Ep 8: You May Be Missing Something

In this episode of Gig to Live, John explores a simple but important idea: when you’ve been performing for a long time, it’s easy to miss things. Habits form, routines take over, and certain details that once mattered can slowly drift out of focus. Episode 8 invites musicians to take a fresh look at their craft and reconsider some of the subtle ways a performance can lose clarity over time. Or, perhaps, the listener will learn something for the very first time.

Drawing on communication strategies and theories of public address, John reflects on how the same principles that guide effective speakers also apply to working performers. With his usual mix of humor, honesty, and insight, he offers listeners a thoughtful reminder that great performances are not just about the songs we play, but about how clearly we communicate with the room. 

Transcript

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You are listening to the Gig to Live Podcast. Welcome everyone. I'm John Foles. I am a full-time working musician. This podcast is where I share the strategies, the mindset, and the lessons that help performers build something that works and something that lasts. We'll talk about smart moves, self-inflicted wounds, happy clients, drunk patrons, more gigs, better gigs, what to keep, what to toss out. If you gig or you want to gig, this podcast is for you. Welcome to the podcast, my friends. Today is episode eight. You may be missing something. Oh no. What might I be missing? I don't know. You you may have this entire list down. Maybe you're not missing a thing. But I don't know. I have a feeling that some of us are going to learn a little bit about something or be reminded about something. I grew up in the trades. My dad's a painting contractor. He's retired now, but I worked summers, every summer growing up with him, and almost every other contractor that was on the job site I worked with. That's kind of what we did back then. You know, we would jump from contractor to contractor. And as such, I learned a little about a lot on the job sites, or in some cases I learned a lot about a lot. One of the things that contractors learn the hard way from time to time, and I saw this happen a few times, is that overconfidence and familiarity, being on autopilot, having a false sense of security can lead to injury. And I met a few over the years who got hurt and they said, I can't believe it. I've been doing this for 10 years, or I've been doing this 20 years, my whole life. And when safety things go unchecked on the job site, because it's no big deal, it often leads to what is called normalization of deviance, and people get hurt. And this happens all the time. Ah, don't worry about that. You know, I've been doing it like that my whole life, and then someone gets hurt. I think that we as musicians sometimes have a normalization of deviance of sorts. Not that we break safety rules, it's that we break basic public performance rules. And unchecked, they lead to a very non-professional presence for us. And we don't we don't have the performance police checking us out and handing us citations. Uh we don't have OSHA showing up for our performance. So we have to manage ourselves. We're going to examine today how to manage some important things that we may be missing or that we forgot or that got messy along the way. And we're going to do all of this through the lens of communication concepts that make their appearance in different communication theories and models. There's an easier way to say that probably. Basic public communication has some rules. Now, a long time ago, in a younger and thinner body, I used to teach beginning communication labs at the college level. I was a senior student in college. I was on my way to a public address major, and they knighted me with being able to teach freshmen for credit that worked towards my degree. And it was an incredible time. Because of that experience, and just because I'm a people watcher by nature, I look at stages differently than the average person. And I try not to judge, but I at least have a critical eye when it comes to performances. And I'll be the first to admit, I don't know all of my blind spots with my own performances. I'm not standing outside of my body watching me, but I'm acutely aware of a few things that I used to grade students on, and I think I've learned a few things along the way, even if I can always learn something or be reminded of something. By the way, a little side note, if you're not in the habit of recording yourself in your performances, you should do it. It's often eye-opening. Now, if you're listening and you're a seasoned pro, we can all use some reminding or seek out new insight that's going to help us sharpen our edges. Muscle memory is great. A well-oiled machine is beautiful. But as musicians, all of our perfected skills can weaken over time as we get more comfortable with what we do. And it's easy to miss things. With that said, the field of communication and specifically public address is going to inform much of what we're going to talk about today because if you play music in front of people, you are in the public address field. Your State of the Union address is every Friday night. Your sermon is your collection of songs. Your town hall address begins when you step on stage. Alright, you ready for this? Drumroll, please. The top ten things you may be missing. Number ten. Attire and appearance. In real estate, home buyers will usually make a decision to buy a house or not buy a house within seven to ten seconds. Now we're not selling houses, but we're we're selling ourselves. And it may seem super shallow to think that someone would judge us on our appearance. And I totally agree to some degree. The fact is that people see us before they hear us, and they immediately start to make assumptions about us. They'll say, ooh, ooh, I bet they play country music, uh, you know, because we're wearing a cowboy hat, or oh wow, she dresses like Stevie Nicks, man, she has a cool vibe. Or cool, look at that formal tailored suit and that skinny tie with that slick back hair. I didn't know it was Rockabilly night. Now, if you look like you just rolled out of bed and there are French fries stuck to your butt from the minivan seat, and you're you're wearing a wrinkled and ripped up t-shirt with a howling wolf on it that's giving people the finger, that also communicates something. By the way, that may or may not be an actual reference to something that I have seen. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there are right and wrong things to wear. You do you. But be aware. Be who you are, but just know we're always communicating something with our appearance. Also know, uh the messy look may be working for you. It may be your thing. Maybe people dig your I don't give a care attitude and your anything it goes approach, you know. That's cool. I love that in some musicians. They seem honest with themselves. Just know if that's the look, you may be limiting your venues. Just be aware. Basic communication says look at yourself. The way you look is telling a story. So next time you're on stage, look at yourself and say, What story am I atta am I telling people by my attire, my appearance? Number nine, the mess on the stage. I mean, besides a mess on stage just looking untidy, and I like to have things picked up, a mess subtly communicates a whole list of things that we don't want to communicate as full-time musicians. It looks unprofessional, it's distracting from our performance, it messes with the perceived value of our shows. Perceived value is the marketing concept where things like branding and popularity of an item or creative marketing and emotional connection can affect what some people think that a product is worth, regardless of the actual quality. People will spend $200 on a pair of jeans because of perceived value, when a comparable pair of jeans may be a third of the cost. Well, in the same way, a trashy stage communicates that our performance is worth less than it actually is. So it's super simple. Put the instrument case out of the way. Pick up the backpack, put it out of sight, pick up all the caca that the last musician left on stage. Oh my gosh, this happens to me every time at one venue. I walk in and I'm like, what in the world were they doing? And I'll have to straighten up the area even if the venue didn't. I've even pulled out a vacuum before, you know, I've wiped off the bar area or tables by me. Uh excuse me, do you guys have a vacuum I can use to clean up the area I'm playing? Uh it w that'll usually get somebody moving to help you, by the way. Put your coat on a coat rack instead of laying it on the chair on the stage. Basically, you know, clean your room. Number eight is body language. When we owned a restaurant, we were always trying to increase the speed at which things got done. You know, that latte should be in someone's hands in under two minutes. But what mattered even more than that, if you can believe it, is that the staff looked like they were moving fast. Customers would read the energy of the barista. If they smiled and they made purposeful movements and they had good posture and they had animated interaction with the customer, then a two-minute latte felt like it came super, super fast. And if they moped around and they sighed and they slouched their shoulders and they looked sad and they didn't interact with people, two minutes seems like that steam milk was going to spoil before it even got into someone's hands. It took forever. Our posture and our movements should reflect what we're trying to communicate. We don't need to be Kate Bush and turn everything into an exaggerated interpretive dance, but we should try to match the energy of the song and the lyrical content and the emotion of the chord structure. We should look like we're having a good time up there on stage. People will believe our nonverbal communication over our verbal communication. It is an absolute fact. Number seven, eye contact. The rule of thumb for public address of any kind is a two to one ratio. And what that means is that if we have lyrics and chords in front of us, uh we are looking out at the crowd twice as much as we are looking down. We need to read ahead, we need to anticipate what's coming. You know, unless being mopey and introspective is your thing, that does work for some people. The artist that looks sad and withdrawn is a thing. And I think people understand when an artist is legit about this, then it's endearing. But if you're just bad at eye contact and you look like you're reading everything on your iPad for fear of screwing up, then that's bad. We need to get better at eye contact. I use an iPad, I don't feel bad about that. I have hundreds of songs in my repertoire and I'm trying to change it up all the time. And you know, I I want to have a reference in front of me. That's not a bad thing. I will carry the dad pad with me everywhere I go. It's super helpful. But I'm very cognizant of the fact that I need to be looking out at people as I'm also looking down. Uh the the dad pad is especially good for me with with newer songs that I'm learning. I'm I'm getting them under my skin. You know, I haven't had had uh time to commit them to memory. I haven't played them long enough in front of people, and that's okay. Uh it I actually encourage that, but just remember eye contact is super important. We need to not be the person uh, and I've seen this multiple times, who brings in the iPhone and like maybe an older generation iPhone that's even smaller, and they hold it in their hand uh while they sing something they've recorded, or they hold it uh, you know, they have it on a little stand, but they're just staring at it and they can't see it well, and so they're every once in a while reaching up and zooming in on it. No, that that just is distracting. Number six pause I did that on purpose. Pitch, pace, and punch. Pause, pitch, pace, and punch. A set list is like delivering a speech. A pause in a musical set list is about space and reset. A lot of musicians will stack songs back to back with no breathing room. And, you know, it doesn't give the audience a chance to even process what just happened. A pause uh might mean letting the applause breathe for a second, or taking a sip of water, uh, telling a quick one-line story, or just letting the last chord ring out longer than usual, or you know, arpeggiating that last chord for a little while. If every song slams right into the next song, the set starts to feel like an assault of music rather than an experience. So I think pause is super important, just like it is in delivering a speech. Uh pitch. In public speaking, pitch refers to vocal variation. But in a musical set, it translates to emotional tone and energy. So if every song is sad and reflective or mid-tempo, then the audience starts to drift. If everything is high energy, then they get fatigued after a bit. A good set moves between the shades of emotions and between uh the different subject matter. So switch it up. You know, a cornerstone song, a reflective song, a silly song, a gritty song, a gutsy song, a hopeful song. Think of pitch like changing up the spiritual key of the room. All right. Pace. Paces are tempo flow across the set, uh across the entire set. We understand tempo, you know, in a song, uh, but try to think through your set list in waves of tempo rather than, you know, 140 BPM through the whole thing, boom, boom, boom. Uh our heads in the audience won't be able to handle it. If you have someone in your life who's a fast talker and they won't slow down, everything they say comes out of their mouth like a fire hose. It's like that. Pace is important. Punch. Punch in public speaking is the apex of the speech, or one of many apexes. It's the thing that makes the room take notes. Punch in a set list is that strategic song that makes everyone say, Oh, there you go, buddy, that's the one. The punch is the reset of your set. Okay, so that was number four, uh, or I'm sorry, that was number six. Number five is interaction with crowd on being a conversation host. As musicians, uh, full-time musicians, we are often the master of ceremony. Um we need to be able to read the room. We need to be able to respond. Two ladies came in the other night uh when I was playing, and they stood there, they looked at the room at the wine bar, and there was nowhere to sit. It was lively, and they were you could tell they were scanning the room and they were just about to leave. Uh but I said into the mic, someone buy these ladies a glass of wine and get them a place to sit. And everybody kind of laughed, and they laughed, and somebody said, Come on, sit over here, and waved them over, and they found them a spot at the bar. They bought them a glass of wine. It was a super fun moment, and it was a real kind of uh catalyst experience for the room right then. Interaction with the crowd and being a conversation host is super important. Uh, we can do this when we're setting up songs too. Don't do this every time, but occasionally it's fun. Um, so let's take an artist like Stevie Nicks. We're gonna do landslide, maybe. Um, we can say a piece of trivia or have a startling statement about Stevie Nicks. We can say, You did you know that Stevie Nicks was the first woman who was inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1998 for Fleetwood Mac, and 2019 as a solo artist. And then boom, you're right into the song. Or maybe we have an apt quotation that we use. This is all public speaking rules of engagement here. An apt quotation uh grabs attention. Uh Stevie Nicks has a quote that says, Life is all about lighting. Maybe I use that quote to set up the song, and I talk about how I love good lighting in my life. Or maybe we ask a question, uh, like, hey everybody, how do you like your Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac or solo? And we get the interaction from the crowd, and then maybe we do Landslide or Dreams from Fleetwood Mac, or we sing uh one of her solo tunes, like Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You, which, by the way, she wrote for Joe Walsh when he lost his child. It's an incredible story, and it's a beautiful song. Uh, or maybe we tell a story about Stevie Nicks. Um, did I say Stevie Nicks? Stevie Nicks. Maybe we tell a story like, have you ever read the book Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reed? True story. I read that book. Someone recommended it to me. I was, uh, I probably got, I don't know, 20 pages into it, and I went, wait a minute, this sounds like the Fleetwood Mac story. And so I had to do a little search, uh, not for any spoilers, but just to see, is this inspired by the story of Fleetwood Mac? And indeed it is. And then they turned it into a series on television, and it's a fun series, especially if you've read the book first. Those are all ways that you can interact with the crowd and be a conversation host just to set up a song, you know, startling statement or trivia, uh apt quotation, a question or a story. Number four. The number four thing that we may be missing is protecting our energy. We need to take the breaks. Maybe we take them alone, maybe we take them away when it's needed. Maybe we take the break and we interact with the crowd, but we just give ourselves a chance to slow down and replenish our energy. Get something to eat, get something to drink, drink some water, stay hydrated. Set a timer for your breaks, by the way, and we'll we'll cover that a little bit more here in a minute. Um, and side note, I cannot eat while I'm performing. I eat protein before I'll have small snacks of protein at breaks, but I I really can't eat because I just don't like to feel gross. Um, so make sure that you, if you're like me, eat before so you can have some stored up energy to pour yourself out and and bleed before the masses with your songs. It's really hard for me to take breaks, by the way. I don't always feel like I need them, but I I don't have a good read on that either. Uh my adrenaline is pumping and the crowd is enjoying it, and a break feels like such a speed bump sometimes. And I'm afraid the energy in the room is going to be lost and it's going to affect the show. But if a break is done right, it can actually help the show. I like to go out on a high note at break time when the energy in the room is high and people are engaged, and then I like to get in the house uh or I like to get the house music going as soon as possible. Uh and this can be an issue, by the way, when I'm not controlling the house music, but when I do control the house music, I put on high energy music. I put it on right away and I put on music that rhymes with my show. You know, I don't want to finish uh a a Tom Petty song and then have after it just doesn't feel right. If the bar is controlling the music, then I'll often say something like, you know, all right, guys, I'm gonna take a break. You can put on the substandard music now until I return, and people will laugh, but and they'll stay engaged because the music starts right away. Breaks can reset the room. The truth is that no matter how good you are, they may even need a break from you. I like to put the house music at a volume that matches mine or maybe a little bit louder. That's my personal preference, depending on the venue. But a break can reset the room. A break lets people know to order more drinks, to use the restroom. It's like a little intermission. It allows them to move around the room and hug their friends and be as loud as they want without feeling like they're upstaging you. So don't be afraid of the break, but treat it like it's part of the performance. It's part of the rhythm. Use it to your advantage. A good performance has dynamics in it, and a break can be part of the dynamics. The rising and the falling. It's like a good story. When it's done right, a break can make your return song hit harder and feel like a new, fresh chapter in the evening. So choose your return song well and make it work for the night. Pull out that song with great energy, pull out the cornerstone song, pull out the song that you can confidently nail, one that grabs people's attention, one they can sing along with. If you've ever seen the movie Orange County, by the way, one of my favorite movies, Jack Black movie, uh, there is a scene where the song Butterfly by Crazy Town starts to play. If you don't know the song, you can go look it up. And the cheerleaders all scream, Oh my god, I love this song! And they they all jump out of the middle of the quad and they start doing a dance routine to it. I'm I'm looking for that kind of a return moment after a break. Of course, I want to make sure that that the song fits the venue and the occasion, but the concept is the same wherever we are. Number three. We may be missing this. Taking too long on breaks. Wow. I went to see a musician recently, and I thought I got the time wrong. I arrived as they were going on break, which is fine, but the break was so long. I thought they finished their set and I had the time all wrong, but no, they were just having a drink and they were yucking it up with people for 25 minutes. Now, at that point the break doesn't feel like a part of the story. People leave. People ask, is the show over? And they start talking about going to the next bar, and the owner starts to get nervous. So set a timer, don't take too long on the breaks, be very cognizant of what's happening. People understand if you have to end the conversation and say, I need to get back to work. They're very understanding of that. Number two, touch base with the owner. You may be missing touching base with the owner. This is so important. Remind the owner that you're there. Or if the owner's not there, the manager on duty. Remind them that you're thrilled to be there. Touch base with all the staff. High five them. Walk around. Uh, if you forgot somebody's name, ask them their name. But let the staff know that you're there. Ask them if they need anything from you and thank them for being there. It will go so far for your performance and your long-term stay. Um, you know, be it a residency or just be it, you know, being invited back from time to time in that venue. Number one. The number one thing. And you know what? I usually say number one doesn't mean it's the most important, it's just the last thing, but I actually think this might be the most important. Ethos or ethos, however you want to pronounce it. This is an Aristotelian concept that means believability. So Aristotle talked about this when he was talking about public address uh or persuasion or rhetoric, believability. If a speaker has good ethos, then we believe them, or at least we believe that they really believe what they're saying. We can tell when a politician is lying, lying through their wooden teeth about something, if they have bad ethos, right? Because we just know they're not smoking what they're selling, as the saying goes. Well, musicians can suffer from bad ethos if we constantly are signaling to people that we're tired, that we're upset, that we don't want to be there. The crowd reads it and it feels really yucky. If we aren't prepared, if we seem desperate for attention, if we slouch, if we show disrespect, if we seem disengaged, then wow, we hurt ourselves. On the flip side of this, if someone is engaging and prepared and respectful and not defensive and humorous and smiling and positive and confident and professional, then that goes a long way. Alright. There is our top ten list for the day. Thank you so much for listening. Please do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. I would really appreciate that. It would help bump me up in the ratings. People will uh, you know, find out I'm out there, that this is out there, and we can grow this audience because I really do think this matters. So wherever you listen to podcasts, uh please like and rate this podcast. And remember, stay creative, stay after it, and stay hired.