When You Are Ready To Perform a Song

Living in Nashville, I’ve been to many different shows from writers rounds, open mics, Broadway, you name it. There’s many talented artists, who live in this city. They’re all trying to make a name for themselves. Many of these artists are extremely talented, but how can you distinguish when someone is ready to take that next step.

When I’m at a show, the one thing I’m always looking at, do they know the lyrics, or are they just looking at a device to perform the song. For instance, say you’re an artist playing on Broadway. You have played the same requested songs over and over. You should know the lyrics and how to play the song by now. You shouldn’t have to look at a device at this point. Bottom line, If you don’t know the lyrics to the song, you’re not ready to perform the song. To me that shows, the dedication is not there yet to take the next step. And I already know what many of you will say, “well, we get requests from so many different people.” There’s one thing when you get a rare request and you have to pull out your phone. That usually happens once in a blue moon. There’s still many artists down there, who are playing the same songs and still needing to look at the lyrics. If you’re trying to make a name for yourself as a serious artist, you have to know the words. Period.

I mentioned this before when I talked about stage presence. You never really know, who’s going to show up. If someone who works for a major label sees a device on stage, the first thing they might think is, “they don’t know the lyrics to a cover song. How will we know they won’t forget the words to their own songs at a concert?” To me this says, you don’t want it bad enough. Someone who lives and breathes music, they will do whatever it takes. There’s artists that I’ve seen do it. Name them a song, they can play it. No device. Nothing. There was obviously a lot of practice involved to get to that point. But that’s what it takes. A lot of DEDICATION. The ones who don’t need to look at anything, are the ones who are confident on stage. They know the songs, and they can put on a better show because of it. You’re able to work the crowd hemore when you know the songs, instead of worrying about forgetting the words on stage. My advice for you, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

xo Brittany

That’s all I have for you for this weeks post. Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for more weekly insight on the music industry.