Setlist Rules?

montiac · Unread post by **montiac** » Sat May 03, 2003 8:39 pm

ok, so i would really like to get the balls up and start selling my soul for gigs. i have 2 questions about this...

1) How do i sell my soul for gigs if i've never played live anywhere before??

and 2) I only have like 1 or 2 original songs that I've written, so are there any formal rules for playing cover songs? I mean, are there legal issues that I would have to deal with if I played them at a gig??

please help! thanks a ton!

firedancer86 · Unread post by **firedancer86** » Mon May 05, 2003 4:03 pm

One possible "in" would be to play at an "open mic" style bar and pay your dues first...or you could try to get a "friend whos brother knows somebodies son whos distant cousin's second wife" knows somebody to get your foot in the door...

You might need to work on a few more originals, and if you are playing solo, you might want to get good at mastering improv while you are at it...when people watch one person, they are expecting to be "wowwed" because, well...you are one person...this guy must possess some real original talent and weild some brilliant skills...with originals (and the a ablility to improv), you can play the same song a different way every night and have it still sound good and call it your own...unles you just want to be a solo guy who sounds like Dave Matthews...but a prime example of a great coffee house player is Keller Williams...if you have regular gigs, people will get tired of the same old same old...you need to give a new experience with every night :wink:

hope this helps...

mbgreen · Unread post by **mbgreen** » Mon May 05, 2003 5:15 pm

Yeah, you're pretty much going to be starting at an open mic night at a bar/coffeeshop. Just try and come up with about 25 minutes of stuff...they wont let you go much longer than that, unless nobody else is in line. Dont expect to get a real gig until you get some experience, and even when that happens dont expect to get paid much (if anything) until you have a pretty good following.

montiac · Unread post by **montiac** » Tue May 06, 2003 10:05 am

alright, good advice, good advice....what about question #2? would i have to worry about any legality issues with playing covers? even if i did come up with a few more originals, i would still play some covers...is that something i have to worry about?

thanks a bunch

mbgreen · Unread post by **mbgreen** » Tue May 06, 2003 12:28 pm

No, nobody is going to come after you for that unless you start selling records with somebody else's song on it. Even then, you'd probably get permission if the cover wasn't a carbon copy of the original. Covering is sort of considered a complement, when done right.

grock · Unread post by **grock** » Tue May 06, 2003 3:20 pm

if you sell a cover, you have to pay royalties to the owner of the song rights. even if it is a CD of a live show. So don't sell cover songs. easy enough. but you can perform them at will. and that is definately considered a compliment. we have a song at our open mic night that everybody just loves so it gets passed around and the guy that wrote it rarely performs it but lets the other bands play it. and normally he'll get up and dance to it. he likes to hear his creation recreated. and he says other stuff like that. he'll get up there afterwards to do other songs and thank whoever for performing his song. and it's really just a simple song based on GDCD. but it gets the laughs.

rock on. some songs are part of the public collection and are not paid royalties. so some old songs are like that. and you could record and sell.

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Setlist Rules?

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