The debut of these new “workshops” I’m talking about : a recap

I had my first performance in two years last night. I spent the whole week anticipating it, wondering how I’d do. If I were just performing a few songs, I wouldn’t have put much thought into it. A few songs are easy enough. My goal for the night was to see if I could have a two way conversation with the audience and get them involved with the music, a collaboration rather than a performance.

As in the past, it’s always impossible to gauge how many people will show up. 18 people responded on the Facebook invite, but you never know if it’s going to be twice that or half that. Most of my good friends here don’t have much money and have helped me so much that I don’t want them to pay for the overpriced coffee (overpriced because the cost of rent, not the fault of the cafe) and so I told them that I would play a free show for them at their house while I am here. So I let them off the hook and it was all new people with the exception of the manager of the cafe who is a close friend and the friend who I am staying with this week.

It was pouring rain for most of the day and so I was starting to think that no one would show up. They trickled in, one or two at a time until there were 10 people, not including myself. 10 is certainly not a large amount of people by any standard, but I didn’t mind, I was just happy to be playing again after so long.

I think I did a pretty good job. I explained to people that the concept of the event was not merely a performance but an opportunity to share and create together if they were willing. They were not particularly willing to share to the extent which I had hoped but they did try! I led them to try to keep a beat and they did manage for one song, the third song of the set. There was a guy who had played drums before and my friend helped keep the beat.

When I asked how they felt about it, they said it was fun to join in but it was a bit too sudden, most of them had just finished work and wanted some time to relax and just soak in sounds, clear their minds of work before they could get excited about joining in. We came to the conclusion, together, that it would have been better to give them a few more songs to relax to before asking them to join.

I had hoped to give them a chance to get involved in a jam which I would lead but with so few people, most of them tired and unfamiliar with me and my music, just getting comfortable and so many new ideas to experiment with in one night, I didn’t force it upon them.

It was a good night though, I spoke nearly as much as I played music and people responded and seemed satisfied with this mode of interaction, an extremely informal performance. The jam aspect did not see full fruition but the discussion aspect went very well, better than expected.

The only big mistake I made was explaining pay-what-you-want before my last song and not AFTER my last song. Only two people paid, and judging from the other 6 strangers reactions, they really appreciated the show and wouldn’t try to walk away without supporting my efforts. I honestly think they forgot. Next time I will have to save that for last.

I felt a little concerned because my funds are running extremely low and I don’t feel excited about busking or looking for work immediately but I realized that I could easily put this kind of show on again and with better weather and the experience of a practice run, I am sure I can do much better! Now that I’ve tried it I feel much more confident about organizing more events!

I’m thinking of doing a self intro post soon to introduce myself and my music. After so much time on steemit, I think it’s way overdue.