I started off playing only instrumental music, and was good enough to get paid pretty good money when I gigged out. But if there's no singing, unless you're an absolute virtuoso you're going to be treated as background music.
Leo Kottke can play all instrumentals and people will listen, but if you're not playing at that level of musicianship, it's hard to get an audience's attention and respect.
Not if you walk in cold. At a special lunchtime concert series or some other arts event, sure, people listen better there because that's what they came for. But not at a bar or (especially not) a restaurant. There a musician playing instrumentals is basically one step above the ornamental greenery...
On my case, the solution was simple. Although I'd sung a lot as a child, once my voice changed at puberty I had stopped singing. But I realized that I'd better sing if I didn't want to be treated like a potted plant, there for atmosphere only.
So I taught myself how to sing again, and regained my range.
What I have found is that in a barroom situation, if you're good at playing instrumentals, you can get away with playing two stand alone instrumentals per set, no more. If you want to hold the crowd.
You can fudge a little bit and go from a song with lyrics directly into a lively instrumental number, as the great Irish band Planxty used to go from songs right into jigs and reels. I have several instrumental pieces where I've paired them with songs with lyrics, and so that way I can do more like six or eight instrumentals per set.
But the average person relates far more easily to vocals than they do to instrumental pieces. Tain't fair and tain't right, but it's the reality of the situation, nonetheless.
Hope that makes sense.
Wade Hampton Miller
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