5 Things I Wish They’d Told Me Before My First Gig
Hey everyone, today we are going through a checklist you should have before you ever play your first guitar gig.
Much of this I learned through trial and error and some of it just makes sense.
I hope this helps all of you from any unforeseen problems on your first gigs. 🙂
#1. Newly Changed & Stretched Strings
Always make sure you have new strings on your guitar before the gig and make sure they are stretched out. I know on at least one occasion I did not properly stretch my strings and the first set was a nightmare of tuning problems, especially so because I had a locking nut guitar lol! Do this and you will keep your guitar in tune much better with less change of string breakage as well.
#2. 10X Perfect Rule
This rule means anything that you are going to play onstage that is a challenge to you should not be played onstage until you are able to play it at tempo at least 10x perfectly in a row. This will enable you to mostly bypass the nerves associated with such a piece as it will be much more autonomic to you.
#3. No Shoegazing
Try to make a connection with your audience visually. Perform for them, not your band members. This will endear you to them much more and make true fans of them if you have the musical ability to back it up.
#4. Bring Extra Cables, Fuses, Strings, and Tubes
There is nothing worse than having a fuse go or string and you have no spares. If you cannot finish the show you are not going to get paid. Extra strings is obvious but tubes and fuses not so much. I have had tubes and fuses go on gigs and was very glad that I had backups ready so I could finish the gig. Don’t get caught without that stuff.
#5 Don’t Put YOUR SOUND Above The Show Itself
Don’t make the performance all about you and chasing the perfect volume/tone. Get that stuff sorted out in soundcheck if you are lucky enough to have one. If you are not able to have one, make sure your band has a pre-ordained volume you play at so you are not constantly fiddling with amps onstage as there is nothing more boring for an audience to see that a distracted group of musicians. They paid to see you perform, not mess around looking for the perfect delay time for a song’s tempo for half the song.
Now onto the musical portion of the lesson with tab and then video below that. Thanks for checking out my blog, please come back and enjoy more free lessons!
