and when they decided to put on a concert with Martin Carthy they booked a local band as support, and booked me to support the support act! Then Martin cancelled due to a booking mix-up and I got promoted up the bill. I still have the cutting from the local rag which says I "stood in" for Martin - something of an exageration. I got paid the princely sum of £5, which was enough to buy one of Martin's albums and have change over (this was a while ago!)

I wish I still had the contract from when the BBC came to record our folk club - pages of stuff about international royalties and repeat fees, none of which of course ever materialised, and a deduction from my fee of 5p for National Insurance.

The point of this is that the best place to get a gig is somewhere you're already known. Try the local clubs where you already do floor spots. Even if they won't offer you a paid gig, you might get an extended floor spot which is a chance to develop your performing skills and perhaps gain a bit of exposure.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Like a complete unknown
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 01:00 PM

Cheers, Greg--I'd love to hear other people's stories. I'd be particularly interested in the balance between "I was doing my thing and it just started happening" and "I had to knock on a lot of doors"-type stories.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 12:59 PM

OR

you could get a nose flute and tambourine, learn the words of Danny Boy and The Soldiers Song - round about March 17th - tell an agent, you've got an act that isn't working that night. I doubt if he'll care where he sends you - but you'll certainly get a gig!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: greg stephens
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 12:34 PM

I notice our original poster asked a specific quesation, and has repeated it: how did you actually get your first gig? So I have cast my mind back(to 1961) and I'll tell you. I took a guitar to the Isle de la Cite in Paris, neear the Pont des Arts end, and started singing skiffle songs. A guy came up and offered me a job singing with his jazz band. So, there is one to get a gig. Get on a plane or boat to Paris(or a train, things are different nowadays)

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: johncharles
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 08:13 AM

when they are hanging off the speaker stands and pinching the mic demanding you play Danny Boy AGAIN you know it is time to pack up and go home. john

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Vic Smith
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:50 AM

johncharles wrote

"Doing a St Patrick's night can be an unforgettable experience in more ways than one. John."

Arrgh! Don't remind me! I stopped doing St. Patrick's night's gigs quite a number of years ago.
The only time that the memories come in useful is when musos get together - as they do - and start sharing bad gig experiences.

Now, there's a good idea for a Mudcat thread - Bad Experiences at Gigs. However many decades that I continue to play gigs, I will never be able to top the story that Rod Stradling tells of an early Old Swan Band dance.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: johncharles
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:30 AM

Doing a St Patrick's night can be an unforgettable experience in more ways than one. John

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:18 AM

Thirteen years playing '50s rock'n roll in clubland - fully amplified - toughens you up no end. In the immortal words of Al Read to a club audience when the band comes on stage, "Quiet lads, or I'll put the comic back on", winning an indifferent audience can be interesting work.

We used to do our act regardless of the reaction - play to 6 people just the same as if it was 66, or 1,006. We had fantastic nights with hundreds of people jiving to the music, and nights where they couldn't have given a toss - but we never gave in. Our most fascinating night by far was being booked to play at a club - a converted cinema - in Guildford. We turned up and started to play to 4 blokes in the front row in this large, ex-cinema auditorium with tiered seating. They never clapped once. In the interval, we went down to them and said, "Are you enjoying it?" Turned out they were Swedes, who rarely clap until the end of a complete performance. "We're having a great time!" they said, so we invited them on to the stage for the whole second half. They danced, they joined in the singing, they got gloriously drunk and had a great time. And, actually, so did we - in the end!

When I quit rock'n roll and joined a boogie'n funk band - stuff straight from Memphis and New Orleans - we played most of the 15 years in smoke-filled pubs. I recall one Friday night when we were playing Little Feat's "Dixie Chicken" in the Lion and Lobster in Brighton. When we finished it, an American bloke came up to us and said, "Guys, for 5 minutes there, I closed my eyes and imagined I was back in New Orleans." What greater praise could we have had?

I've done guest spots in quite a few folk clubs over the years, and had a good time in every one - but you don't get quite the same experiences as going out into the heart of publand and clubland. It's good for the soul!

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: treewind
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:18 AM

[Vic:] "Towards the top of the thread, Anahata wrote:-
Make a demo CD.
...
Personally, I have become a bit wary of demos."

Point taken and well understood, but really my post was a list of things to try. None of them is guaranteed to get a booking, but any of them might help. Any approach can go wrong - phoning an organiser when their favourite footie match is on the TV for example.

The fact is there are too many artists and not enough places to play, so it needs hard work and some luck.

Vic is among the more adventurous club organisers, who goes out and seeks new talent at festivals - there are many who say "I don't book anyone I've not heard" and never go out to another club or to a festival...

Good point made elsewhere about not going after folkie audiences. We (Mary really) did a presentation on song collection by RVW and Cecil Sharp in Cambridgeshire for a local history society recently. We didn't expect them to be so interested in the music as in the singers and their backgrounds and our "old and new" photos of various Cambridgeshire village locations (mostly pubs) - but they joined in enthusiastically with choruses and bought CDs and song books afterwards, and in fact there turned out to be quite a few amateur musicians there, and they said it was the most fun evening they'd had for a long time.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:08 AM

Blandriver

Typo OTD, and in this context an excellent name for a band.

"He plays the crwth and the kemence, she goes by the name of Rapunzel, but tonight none of that matters, because tonight they are... BlandRiver!"

Cue intro music from the house band, and never mind that Andy Williams wasn't singing "bland".

This could be big. I'm looking forward to the career retrospective* already.

*Bland River of Song, of course.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 07:04 AM

Phil Edwards ...... absolutely

Hit them with something unaccompanied, quiet and beautiful...... it works more often than not.

Turn up the volume and they just talk louder.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 06:30 AM

When you're singing without a PA and they won't shut up, that's horrible. Been there, done that, got on top of it. (Suddenly singing quieter can be surprisingly effective.)

When you're singing with a PA, though - do they ever shut up? Done that a couple of times, absolutely hated it.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 06:25 AM

Sean Cannon used to work unaccompanied for the main part. I was quite surprised when at an after gig party he picked up a guitar and sung Sweet Thames Flow Softly - beautifully, I might add.

I think when I begun doing pro gigs - the technical problems were so numerous and overwhelming and expensive to solve - along with the problem of knowing virtually no countrty music songs - that it all became sort of absorbing for me. And I did enjoy struggling with those p[roblems - and in it - learning about the bravery of a showbiz footsoldier - one who goes onstage with a not very good act, and is quite grateful for the indifference of a noisy audience - a quiet inner place, where you can work out technical stuff. I sort of feel sorry for folkies who never experienced that. Never learned to take a noisy room by the scruff of the throat. I feel its a vital skill, and one can't really aspire to 'folk' music without it. Or perhaps I should say, I can't aspire - because I know some of you feel differently, and it wiouldn't do for us all to be the same.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:55 AM

we practiced weekly and tried to build a large and interesting repertoire

The great thing about singing unaccompanied is that, if you've got a retentive memory, you can quite quickly build up enough of a repertoire to go on all night.

The great thing problem with singing unaccompanied is that nobody wants to listen to somebody singing unaccompanied all night. There are exceptions, but not many - even Bellamy had his anglo.

For an unaccompanied soloist the two- or three-song floor spot is actually quite a good set-length. As an unaccompanist myself, I dream of the days when the local FC was just getting going and you could count on two or three songs in the first half and another one or two after the break; these days nobody goes there, it's so busy.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:31 AM

For my better half the step change was when she won the songwriting competition at Saltburn Folk Fest in 2007 with "The Visitor"....... and got offered her first folk club "main guest" slot on the back of this (strangely at a mainly trad club). This gave her the confidence to ask other clubs/ fests for gigs.

She now does 50 to 60ish paid gigs per year mainly at folk clubs and fests but also increasingly "non-folk" venues - but still doing trad (including unaccompanied) and self penned stuff.

Not a living but it pays for our social life and holidays.......

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: johncharles
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:24 AM

I had been a floor singer for thirty years. Not a bad singer mediocre guitarist. I got together with, a couple of friends about five years ago one of whom is a very good guitarist the other is a fiddler, both of them sing. A small group allows much more variety and depth of sound. It is also good for mutual support.
We started with half hour spots at our club and one or two others - you need to put yourself forward for these.
we practiced weekly and tried to build a large and interesting repertoire, which meant we got get gigs which involved two 45 minute sets with no worries about having enough material.
we set up our own session in a local pub, good practice for playing in public to different audiences. Ask friends acquaintances to help with getting gigs and don't turn any down it is all experience. john

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:16 AM

PS that was a cross-post with Al, not a response! (And I write as a listener not a performer).

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:13 AM

It all depends whether you want to give the people what (you think) they want or plough your own furrow and hope they come to you. People in the second category are invariably more interesting, as far as I'm concerned, although they are also probably skint.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 05:06 AM

What changed it for me was a Don Williams song. You're My Best Friend. I figured - this song is structurally just the same as The Banks of the Ohio, The Cornish Nightingale - songs I was singing for nothing in folk clubs. I entered a country and western competition. Won it. An agent approached me.

It was a steep learning curve. However unlike Blandriver - did get an urge to write to you - because we seem to have had similar sorts of gig experience - i saw a lot of positive virtues in the songs that put food on the table every week.

The virtues were that they were closer to the musical soul of the people of England than the 'arty' presentation of Carthy and Jones and people who at that time were king of the folk clubs.

I also found that Irish people were in a lot of the country clubs and country musicians were often Irish. they had a load of narrative and rebel songs, in the country idiom, which had a special significance for them.

Anyway that was part of my story. I sidestepped the buggers. Got my hit record in germany. Got my guitar technique wherever i can. I don't apologize for what i did with English folk music and what i made out of it. I'm sorry if it doesn't conform to some blueprint, that the folk music fraternity has in their minds. But to be honest I think if most of them met the originators of the Black Velvet band and the Wild Rover - most of them would faint with the vapours.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: GUEST,Like a complete unknown
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 04:30 AM

I haven't made rung one yet!

I wasn't going to say any more on this thread, but it just struck me that there was a real-life question in the OP. Which is: has anyone actually been in that position, of being accepted as a floorsinger/busker/whatever and thinking "this is all very well, but where's the first GIG going to come from?" And if so, where did it come from--what changed for you?

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 03:59 AM

To the bottom rung
My talents I brung
Now on this step, I'm tucked.
I wanted just like you
To make rung two,
But now I really can't be fucked.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 08:50 PM

Yes in Cattistock they have a festival every year called the Dorset Knob Throwing Festival.. That's where I first saw a brilliant young band called the Skimmity Hitchers.

I suppose that means they've been making Blue Vinny a while.( if Thomas hardy ate it) Ithought maybe it was just an unpleasant trick the locals were playing on me.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 07:28 PM

You say you aren't a great musician. Two responses spring to mind.

1. Woodie Guthrie wasn't a great guitarist, and in fact many top class entertainers aren't. But they are entertainers, so they manage to engage an audience to the point that only the purist will actually notice their playing.

2. The way to improve is to find venues where there are musicians much better than you.

Join in and learn to do what they do. You will be surprised how much and how quickly you improve.

But please, please, please ask them first and explain what you are trying to do, and join in very, very quietly until you are sure you have the right key and know what version of the tune is being played.

Do that and they will be happy to have you along, and you will learn a lot.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Getting on the bottom rung
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 06:48 PM

Thomas Hardy's mid-morning snack in his study was a Dorset knob (a hard roll from Moore's bakery in Morecomebelake), a wedge of Blue Vinny and a glass of claret.

And look where it got him...

[The Health Police once tried to get Blue Vinny banned because it was unpasteurised - but they failed].