How to pick music for your shows

How to pick music for your shows

By Carl Fritch

This article describes a very simple method for picking music for your band's shows.

Most bands are hired with the expectation that they will play music for dancing at a function. With this in mind, you will need to play “cover” tunes that will be good for dancing. Remember that when you play for a dance, people are there to socialize, not to be impressed by your “talent.” You are the atmosphere that provides the catalyst for this activity and nothing more. By accepting this reality you are already most of the way to your goal.

Check out what other successful bands and DJ’s are playing in your area.

Since you will be competing directly with other bands, you should go out and watch other bands and see what they are doing and what "works" for them. Make a note of the songs that are being played and how the audience responds to them. Don’t judge the band musically, in fact you will find the bands musicianship doesn’t matter nearly as much as the music they play and how well it matches the audience.

The key principle here is to watch how many people are moving toward the dance floor when a song starts. Which means you have to check venues where everybody doesn't bounce all night. If people are “rushing” to the dance floor for a particular song, then, that song is a song you should seriously consider doing. The opposite is true for songs people don’t seem to like.

DJ’s are very good at picking music because playing for dances is their business. They aren’t distracted by the desire to “play their originals” like so many modern bands. Study what they play and how the audience responds to the music they are playing. Bands are not as good at picking music because they tend to let their ego get in the way and play songs that show off their talent instead of songs the audience will actually like.

Ask for requests

A working band has the advantage of taking requests from audiences and using those requests as a measure of what songs should be learned. If you get multiple requests for the same song, you can be sure it will be a good song to pick up. Then, when you can insert an original, be intelligent enough to make it something in the same vein as any of the most popular covers.

Match the music to your band’s talent

Once you have a potential song you want to learn, you should make sure someone in the band can actually “sing” the song before you try to learn the song. If your vocalist has a hard time hitting the notes, try changing the key to a key that can be performed without straining the singer’s voice. It is not nearly as important that the vocalist sound like the original artist as it is the vocalist can sound good singing the song.

Even though changing the key of a song changes the timbre or sound of the song, you can change the key one or two steps without substantially changing the way a song sounds. One of the best tricks is to find the key the vocalist can hit all the LOWEST passages under full control. Then perform the song in the next HIGHEST open chord key on a guitar. RE: The vocalist can do the song in F or F#/Gb, the performance key is G.

How to create a great “set” list

Once again DJ’s are the very best at this technique. Study them. Watch how they will run a musical cycle of building each song with a faster tempo than the previous song until they really get the audience dancing. Then, they drop to a slow song to give the audience a break, then start the cycle over again. A good rule of thumb here is 2 or 3 fast songs then one slow song.

Your opening song for a set should be a guaranteed “show stopper”

This should always be one of your strongest dance songs to get the audience up and dancing right away. Once the audience is up they are more likely to keep dancing with your next song. Always remember to give the audience a break with a slow song once in a while. If the crowd is middle aged, DO NOT dance them into the ground unless you want them to leave as soon as you finish the song! Anything over five minutes, even a slow dance, is pushing your luck.

Keep your breaks between songs as short as reasonable

Although there can be breaks between songs, you will notice that people will begin to leave the dance floor if you take too long. There's nothing worse than 'dead air' in a performance. If you're simply working a live-background gig, you don't have to worry about content, skits, etcetera, but you still have to keep the music working.

Your set should always be flexible

Sometimes while you are playing a song you will get inspired to play a different song than what you have queued in the set. It good to trust those instincts, you will find that after a while your instinct will develop to the point that you almost know what song to play next regardless of your set list. If you do this you will have better dances. Of course you can always fall back to your set list if you don’t know what to play next.

Follow a cycle of building the tempo of each song a little until you get a song that is really moving the audience. Then follow with a slow song.

Finish your set with a strong song

Pete Townsend, of the Who, once said, “If you have a strong start and finish, that’s all the audience will remember".

Play a Variety of music

You will find that if you play the same style it will get old and tired after several songs. A song that sounds different will break the show up and the “hard” numbers will stand out and be more powerful if balanced with other songs that contrast with them.

Good luck

Carl Fritch

Special thanks to Bobby Farrell of Vandor Records for some of the information found here.